That's what a Lexus Nexus account can get you.
Also this wasn't his first scam, by a long shot.
Everything was unicorns and promises of whatever, until you tried to get him on the phone and asked direct questions that you were then magically ghosted. Since he was the front man for everything, by his own design, when he went MIA, that was that. If anyone asked him what happened to that guy he was talking to about doing X Y and Z for us, he'd come up with some bullshit story as to how he determined it was a bad idea to go that route, he found something better, that guy is an idiot, etc.