Shortly after purchasing, I received an unsigned email through the webform of a site I maintain. It informed me that GGC was a fraud. One reason: GGC lacked water rights. In Chile, purchasing surface land and water rights are two separate processes. GGC is desert terrain, rather like California, and water rights are absolutely necessary for a community to be established. I responded to the email but the message bounced back to me. I did a search on the email's IP address and it became apparent that the sender had used an anonymizer.

I forwarded the email to the two joint owners of GGC: Jeff Berwick and Ken Johnson. Jeff was and is still a trusted friend; I did not know Ken. My inquiry was not hostile but it stirred quite a reaction from Ken. They immediately recognized the source as a former employee who had threatened to tell people "like me" about the problem if they did not pay him hush money. (The emailer was also an old movement acquaintance of mine.)