A crowdfunding page asking people to “dig deep” to help support the Australian who escaped from Bali prison last month, digging through a tunnel, was shut down by GoFundMe.
“This campaign violated GoFundMe’s terms of service,” Kelly Galvin, GoFundMe’s head of communication, told Coconuts Bali in an email last night.
The page, dubbed “Fund a Fugitive” apparently only raised $65 of its goal of $50,000 before the plug got pulled and the money sent back.
“The campaign in question was quickly removed from the site and any donations have been automatically refunded,” Galvin said.
The fundraiser page has been set up by a “Beanna Winner”, but it’s suspected that Jason Lee Marzoli, the admin for the Facebook page “Fans of Shaun Rageone Davidson – Australian escapee” is the man behind the now defunct GoFundMe page.
Since his escape on June 19 (and even before that from inside Kerobokan Prison), Davidson has demonstrated an affinity for having a social media presence.
Following his prison break, his purported Facebook profile, “Matthew Rageone Ridler” has been very active, checking in to different locations and updating statuses–though police think he is just using proxies for location tags.
Indonesian police have said they are “close” to catching the Australian, but ‘Ridler’ has been teasing them from his profile, saying his location is “old news” and just yesterday posted, “how close are they now.”
An orange alert has been issued to Interpol, but Ridler, along with fellow Malaysian escapee Tee Kok King remain at large.
The Australian, who was serving a year-long sentence for using a stolen passport, was motivated to flee prison just 10 weeks before his release date because he would have been deported and was facing drug charges back home in Australia.
Two of Davidson’s fellow escapees have already been recaptured and sent back to jail, after they were picked up by police at a luxury resort in East Timor.
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