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The Tico Times |
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June 12, 2003 |
Offshore Financer Busted, Handed Over to DEA |
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Intro: |
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Nicaraguan police arrested fugitive offshore financial wiz Marc
Harris, head of The Harris Organization, and handed him over to the
United States' Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Tuesday.
He is wanted for money-laundering and is alleged to have defrauded
clients out of millions of dollars in purported offshore investment
funds. |
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Excerpt: |
Harris, who had based his operations in Panama since moving there in
the late 1980s, had moved to Nicaragua some time last year after
running afoul of Panamanian authorities for unpaid bills, the
newsletter Offshore Alert
reported. Harris, a U.S. citizen, had obtained a Panamanian passport
and his attorney said he had renounced his U.S. citizenship.
According to Offshore Alert,
Harris set up shop in Panama, where he began to handle money from
money-launderers and tax evaders by promising to effectively hide
their funds from regulators and tax authorities through a series of
shell companies set up in a variety of offshore havens, including
Nevis, where he is alleged to have domiciled his latest front called
"Mitchell Astor Gilbert Trust."
In Costa Rica, The Harris Organization operated an "information
office" staffed by two former employees of teak-investment firm
Bosque Puerto Carrillo, a scheme that collapsed amid allegations of
overstated profit potential (TT, Aug. 27, 1999). In 1999, one Harris
client sued one of Harris' local employees, saying the company
refused to refund him nearly $40,000 (TT, Sept. 24, 1999).
According to Offshore Alert, as
of last July dozens of Harris clients were suing him and his
debt-laden organization for more than $4 million in a series of
lawsuits. As of last September, Harris had bank accounts in seven
countries (from Nevis to Belize to Latvia), including an account
with San José-based Vinir Financial Services, a local exchange house
that late last year defaulted on clients' accounts it was not
authorized to offer (TT, Nov. 29, 2002).
Harris has long denied any wrongdoing, although he lost a $30
million libel suit against the newsletter in 1999. |
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