St. Kitts & Nevis

The civil libel trial between Offshore Business News & Research, Inc., which publishes this newsletter, and The Harris Organization financial services group of Panama will start at the United States District Court for the District of Southern Florida (in Miami) on July 6. After two postponements by the court because of scheduling problems, a definite date has now been set for the trial, which is scheduled to last for about one week.

The libel trial involving The Harris Organization financial services group of Panama and Offshore Business News & Research, Inc., which publishes this newsletter, has been put back to an unnamed date by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Offshore promoter Adam Starchild's criminal past, Cayman politicians receive huge pay increases, clients of Marc Harris' Threshold Insurance Services claim to have been ripped off.

The First International Bank of Grenada and the sham insurer known as IDIC have launched an international pyramid scheme as the latest phase of their plan to part investors from their money. There is also concern that FIBG may have become involved in stock manipulation involving a Florida-registered penny stock firm that trades on the NASDAQ over-the-counter market.

For the second month out of four, a company closely associated with Bermuda Stock Exchange-listed Mezzanine Capital Ltd. - which has been implicated in the manipulation of penny stocks - has been adjudged 'Stock of the Month' by www.hotstocknews.com, which promotes stocks over the Internet. NetVoice Technologies Inc. received the 'honor' in April, following on from a similar award in February to XtraNet Systems. Both companies gave the stock promotion firm shares in return for the plugs.

The Securities & Exchange Commission this month brought two separate actions against US businessmen accused of operating a fraudulent investment offering involving a Nevis company. At least 148 people invested a total of $6.4 million to buy what they were told were Certificates of Deposit bearing annual interest of 12 per cent, claimed the SEC.

Further information came OffshoreAlert's way recently about the nature of the allegations that led to the South African authorities issuing an arrest warrant against Keith Leslie King, the senior principal of First Nevisian, a Nevis-based stockbroking/corporate services group.We have obtained a document that originated from the Director of the Office for Serious Economic Offences in Pretoria dated May 15, 1996 that states: "This office is presently conducting an investigation into alleged fraudulent transactions in South African gilts (government and municipal stocks). The alleged falsification of stock certificates is an important element of the investigation.

The First International Bank of Grenada, the International Deposit Insurance Corporation and the World Investors Stock Exchange this month failed in their bid to obtain a court injunction preventing Offshore Alert from continuing to report on their fraudulent activities.Attorneys representing these entities filed hundreds of pages of documents at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida in an effort to obtain an emergency injunction preventing Offshore Alert from continuing to report on their dubious activities.

Amended Emergency Motion for Preliminary Injunction in First International Bank of Grenada Ltd., International Depositors' Reinsurance Corporation Ltd., doing business as IDIC; and World Investors' Stock Exchange v. David Marchant and Offshore Business News & Research, Inc. at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Emergency Motion for Preliminary Injunction in First International Bank of Grenada Ltd., of Grenada; International Depositors' Reinsurance Corporation Ltd., doing business as IDIC, of Nevis, and World Investors' Stock Exchange Ltd., of Grenada v. David Marchant and Offshore Business News & Research, Inc. at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Offshore Alert's story about the banking/insurance scam that appeared in last month's edition of the newsletter has created quite a stir in the Caribbean. Several newspapers in the region followed up on the scandal, including those in Nevis, St. Vincent and Bermuda, and we received requests for assistance from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the the FBI.

Libel Complaint in First International Bank of Grenada Ltd., of Grenada; International Depositors' Reinsurance Corporation, Ltd., doing business as IDIC, of Nevis, and World Investors' Stock Exchange, of Grenada v. David Marchant and Offshore Business News & Research, Inc. at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Letter to the Editor of Offshore Alert from Michael Creft, Grenada's Chief Regulator regarding the First International Bank of Grenada.

Offshore Alert has received two letters from attorneys threatening to sue us over the banking/insurance scandal involving World Investors Stock Exchange, International Deposit Insurance Corporation, First International Bank of Grenada, International Exchange Bank and Fidelity International Bank, that is exposed in the January 29, 1999 edition of Offshore Alert.

Cayman Islands Government award members huge salary increases, McKeeva Bush offers $200,000 to settle $1 million liability, according to First Cayman Bank liquidators; Antigua journalist Tim Hector continues to publish despite printing presses being destroyed in an arson attack, the dubious past of New Utopia conman Prince Lazarus Long, a.k.a. Howard Turney; First Nevisian Group forms Life Offshore Group of Companies, Barron's magazine rips into Agora's The Oxford Club.

The Harris Organization's $30 million libel action against Offshore Business News & Research, Inc. and its principal, David Marchant, is scheduled to go to trial in May of this year at the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida (Miami).

Offshore Alert can today expose a massive fraud involving at least three banks, an insurance company and a stock exchange into which investors are believed to have invested tens of millions of dollars. Participants in the scam include the World Investors Stock Exchange in Grenada, the International Deposit Insurance Corporation in Nevis, the First International Bank of Grenada, the International Exchange Bank, which is registered in either Nauru or Grenada but operated out of Bermuda and Texas; and Fidelity International Bank, which is registered in Nauru but operated from St. Vincent.

Letter to the Editor from Gerald Burton threatening to sue OffshoreAlert for libel on behalf of his client, IDIC, a fraudulently-operated offshore 'insurer'.

Further information has come our way this month that sheds more light on the collapse of American International Bank and the fiasco that ensued after the same people who caused its problems attempted to transfer the business into another entity they controlled. It seems that American businessman William W. Cooper and his wife, who co-owned AIB, closed down the bank at the end of December, 1997 and transferred its business on January 2 to a new Antigua-registered entity called Overseas Development Bank Ltd.

A Nevis company that purports to provide insurance for depositors at offshore banks may be a scam similar to one used to attract funds to the European Union Bank in Antigua that was closed down last year after fleecing investors of several millions of dollars, we can disclose. International Depositor's Reinsurance Corporation Ltd., which does business as International Deposit Insurance Corporation or IDIC, has all the hallmarks of a fraud. It is in breach of Nevis law by using the word 'Insurance' in its trading name and by passing itself off as an insurance company in its promotional literature at its web-site at http://www.depositinsurance.com.

Information coming from Panama indicates that November has been yet another bad month for The Harris Organization. All the signs are that the offshore financial services group, which has been accused in this newsletter of running a Ponzi scheme and of massive insolvency, is about to go bust.

One day after Offshore Alert reported last month that we had received a complaint from an investor who had lost money in Global Currency Trust, the operation shut off its telephone and fax lines and its principal, Santiago Uzy, disappeared.

Global Currency Trust, which has claimed at various times to be based in Nevis and the Bahamas, although it may not be registered anywhere, appears to have closed for business, leaving behind at least one angry investor.

Receivers of the Florida Employers Safety Association Self-Insurers Fund sue David Sanz, share price of Stirling Cooke falls to new low on NASDAQ, Elite International Services offers dubious offshore products, Marc Harris on the move, prison inmate Ronald Williams apparently continues to rip people off during his day-release program, Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham puts both feet in his mouth during press conference for murder of foreign national.

We devote a large portion of this month's Insider Talking to Lines Overseas Management, which is based in Bermuda and also has offices in the Cayman Islands and Guernsey, including a letter from one of the company's Cayman-based financial advisors that makes inaccurate claims and promotes illegal activity; We end this segment on LOM by revealing the contents of a letter written this month to a potential US client by Joe P. Montgomery, a financial advisor with LOM (Cayman), whose services as advertised by Montgomery would appear to be a money launderer's dream; The frequency with which Robert Pires, owner of stock broker/financial adviser Bermuda Investment Advisory Services, and members of his staff fall out, leading to staff departures, continues to occur at an alarming rate; We have reported in the past about John Deuss' courting of the Progressive Labour Party in the run up to this year's General Election; a relationship that has involved wining and dining PLP leader Jennifer Smith on his luxury schooner and paying off the mortgage of the PLP's party headquarters; The first of two lawsuits that are being brought against Cayman Minister of Land John McLean is due to be filed at the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands during September, not August, as we had previously expected; and The government of Nevis narrowly failed to take the island independent in a referendum held on August 10.

Bermuda hotelier David Dodwell, who is also the island's Minister of Tourism, has lost a legal decision in the US which may cost him $2 million personally and which also has jurisdictional implications for all offshore businessmen. On August 4, 1998, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reinstated a $2 million default judgment against Dodwell that had previously been granted in favour of plaintiff Lee N. Koehler and then quashed by a lower court in Maryland.

Offshore regulators apparently uninterested in scams exposed by OffshoreAlert; NimsTec's 3-D cameras offered for sale as "collector's items" over the Internet; Marc Harris has t-shirt with the slogan: "David Marchant is alive because killing him would be a crime"; As General Election looms, Progressive Labour Party tipped to win power in Bermuda for the first time; Dominion of Melchizedek offers a variety of fraudulent products and services; and Little Switzerland contemplates legal action after proposed purchase of Colombian Emeralds International falls through.

A press release claiming it is the victims of a 'smear campaign' briefly appeared on the web-site (www.firstnev.com) of the First Nevisian stockbroking and corporate services group recently before quickly being taken off. The release was in response to our article of March 31 that revealed the existence of an arrest warrant for First Nevisian's boss, Keith King, in South Africa, where he is wanted for questioning in relation to fraud and forgery offences, that his Isle of Man company had lost a recent lawsuit brought by a former client and that King had been declared to be ‘not a fit and proper' person to run a company in the Isle of Man.

Amended Libel Complaint in Marc M. Harris et Cie S.A., The Firm of Marc M. Harris, Inc., and Marc M. Harris Trust Company, Ltd. v. David E. Marchant and Offshore Business News & Research, Inc. at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The Nevis government has thrown its support behind the First Nevisian stockbroking and corporate services group after Offshore Alert revealed last month that there is a current arrest warrant in South Africa for its main principal, Keith Leslie King, in relation to fraud and forgery charges and that he was kicked out of the Isle of Man by regulators. We have not heard from King or the Nevis government since we ran our article last month.

Offshore Alert's exposé on The Harris Organization last month has caused quite a stir, with journalists from several international media organizations showing an interest in following up the story.

Libel Complaint in Marc M. Harris et Cie S.A., The Firm of Marc M. Harris, Inc., and Marc M. Harris Trust Company, Ltd. v. David Marchant and Offshore Business News & Research, Inc. at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Readers who are considering doing business with the First Nevisian stock-broking and corporate services group in Nevis might like to know there is a warrant out in South Africa for the arrest of its key principal, Keith Leslie King. They may also be interested to learn that he set up a firm in Nevis after being kicked out of the Isle of Man, where his company, City & International Securities, also recently lost a £45,000 ($72,000) lawsuit brought by a former client. A second lawsuit against City & International Securities and King personally is due to be tried soon in the Isle of Man.

David Marchant, the publisher of Offshore Alert, flew to the Bahamas on Wednesday, March 25 to meet with Marc Harris at the Radisson Grand Hotel in Cable Beach, near Nassau. Also present at the meeting were Larry Gandolfi, who is a salesman; Christopher Davy, head of computers; and Alan McAloon, head of trust services.

Offshore Alert can today disclose that Panama's most-hyped financial services group, known as The Harris Organization, is being run as a massive Ponzi scheme in which clients are being defrauded out of millions of dollars. The situation is so serious that The Harris Organization, which employs 150 people in Panama, is hopelessly insolvent, with net liabilities of at least $25 million, according to sources knowledgeable of the group's financial affairs.

The Caribbean Hotel Association Insurance Company Ltd., which hit financial trouble soon after it started, has stopped writing new business after just two and a half years in business. The news comes after many member countries of the Caribbean Hotel Association, for whom the company was specifically set up to insure, failed to put their money where their mouths were and buy insurance from CHAIC.

Already home to many of the world's phone sex companies, the Dominican Republic has now firmly established itself as the domicile of choice for another controversial area of offshore business and one of the fastest-growing - gambling via ‘800' telephone numbers and over the internet.With annual licences running from $20,000 to $100,000, several Caribbean islands are looking to the sector as a lucrative revenue-earner.

Statement regarding businessman Keith Leslie King that was made by Catherine Turner to the Isle of Man Financial Supervision Commission on October 26, 1995.

Criminal Information in USA v. Kenneth Walton Rijock at the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.