St. Vincent & the Grenadines

Cayman-based on-line brokerage firm SEGOES Ltd. acted quickly this month after OffshoreAlert tipped it off to apparent misuse of its name over the Internet. Omnicorp Bank Inc., of St. Vincent; and Business Builders LLC, of California, all made apparently false claims on their web-sites about a relationship with SEGOES.

Regulators in Grenada are continuing to allow banks belonging to the First International Bank of Grenada group to operate on the island despite FIBG's massive insolvency, we can reveal. The National Commercial Bank of St. Vincent, which is government-owned, is also continuing to provide banking services despite having its UK assets frozen recently over the FIBG fiasco.

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in Austria into "unknown" representatives of New Bank Ltd. and others who are suspected of aggravated fraud regarding of ZUG Insurance Holdings Ltd.

Warnings about Investment Banking Systems, of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and Caledonian Development Corporation, of the British Virgin Islands, and a look at conman Alfred Zent and his use of corundum.

Grenada has finished a close second to the fake jurisdiction of Melchizedek in an Internet poll to determine the worst offshore jurisdiction. In answer to the question 'Which of these offshore centers would you least trust with your money?', Melchizedek came top with 30 per cent of votes cast, while Grenada followed with 21 per cent.

As 51-year-old British businessman Leslie Wingham scours the world for places to park millions of dollars allegedly defrauded from clients of Antigua-based Accord Insurance, it is worth taking a look at his none-too-pretty business record over the years; We can report further news on Dominica-based British Trade & Commerce Bank, which acknowledged in our July 31 edition that it was experiencing liquidity and other problems due to having some of its assets frozen in Canada and because of an alleged credit card fraud against the bank; American Eric Resteiner, who bought Viktor Kozeny's luxury home in Lyford Cay in the Bahamas not too long ago, has vacated the property after failing to meet mortgage payments and is believed to be now living in either Switzerland or Cairo, said a source; We recently received another fax from 'Anne Gregory' of The Finance Merchants Group, which purports to sell offshore bank charters from a base in the Bahamas; and We reported last month on how DIAK Bank was being operated without a license in St. Vincent by 'minister of religion' Clifford Pitt and was offering depositors annual interest rates of 25-35 per cent. We have since learned that these rates are peanuts compared with the returns of five per cent per month or 90 per cent annually being offered for five-year certificates of deposits by its sister company, DIAK Asset Management Company Ltd.

The Jeeves Group, which operates out of Liechtenstein and St. Vincent, has been named in a UK government investigation into an alleged scam involving more than GBP7 million. The group represented two St. Vincent-registered companies that were part of an organization involved in the fraudulent sale of shares and timeshare holidays to the public, according to the Department of Trade & Industry.

Offshore Alert has uncovered an offshore bank that is chartered in Grenada but is operating without a license in St. Vincent, where it is offering depositors annual interest of between 25 and 35 per cent. DIAK Bank is run by Clifford Pitt, a U. S. national who has no prior banking experience and who is described in promotional material as a 'minister of religion' and 'Professor of Theology'.

After allowing tens of millions of dollars to disappear and the crooks to flee the island, Grenada's government finally took over the First International Bank of Grenada this month. Government accountant Garvey Louison was appointed Receiver of FIBG on August 1 and immediately started preparing to liquidate the bank and all of its sub-banks.

The governments of offshore financial centers have moved with unprecedented haste in changing their regulatory and supervisory systems in order to be removed from international 'hit lists'.Rather than attempt to group together and negotiate with foreign agencies from a position of strength, many governments have capitulated to international pressure and rushed through emergency legislation.

The high stakes poker game between onshore and offshore governments lost six players recently but another 35 have 12 months to decide whether the OECD is bluffing with the threat of sanctions.Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Malta, Mauritius and San Marino have all signed an 'Advanced Letter of Commitment' agreeing to co-operate with international tax investigations.

The much-vaunted publication of a tax haven 'hit list' by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has been put off for at least a year. The OECD had planned to name those territories deemed to engage in "harmful tax practices" in June of this year, after which the 29 OECD member countries would seek to punish those on the list by introducing "defensive measures".

The Caribbean Bank of Commerce, which had its banking license revoked in Antigua last year, has been up to its old tricks again. On March 29, 2000, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency put out a warning about something calling itself Digital Commerce Bank Ltd., which is one of the names CBC now operates under.

A fugitive American businessman who has been helping The Harris Organization run investment schemes through IBCs set up in the Bahamas and the BVI was deported this month from Panama to the US. Within days of his deportation, Brent A. Wagman was criminally indicted in Texas on charges of masterminding a scheme that defrauded mainly elderly victims of approximately $30 million.

There has been considerable activity in Grenada over the last month as regulators belatedly try to get to grips with the fact that at least one-third of all banks incorporated on the island appear to be scams. The Grenada International Financial Services Authority, a newly-formed body designed to better regulate the offshore sector, has held several meetings to discuss the First International Bank of Grenada.

Telecommunications Review in Bermuda-Caribbean region: Bermuda continues to offer by far the cheapest overseas telecommunications rates compared with its rival offshore jurisdictions in the Caribbean, we can disclose. While rates have generally fallen in many islands since our last survey in April, 1997, the gap between Bermuda and the pack remains huge, largely due to the introduction of competition for international calls. 

Questions and Answers with Rhonda Kelly, the Public Relations Manager for Cable & Wireless' regional headquarters in the Cayman Islands, about C&W's telecommunications service in the Bermuda-Caribbean region.

Offshore Alert has uncovered another highly dubious Grenada-registered bank that is owned by a former bankrupt. Wellington Bank & Trust, which was incorporated on July 27, 1998, is owned by John Edward Brinker Jr. and Gary Joel Bentz, who are both based in Ohio.

Two more companies have listed on the sham Grenada-registered World Investors' Stock Exchange, bringing the total number of listed issuers to approximately 20. They are Bahamas-registered Alexander Development International Corporation and St. Vincent-registered Molecular Waste Technologies Inc.

The latest phase of what is turning out to be one of the most extravagant offshore frauds ever involves the sale of shares over the Internet, supposedly to finance a 120-room luxury resort hotel in Grenada and an on-line casino. Investors in the resort project are "guaranteed" annual dividends of between 25-30 per cent, depending on the amount invested, even before anything has been built, while shareholders of the casino venture are promised 35 per cent annually.

The massive financial scam being committed in Grenada by Canadian and American crooks has reached new levels of farce after the island's government announced that it had investigated - and cleared - the First International Bank of Grenada of any wrongdoing. Grenadian Prime Minister Keith Mitchell gave the bank a clean bill of health at a press conference held on July 23 and attended by local journalists.

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.

Former Bermuda-based underwriter John McGarrity has disappeared in the middle of several investigations into him for alleged fraud. McGarrity, who was President of the now-defunct Amberco Brokers Ltd. in the 1980s, had most recently been working in the Bahamas.

One of the First International Bank of Grenada's partners in crime, the Grenada-based World Investors' Stock Exchange, has stepped up its efforts to part the public from their savings. The shares of seven new companies were listed on WISE this month to go with the only other previous listing, that of EcoMed International, which we recently revealed had a false prospectus.

The Department of Banking and Finance in Florida is investigating an alleged scam involving two insurance companies run by The Harris Organization financial services group of Panama. It has been alleged that investors were duped into investing funds with Florida-registered Lifeblood Biomedical Inc. on the grounds that their investment was fully insured by Threshold Insurance Services Ltd. and Caribbean General Insurance Corporation, which are both operated by The Harris Organization. However, following the collapse of Lifeblood Biomedical last year after raising $10 million, the insurance companies have refused to pay investors' claims, alleging that agreements on their letterhead and signed by the President of both insurers, Ilka M. Barria, are bogus.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.