Investment

Former officers of Bermuda-based RenaissanceRe recently suffered two discovery setbacks in their defense of a securities fraud lawsuit brought by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.On June 25, U. S. District Judge Gerard E. Lynch, sitting at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, denied an application by Bermudian national Michael Cash to delay Cash's deposition until after he has deposed co-defendant and fellow former RenRe officer Martin Merritt and non-party Jonathan Reiss.

A wannabe Bermuda insurer whose license application was turned down in 2004 has resurfaced in Barbados, where it has teamed up with a group whose principals include a convicted criminal. The Barbados Supervisor of Insurance issued an insurance license to River Reinsurance Limited on December 16, 2005. 

The Receiver for the Lancer Offshore group has filed another complaint in the United States in his attempt to recover assets for creditors/investors who are collectively owed more than $400 million.Marty Steinberg, representing the U. S. Securities & Exchange Commission, filed his latest action against Off the Map Productions LLC, a.k.a. OTM Productions, at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on June 29, 2006.

A publicly-listed company in the United States whose subsidiaries include an offshore insurer is being sued in New York by investors who claim they were victims of a $50 million securities fraud. Strategy International Insurance Group Inc., whose shares are currently trading on the Over-The-Counter Bulletin Board at just six cents per share, misrepresented its assets and concealed “material negative facts” about some of its “principal executives and directors” in a private placement memorandum, according to the plaintiffs, who include investment funds in the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands. 

A trust promoter with a history of involvement in fraudulent offshore investment schemes has been sentenced to seven years in prison in the United States.Dennis Poseley, a former resident of Phoenix, Arizona, was also fined $175,000 at his sentencing at the U. S. District Court for the District of Arizona on June 29, 2006.

A civil lawsuit in the United States that was notable for the unusual level of secrecy afforded to the parties by the judge has been dismissed.Bermuda-based KPMG Financial Advisory Services Limited and its two managing directors, Malcolm Butterfield and Michael Morrison, had been seeking $11 million in compensatory and punitive damages against Diligence LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based private investigative agency/risk management firm whose employees and advisers include former high-ranking officials within the CIA, FBI, US Government, UK Government and UK special forces.

Five former insiders in the Imperial Consolidated Group were today each charged with conspiracy to defraud in the United Kingdom. The defendants are Jared Bentley Brook, 36, of Manchester, England; Lincoln Julian Fraser, 35, of Brookenby, Lincolnshire, England; his brother, Nicholas Grant Fraser, 33, of Kirton Lindsey, Lincolnshire, England; William Godley, 58, of Almancil, Portugal; and Robert Statham Raven, 46, of Usk, Gwent, Wales.

A Cayman Islands hedge fund received some of the proceeds of a securities fraud scheme that brought in $1.3 million, it has been claimed. Wynnefield Small Cap Value Offshore Fund Ltd., which was incorporated in Cayman in 1997 in the Cayman Islands, is a relief defendant in a complaint that was filed by the SEC at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on April 25, 2006.

An unlicensed Canada-based forex dealer with a checkered past appears to be behind a purported offshore investment provider that was the target of a warning by the Bermuda Monetary Authority earlier this year, OffshoreAlert can disclose. Dominic Longpré, of Montreal, Canada, was fined CDN$90,000 at the Court of Quebec, Criminal and Penal Division, on September 7, 2004 after he pleaded guilty to 42 counts of illegal acts, stated a press release issued a day later by the Autorité des marches financiers, which brought the charges.

A civil complaint brought by a British Virgin Islands investment fund and an affiliate against a United States-based, Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board-listed real estate and investment company was dismissed on May 25, 2006 “for lack of subject matter jurisdiction”.

Three shareholder class action lawsuits were filed against PXRE Group Ltd., one former officer, and one current one from May 3-10 at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs have accused PXRE, Jeffrey L. Radke, the firm's President and CEO, and John M. Modin, who was its CFO until he resigned on January 6, 2006, of violating the Securities Exchange Act.

An offshore hedge fund manager accused of securities fraud in multiple civil and criminal actions in the United States and the British Virgin Islands is suing his insurer for allegedly failing to pay defense costs.Conrad P. Seghers, 38, is seeking $122 million in compensatory damages, and at least $306 million in punitive damages against Executive Risk Indemnity Inc., which is incorporated in Delaware and based in Warren, New Jersey.

Articled based on an application to collect evidence for a criminal investigation into alleged investment fraud - pursuant to a request for judicial assistance from Switzerland - that was filed at federal court in the USA on May 16, 2006. Individuals and businesses mentioned in the request for assistance include Dieter Behring, Walter Mader, Arthur Buck, Beat Bangerter, Jean Kampf, Peter Josef Weibel, Willy Wuthrich, Raymond Pousaz, Anita Zweifel-Reidy, Dr. Stefan Suter, Daniel Borter, Markus Raess, Jorg Honegger, Carmen Rosat-Wyss, Dumartheray, Susanne Hasse, Almesa Fund Two Ltd., Almyx Fund, Alpine Fund, Alto Fund, Cedux International, Cedux Fund, Excolatur, HNI Cap Fund,HNI Growth Fund, MC Premier Return Fund, Moore Park Preferred Return Fund, Platinum Capital Invest, Realto Invest Bahamas, RS Fixed Fund, Secu Value Classic Fund, Solo Fund, Moore Park Investments, Moore Park International, Moore Park Asset Management, Moore Park Fund Services, Moore Park Funding, Swisspulse Holding, Swisspulse Real Estate, Redswiss Holding, RICIR AG, Redsafe Immobilien AG, Swisspulse Systems, Redsafe Systems, Rewswiss Systems, Swisspule Marketing, Redsafe Consulting, Swisspulse Corporate Investment, Schonkind Holding, QED Consulting, Redsafe Holding, Schonkind Asset Management, Redsafe Asset Management, Redsafe Investment Services, Hornblower Fischer Zurich, KB&P Consulting, Hansabank, Moore Consulting, Moore Park Companies, Global Forex Trading, JP Morgan Chase, Bank One Corporation, and Cortal Consors SA.

Chapter 15 Petition for Recognition of a Foreign Main Proceeding in the Cayman Islands by Geoffrey Varga, as the Foreign Representative of SPhinX Strategy Fund Ltd., at the U. S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

Default Judgment for $21 million in U.S. Bank N.A. v. Sendjer Shefket and Target International Funds Ltd., both of England, at the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

The operator of a now defunct offshore bank faces up to five years in prison in the United States and a $250,000 fine after he admitted defrauding investors of up to $7 million in a high yield investment scam.Richard Henry

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in Switzerland into Dieter Behring, Arthur Buck, Beat Bengerter, Jean Kampf, Peter Josef Weibel, Willy Wuthrich, Raymond Pousaz and Anita Zweifel-Reidy for alleged investment fraud, theft, forgery and money laundering involving Moore Park Funding and related companies.

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in Switzerland into Francois Davoine for suspected embezzlement.

A United States court has ordered former insiders of British Virgin Islands incorporated Evergreen Security Ltd. to repay $10.4 million that they received in fraudulent transfers from the unregistered offshore mutual fund before it collapsed in 2001. In a judgment

The Receiver for a British Virgin Islands domiciled firm that operated as an unlicensed hedge fund filed four civil complaint in the United States during March in an attempt to recover nearly $7 million for victims.The complaints were all filed

A British Virgin Islands incorporated company that operates a hedge fund is being sued for $3.76 million in the United States.A complaint was filed against Spurways Ltd., trading as Trinity Multi Manager Currency Hedge Fund, at the U. S. District

An investment fund organized in Luxembourg claims it has been defrauded by a publicly listed firm in the United States.Verus Global Fund filed a complaint against eXair Communications Corporation at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of

If a Canadian stock broker had provided the same type of allegedly sham services to the collapsed Canada based Portus Group of hedge funds as those provided by the Cayman Islands operation of Bermuda based investment firm Lines Overseas Management

Potential claims arising from the fraudulent activities of a Bermuda based insurance broker's British subsidiary may exceed $750 million, says the firm's U. S. Bankruptcy Trustee.It means that Stirling Cooke Brown Insurance Brokers Ltd. committed “one of the largest frauds

Switzerland has requested information about accounts at two United States based financial institutions as part of a criminal investigation into an alleged US$629 million fraud by hedge fund operator Dieter Behring and his Bahamas based Moore Park group of companies.

Investigators in Switzerland say that a Bahamas based fund group headed by accused fraudster Dieter Behring is believed to be insolvent by more than US$600 million.Details of the estimated scale of the alleged scam and the identities of those being

Latvia has requested information about a New Jersey company that is believed to have been the victim of a stock swindle. Details are contained in an application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence - pursuant to a

A 68-year-old fraudster released from prison in the United States only 21 months ago for helping the New York mafia commit violently-enforced stock scams has picked up where he left off, OffshoreAlert can reveal.Mexico-based, U. S. national Joseph Andrew Mann, now using the name Joseph Andres Mann Piccione, is behind a web of shell companies in several countries, including England, Panama, and Dominica, as part of a new securities scheme that bears striking similarities to the fraud to which he pleaded guilty in the United States in 2004.

Article based on an application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation into alleged fraud - pursuant to a request for judicial assistance from France - that was filed at federal court in the USA on March 31, 2006. Individuals and businesses mentioned in the request for assistance include Marie-Josee Salvaire, Nicolas Zoonekynd, Libertoi LLC, Whale Trade France, New Import Club, and Cofipac.

Article based on an application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation into alleged securities fraud and money laundering - pursuant to a request for judicial assistance from Italy - that was filed at federal court in the USA on March 29, 2006. Individuals mentioned in the request for assistance include Georges El Khoury and Robert Yoffie.

Argus Global Equities Limited - Update by Nevis Financial Services

Offshore corporations in Anguilla, the Bahamas and St. Lucia, including one operating as a bank, have been implicated in an alleged conspiracy to defraud the United States Government of tax revenue.Details are contained in an indictment against four individuals, including one who is both a former U. S. Attorney and state court judge, that was brought at the U. S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina on April 4, 2006 and unsealed on April 18.

Joint Sentencing Memorandum in USA v. Gary Bentz at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

A Bermuda-registered company helped to perpetrate a $130 million investment fraud, according to the United States Securities & Exchange Commission.Ultimate Holdings Ltd. and the firm's alleged controllers, Adnan M. Khashoggi, 70, a Saudi Arabian national; and Ramy Y. El-Batrawi, 44, a resident of Los Angeles, California, are defendants in a civil lawsuit that was filed by the SEC at the U. S. District Court for the Central District of California on April 13, 2006. Other defendants are Wayne Breedon, 54, a Canadian national residing in Aurora, Ontario who was once head of the stock loan department of Deutsche Bank Securities Limited, in Toronto; Richard J. Evangelista, 71, a resident of Florida who once headed the stock loan department of Native Nations Securities Inc.; GenesisIntermedia Inc. (“GENI”), a now-defunct, Delaware-registered, publicly-traded telemarketing company operating from Van Nuys, California; and Douglas E. Jacobson, 59, a resident of Los Angeles, California, a Certified Public Accountant in Florida and GENI's chief financial officer and secretary.

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in Switzerland into Dieter Behring, Arthur Buck, Beat Bangerter, Jean Kampf, Peter Josef Weibel, Willy Wuthrich, Raymond Pousaz, and Anita Zweifel-Reidy for suspected fraud, embezzlement, forgery and money laundering.

Former Bahamas resident Derek Turner was sentenced to 20 years in prison on February 17 - six months after pleading guilty to three counts of wire fraud concerning a high-yield investment scam.Turner, a 56-year-old New Zealand national, was also ordered to pay restitution of $55 million at his sentencing at the U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. He immediately filed a notice of appeal against the judgment to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

OffshoreAlert long ago exposed the fraudulent oil and gas-related securities offerings of Kentucky-based conman David Graham Rose, who raised a substantial amount of his millions of dollars at offshore seminars, including those organized by the now-defunct Global Prosperity Group, a.k.a. Institute of Global Prosperity.Now he has been exposed by his local newspaper, the Courier-Journal, in Louisville, Kentucky, which published more than a dozen, in-depth articles about Rose and his business empire over March 19 and 20, 2006.

A United States national who once promoted the First International Bank of Grenada has been convicted of perpetrating a separate fraud through another offshore bank.Paul James Peiffer, of S. W. York Street, Beaverton, Oregon, was convicted of 25 counts of wire fraud, one count of making a false bankruptcy filing, and one count of false oaths on February 15, 2006 following a jury trial at the U. S. District Court for the District of Oregon.

A United States national already under investigation in the United Kingdom for a fraud involving an offshore bank is being investigated in the U. S. for another apparent scam involving more than $10 million.The latest exploits of Gary Lynn McDuff, 51, of Deer Park, Texas, are outlined in a subpoena-enforcement action filed by the SEC at the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on March 10, 2006.

The former president of Bermuda-based investment firm Lines Overseas Management Ltd. appears to have won his battle to keep potentially incriminating telephone recordings out of the hands of the SEC in the United States.In a ruling on March 23, 2006, Bermuda Court of Appeal allowed Brian Lines' appeal against a decision by Bermuda Supreme Court that LOM must disclose “recordings, transcripts, summaries or excerpts” of telephone conversations made on Lines' extension while he worked for LOM. Justices Zacca, Nazareth, and Sir Murray Stuart-Smith also upheld the lower court's ruling that the SEC was not entitled to any “recordings, transcripts, summaries or excerpts of interviews undertaken” as part of an investigation into LOM by its local regulator, the Bermuda Monetary Authority. The court granted Lines an injunction restraining LOM and its subsidiary, LOM Securities (Bermuda) Ltd., from disclosing material regarding both of these matters to the SEC.

Article based on an application to collect evidence for a criminal investigation into alleged investment fraud - pursuant to a request for judicial assistance from Italy - that was filed at the U. S. District Court for the District of New Jersey on March 27, 2006. Individuals mentioned in the request for assistance include Georges El Khoury, Dennis Herula, and Farouk Khan.

An attempt by the Attorney General of the Bahamas to confiscate the criminal proceeds of securities fraud firm Banakor Swisse S.A. spectacularly backfired last year after the group supplied the court with false information and the judge chose to believe the fraudsters over regulators and law enforcement agents. The AG obtained an order at Bahamas Supreme Court freezing the group's assets at The Royal Bank of Scotland (Bahamas) Ltd. on December 8, 2004 - just a few weeks after OffshoreAlert first exposed Banakor. However, after Banakor submitted affidavits that are replete with inaccurate and misleading information, Justice Jon Isaacs reversed his decision on June 13, 2005 and even awarded the crooks costs and invited them to apply for damages.

Barclays Bank continued processing checks for an offshore-based wine investment group even after it learned of a regulatory warning in the U. S. and then then refused to co-operate with the group's liquidator after it collapsed amid allegations of fraud, it has been claimed.The allegations are contained in a civil complaint filed by Christopher Johnson, as liquidator of Cayman Islands-registered Architects of Wine Ltd., at the U. K. High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, Commercial Court on March 9, 2006. AOWL is seeking to recover $1.3 million from sole defendant Barclays Bank, of London, England, alleging conversion.

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in France into Marie-Josee Salvaire and Nicolas Zoonekynd for alleged fraud through an 'investment club', New Import Club.

Amended Complaint in John G. Pitman and Susan Pitman v. Seed International, Ltd., Ocean International Marketing, Ltd., Architects of Wine, Ltd., A.V.E. International, Kensington Corporation, Ltd., Paradigm Holdings Limited, OptiDisc International Limited, CD Fender, Churchill Associates, Ltd., Heros Global Marketing Services, Ltd., Paradigm Wine Services, Ltd., New Fine Wines International, Ltd., Paul Freeman, Robert John Middlemiss, Denver Andersson, David Wilcock, Phillip Beasley, Fred Hagelberg, Trevor Burroughs, Giles Cadman, Craig Garrett, Desmond Jackson, Anil Kohli, Jadon Schmidt, and Robin Loxton at the U. S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in Italy into Georges El Khoury and others for alleged securities fraud and money laundering.

Complaint in U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Cobalt Multifamily Investors I, LLC, Cobalt Multifamily Co. I, LLC, Cobalt Capital Funding, LLC, Mark A. Shapiro, Irving J. Stitsky, and William B. Foster, as defendants, and Vail Mountain Trust, as relief defendant, at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in Italy into Georges El Khoury and others for alleged investment fraud in the amount of $52 million. The evidence sought comprises an interview with Dennis Herula, "an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Dix, New Jersey", and Farouk Khan, "a resident or Hillsborough, New Jersey".

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in Switzerland into Khundkar Khalid Ahmed Houssain for alleged fraud.

Former Imperial Consolidated Group money-raiser Robert Raven was today sentenced to four months in prison for contempt of court in the United Kingdom. Raven, a 45-year-old British national who was Imperial's International Sales & Marketing Director, received the punishment in a civil action at the High Court for refusing to co-operate with the administrators/liquidators of five Imperial companies in the U. K. and the Caribbean, in the hunt for defrauded assets.