Insider Talking

Robin Cotterell released on bail pending trial on money laundering charge, SG Hambros and Coutts settle Bahamas lawsuit, casino web-site's links to the Bahamas, where Internet gaming is prohibited; Canadian regulators issues warning about Cayman International Holdings, First International Bank of Grenada fraudsters open a new bank, investors in Versailles finance group apply to liquidate BVI firm Trading Partners, Harris Organization has Nov. 24 deadline to obtain investment manager's license in Panama, Imperial Consolidated Securities SA offers "High-Yield Investment Facility", Cayman Islands passes Electronic Transactions Bill and Computer Misuse Bill.

Finance Merchants Bank sells 'paper' banks for between $29,000 and $100,000 each, Imperial Consolidated Securities threaten litigation against individual members of the Bahamas Securities Commission, wheels falloff Bahamas-registered International Financial Privacy Association Ltd., liquidators for the Bank of Credit and Commerce International Overseas Ltd. announce third payout to creditors, First Cayman Bank creditors receive first dividend of 25 cents in the dollar.

AS&K denies it is merging with Truman Bodden & Co. (Cayman), Neville Grant, resigns as head of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, Montserrat revokes offshore banking license of Equity Bank and Trust Company Limited, Grenada's Ambassador to the United States, Denis G. Antoine, makes a fool of himself while defending Grenada's offshore financial sector, illegally-operated offshore 'bank' continues in business despite regulatory action, sham 'Monaco Bank of Trade' tries to lure Internet users by offering absurdly-high rates of return, Russian businessman Vladimir Momitko dismantles web-site in which he sought to breach the copyright of financial publishers.

Keith King and the Transglobal Investment Fund, Antigua PM Lester Bird seeks to have financial advisory lifted, Viktor Kozeny sued in the Bahamas, U. S. and Bermuda discuss new treaty, Quantum Trading offers suspiciously high returns, Mezzanine Capital in middle of pump and dump, and Michael Creft: From Manitoba Department of Highways employee to Grenada's chief offshore regulator

Liquidators of First Cayman Bank reach settlement with former Cayman government minister McKeeva Bush, First Nevisian's Keith Leslie King testifies at civil trial in the Isle of Man, Jordan Bionda denies he is a fraudster, conman Keem Kalfon promotes his Global Heritage Asset Protection 'fund', attorney Julian Hall is declared bankrupt in Bermuda, Bermuda's international business sector voices concern over Government plans to introduce tougher new work permit rules for foreign workers, offshore crook Marc Harris compares himself to Albert Einstein, Florida judge orders Harris Organization to pay costs after losing a libel action against OffshoreAlert's publisher.

The names of the new shareholders in the Bahamas International Securities Exchange are expected to be announced in January. A list of all 45 companies that submitted subscription applications for the recent $5 million private placement has been submitted for

Cayman Islands Immigration Board approves Ann Nealon's work permit for Walkers law firm by a vote of two to one; Banc Caribe potential target for Cash 4 Titles victims; Antigua assures USA that William Cooper will be extradited; Scott Oliver leaves Lines Overseas Management; and Hundreds of Caribbean immigrants living in the US and residents of Dominica lose $1.2 million in investment scam.

BaTelCo throws spanner in the works of Bahamas International Stock Exchange private placement, Cayman Islands Stock Exchange tells New Utopia to take a hike, trial in Bermuda over European family's wealth costs $600,000 per week, First International Bank of Grenada has difficulty with its math, journalists arrested in Grenada, new sham investment game appears on the Internet, and the growth of the Bahamas is detailed in a prospectus for the new Bahamas International Securities Exchange.

Dominica-registered Overseas Development Bank & Trust has yet to satisfy three judgments totalling US$1.24 million that were entered against it in favor of creditors on January 29, 1999, sham New Utopia jurisdiction claims it is launching "the New Utopia Investment Fund of the Cayman Islands", Ralph Sherman's involvement in the First International Bank of Grenada, comparisons between Van Brink's First International Bank of Grenada and Michael Randy's Canadian Trade Bank, alleged investment fraudster Brent Wagman surfaces in Panama, '60 Minutes' television show goes soft on Alexandre Konanykhine.

In February, Offshore Alert reported about stock manipulation allegations involving Bermuda Stock Exchange-listed Mezzanine Capital; Viktor Kozeny, the 'Pirate of Prague' who allegedly defrauded his countrymen in the former Czechoslovakia of tens of millions of dollars before fleeing, buying an Irish passport and going to live in the Bahamas, has apparently fallen out with the Grenada government, according to Grenada Today newspaper; A letter to the editor that was published in the Caymanian Compass newspaper on August 20, 1999 caused rum amusement in knowledgeable law enforcement circles; and In the ten days after we posted the Harris Organization/OBNR libel judgment on our web-site, 638 people had downloaded the entire 17 pages, making it the most popular document on the 'Free Documents' section of our web-site.

Global Village Market and the World Investors' Stock Exchange, Global Prosperity Group charges attendees $17,000 each for its get-rich-quick conferences, John Mathewson and the FBI, Cayman bank officer lived in home owned by client, says source; Harris Organization tries to subscribe to Offshore Alert, journalists seek information on Michael Ashcroft, Harris Organization officer Alan McAloon professes ignorance over Florida property ownership.

As I flew out of Bermuda on June 10 after narrowly surviving an attempt by Donald Lines' attorney, Robin Potts, to have me put in prison for contempt of court for refusing to reveal my sources in relation to articles I wrote about Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance, who should I bump into on the flight to Atlanta but one of Donald's sons, Brian Lines, who is the President of Lines Overseas Management, which has been on the receiving end of several unflattering articles in this newsletter; Some of the UK's leading attorneys have made Bermuda their home for the next several months as they work on two of the biggest civil trials in the island's history: The Bermuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company case and a trust dispute involving the Thyssen-Bornemisza family, which has a $2.7 billion fortune; What was it like sitting in front of Britain's finest while they debated for two days whether to lock me up for seven days for contempt of court? Not much fun, I can tell you; The lengths that crooks will go to in order to lend credibility to their scams knows no shame; and Beleaguered Stirling Cooke Brown Holdings Ltd. is laying off staff in Bermuda and is in the process of moving its Bermuda-based broking activities to London, we have been told.

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 saying 'There's one born every minute' was never more evident than during a recent interview OffshoreAlert conducted with an Arizona-based creditor of Gilbert Ziegler, the chairman of the fraudulently-run First International Bank of Grenada; The depths to which The Oxford Club's parent, Baltimore-based Agora Inc., will stoop to attract new business seemingly knows no bounds; In the book the Sovereign Individual, which is co-authored by Lines Overseas Management shareholders Lord William Rees-Mogg and James Dale Davidson, there is a paragraph on Page 188 that seems to advocate an illegal act when advising readers on asset protection; Although we published a list of shareholders for Bermuda-based financial services firm Lines Overseas Management last month, the identities of many of the beneficial shareholders was hidden through companies; We reported last month on an alleged fraud being committed by Threshold Insurance Services, which is an apparently bogus insurer being operated by The Harris Organization of Panama and being investigated by banking and insurance regulators in Florida. We learned this month that official records in Panama show that the company has now been dissolved; and Accounting firm Deloitte & Touche, which is liquidating First Cayman Bank, is still forecasting a pay out of 45 to 55 cents on the dollar.

Further incriminating evidence against Bermuda Stock Exchange-listed Mezzanine Capital, Lines Overseas Management has sophisticated computer software system installed, Marc M. Harris and his Panama bodyguards, 'The Invisible Investor' book provides a plethora of unintentional laughs, Nigerian fraudsters appears in Cayman Islands court, Florida-based scam seeks to take advantage of bona fide firms like Lloyd's Bank and Barclays Bank, Members of Cayman Islands Legislative Assembly shelve plans to award themselves huge pay increases.

If you ever needed proof as to how far the Russian mafia has infiltrated Antigua's government, you need look no further than Clare K. Roberts, who was Antigua's Attorney General until last year, and Steadroy Benjamin, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives; The Caribbean Bank of Commerce featured in an alert sent out by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to US banks and regulators on November 13, 1998 that advised that the bank was operating illegally from an address in the United States, namely 17 Chestnut Street, Ridgewood, New Jersey; Bermuda Supreme Court last month appointed the Official Receiver to take over the financial affairs of Bermuda attorney Julian Hall, who used to be an MP for the Progressive Labour Party when it was in Opposition; A French chateau hotel venture run by outspoken former Bermuda-based insurance boss Jonathan Crawley seems to be heading the way of several insurance companies he helped run; The name of Antigua-registered American International Bank, which is now in receivership after being mismanaged by its owner William Cooper and its CEO John E. Greaves, has cropped up in several official investigations into criminal activity involving money laundering; and The Cayman Islands government wasted yet more of the public's money by first obtaining a court injunction against the Cayman Free Press preventing its Caymanian Compass newspaper from reporting the contents of the government's agreement with telecommunications carrier Cable & Wireless and then inexplicably dropping the matter without any explanation just before a court hearing to hear the pros and cons of the case.

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.

An interesting column was published in the Turks & Caicos Islands Free Press on November 26 in which Opposition MP Norman Saunders argued that the government must statutorily hold a General Election by February 17, 1999 when it would have ruled for precisely four years; Still in the Turks & Caicos Islands, where the strangest things often happen. New Chief Justice Richard Ground halted the trial of a man charged with two counts of possession of cannabis and possession with intent to supply after two jurors were seen getting into the same taxi as the defendant and the defendant's main witness following the end of the first day of the trial; Nowhere does a country's politicians have a more one-sided or forgiving relationship with God than in the Cayman Islands; The Cayman government has spent considerable amounts of tax-payers' money to take out a court injunction against the local Caymanian Compass newspaper to prevent those same taxpayers from seeing all or part of the monopoly agreement the government has with the much-reviled telecommunications carrier Cable & Wireless; As regular readers of this newsletter should be aware, we recently caught Lines Overseas Management salesman Scott Oliver lying to potential clients about his credentials by claiming he was on the board of advisors of the International Exchange Bank of Bermuda, which does not exist; and Grant Gibbons, who was Bermuda's Finance Minister until the UBP lost the General Election on November 9, has been appointed a founding director of a newly-formed holding company that intends to raise $1 billion for a life and annuity reinsurer.

Apart from The Harris Organization of Panama, other financial services providers promoted by Florida-based attorney and offshore author Arnold Goldstein have less than distinguished records over recent years, OffshoreAlert can disclose; After responding to an advertisement in the International Herald Tribune that invited readers to call a Bahamas telephone number for details about obtaining an offshore banking licence without any qualifications, we were faxed details of various licences available; The Bahamas Government appears to have changed its mind about how it should privatize the Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation; The Securities Industry Bill, which will, inter alia, provide for the establishment of a Bahamas International Stock Exchange, was introduced to the House of Assembly this month; and the liquidators of First Cayman Bank try to collect $1 million from former Cayman government minister McKeeva Bush.

A funny thing happened a few days after our expose of The Highlander Club in last month's Offshore Alert. I received from them a spam letter - sent a week before we published - stating "Congratulations You have been approved

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.

In house counsel Philip Lamarr has become the latest in a long line of officers and employees to quit The Harris Organization, of Panama in recent months. Larry Abraham and his son, Patrick, left in March, trader Alex de Janon

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.

Former Cayman banker John Mathewson's sentencing hearing for helping to launder the proceeds of crime has been delayed yet again. Mathewson was due to be sentenced on April 30 by a court in New Jersey in the US but the matter was adjourned until later in the year; If figures compiled by The Wall Street Journal are to be relied upon for accuracy, the Cayman Islands is not the world's fifth largest financial center, as it claims, but is actually the eighth largest; Six months after US$9 million of its assets were frozen in British Columbia as part of an investigation into fraudulent trading, the Cayman-based broker/dealer Harris McLean Financial Group has filed a lawsuit in the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands against one of its principals, Richard Harris, and his mother, Ana Harris; and Those of you who have been following our articles on The Harris Organization of Panama might like to read a three-page article on the subject that appeared in the June 1 edition of Business Week.

David Walsh, the former head of Bre X Minerals, tried to close a bank account in the Bahamas and take out his entire deposit of $25.3 million two weeks after an audit revealed concluded that the supposedly rich Busang gold

John Deuss courts PLP political party in Bermuda, offshore regulators John Lawrence and Marcus Killick find new jobs, proposed purchase of Little Switzerland by Colombian Emeralds International may have implications for Crisson's, Leigh Bruce Ritch is apparently now living in Cayman under the name Bruce Ritchie after completing a prison-term in the USA for narcotics-trafficking, Rex Crighton receives 'in principle' planning approval to dredge Cayman's North Sound, Grenada appoints Viktor Kozeny as its Honorary Consul in the Bahamas, investors make approximatly $1 million on call options bought one day before announcement of sale of Bermuda reinsurer Mid Ocean Ltd.

Buyers of luxury property in Bermuda in 1997 include John Deuss, Reg Grundy, Britons Michael Butt, David Brown, and Ernest Stempel, First Cayman Bank liquidators defend size of fees, Ken Dart turned down for permanent residency in Cayman Islands, John Tugwell wanted to be Bank of Butterfield's Chairman, as well as CEO, say sources; Bermuda Sun newspaper to start publishing twice a week, Thomas Azzara's 'Tax Havens of the World' book contains several inaccuracies, nearly half of all births in Bermuda in 1996 were out of wedlock.

OffshoreAlert's unblemished track record when it comes to publishing exposes, despite letters threatening litigation; human cloning group touts Cayman and Bahamas as potential domiciles, who is disgrunted ex-Bank of Butterfield employee who criticized recently-retired chairman Sir David Gibbons?, Richard Black and Mike Cascio look to form new Bermuda insurance facility, possible bribery in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Cayman Islands Monetary Authority MD Neville Grant accepts no responsibility for collapse of First Cayman Bank, Global Private Banking magazine causes mirth by describing closure of FCB as an example of regulators "acting tough on miscreants", Cayman-based Oxford Advisors opens up office in Bermuda, 18 luxury homes in Bermuda sold for a total of $72 m in 1997, and what effect, if any, will the death of Charles Collis have on Bermuda Fire and Marine Insurance litigation? 

Former 'Acting CEO' of the Cayman Islands Stock Exchange applies to head Bahamas International Stock Exchange, Bermuda Government wants a Bermudian, not British, Governor' Cayman judge rebukes attorney F. Lee Bailey, First Cayman Bank liquidators may want to look at two properties in Florida that belong to the Quraeshi family, further evidence emerges of Cayman Islands Government incompetence in collapse of First Cayman Bank, the hypocrisy of Bermuda's Home Affairs Minister Quinton Edness, Euro Bank Corp. receives Class 'A' banking license in Cayman.

US depositors withdraw $14 million after losing confidence in Cayman Islands, John Jefferson Jr. seeks to sell his shares in Cayman fast-food franchises, mystery surrounds the awarding of a Class 'A' bank license in Cayman to Euro Bank Corp. following a $2 million payment, John Tugwell says he quit as Bank of Bermuda CEO for "personal reasons", Bermuda Gov't Minister Quinton Edness makes difficult-to-believe claim about why Police Commissioner was fired, Bermuda Governor Thorold Masefield takes the public for idiots, did Maples & Calder senior partner Tony Travers really receive $6 million in annual dividends?, profits of First Bermuda Securities revealed, Bermuda lawyer Lynda Milligan-Whyte turns $67,200 into $500,000 at First Bermuda Securities.