IPOC International Growth Fund

Bermuda Monetary Authority: Regulator or Promotional Agency?

November 10, 2015

A few years ago, the then head of enforcement for the Bermuda Monetary Authority was rendered apoplectic on stage at an OffshoreAlert Conference after being asked to name a single individual or legal entity that the financial services regulator had ever penalized or disciplined since it was established in 1969. It's difficult to come up with names off the top of your head when they number so few. Financial regulators in the United States penalize more financial miscreants in a typical afternoon than the BMA has in its entire 46-year history. For promotional purposes, the BMA's message is 'We have one of the three biggest insurance markets in the world. Yes indeed, sniff, sniff, we're the world's risk capital'. For regulatory purposes, the message seems to be 'Insurance market? What insurance market?'.

Letter from Bermuda: A risk-free regulatory environment for Bermuda’s financial ne’er-do-wells

March 19, 2009

Minister of Finance Paula Cox announced that "Bermuda is engaged in negotiating a further 10 Tax Information Exchange Agreements with OECD states and two with EU states". She also pointed out that Bermuda's TIEA with the United States was signed

BVI confiscates $45 m from IPOC fund, will share money with Bermuda

May 7, 2008

Bermuda-based sham mutual fund IPOC International Growth Fund Limited, which appears to have been a vehicle to launder approximately $1 billion of criminal proceeds by Russia's Telecommunications Minister Leonid Reiman, has had US$45.5 million confiscated after admitting criminal charges in the British Virgin Islands.

Insider Talking: February 11, 2008

February 11, 2008

A bitterly-fought civil action filed by Bermuda-domiciled IPOC International Growth Fund Limited against US-based intelligence-gathering and risk management firm Diligence LLC and one of Diligence's clients, the law firm of Barbour, Griffith and Rogers LLC, is over; In the British Virgin Islands, an order placing Boston Life and Annuity Company Limited into provisional liquidation was issued by the local High Court on December 21, 2007 following an application on December 5, 2007 by the insurer itself; and One of the most memorable moments of the 5th OffshoreAlert Financial Due Diligence Conference last April was when the Bermuda Monetary Authority's Director of Enforcement would not answer a question from OffshoreAlert's publisher asking him to name a single Bermudian or Bermuda-owned company that the regulator had ever penalized in its entire history, which spans 39 years.

BVI prepares criminal charges against IPOC, seeks to confiscate $40 m

November 11, 2007

Criminal charges are being prepared in the British Virgin Islands against a Bermuda domiciled investment fund that is suspected of being a money laundering vehicle for Russia's Telecommunications Minister, Leonid Reiman.The BVI authorities have drafted "preliminary charges" against IPOC International

Insider Talking: November 11, 2007

November 11, 2007

News that the British Virgin Islands authorities are preparing criminal charges for money laundering against IPOC International Growth Fund Limited heaps pressure on Bermuda, where IPOC is domiciled, to do something more meaningful than Minister of Finance Paula Cox applying

British Virgin Islands: IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd. et al

October 31, 2007

Application for the appointment of a Commissioner to collect evidence for a criminal investigation in the British Virgin Islands into IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd., Jeffrey Galmond, Michael Ludwig Rudolf North, Lapal Limited, Albany Invest Limited and Mercury Import Limited for allegedly laundering the proceeds of corruption by Russia's Minister of Telecommunications, Leonid Reiman.

Bermuda regulator seeks to wind-up IPOC group, prompts intelligence firm to seek stay of US lawsuit

February 15, 2007

Bermuda Supreme Court has set a date of April 27th to hear an application by a local regulator to have a provisional liquidator appointed over a mutual fund group that allegedly exists to launder the proceeds of corruption by a Russian government minister. A petition to involuntarily wind-up IPOC Capital Partners Ltd., IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd., Gamma Capital Fund Ltd., Convergence Capital Ltd., Com Tel Eastern Ltd., First National Telecommunication Fund Ltd., Convergence Capital Management Ltd., Augmentation Investments Ltd., and Telco Overseas Ltd. was presented to the court on January 12, 2007 by Bermuda's Registrar of Companies.

KPMG (Bermuda) receives $1.7 m settlement from U. S. intelligence firm

September 7, 2006

A U. S. based intelligence firm agreed to pay $1.7 million in damages to settle an allegation that it corrupted a Bermuda government investigation into a local mutual fund, OffshoreAlert can reveal.Two sources have confirmed the size of the payment

KPMG drops bribery lawsuit against US PI firm, but Bermuda Fund files similar complaint

June 28, 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.

US court denies motion to dismiss IPOC ‘bribery’ lawsuit

March 6, 2006

A U. S.-based intelligence-gathering firm has failed to have a civil lawsuit dismissed in which it is accused of bribing an employee of KPMG (Bermuda) to disclose information about an investigation into alleged money laundering by a sham mutual fund group known as IPOC. Diligence LLC had asked the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia to dismiss a complaint brought by KPMG Financial Advisory Services Ltd. and its Managing Directors, Malcolm Butterfield, and Michael Morrison, on the grounds that Bermuda was a more convenient forum and that an “indispensable party” is missing from the action, namely the Bermuda Government, which commissioned KPMG FAS to investigate IPOC.

Bermuda Gov’t suspected of whitewashing alleged $1 b money laundering scheme

February 4, 2004

A James Bond-like tale involving allegations of corporate espionage, bribery, corruption, and a Bermuda Government whitewash of a suspected $1 billion money laundering scheme is unfolding in a U. S. court. Among the cast of characters are Russia's Telecommunications Minister, Leonid Reiman; a Bermuda-based, so-called mutual fund in which Reiman appears to be the only investor and which he may have used to launder the proceeds of corruption, IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd.; IPOC's banker, fund administrator, custodian, and accountant, Bermuda Commercial Bank; IPOC's Bermuda representative and provider of various services, including directors and officers, Wakefield Quin; the firm appointed by Bermuda's Minister of Finance to investigate IPOC, KPMG Financial Advisory Services Ltd.; and Diligence LLC, a Washington, D.C.-based intelligence-gathering firm that is headed by a former officer of the U.K. Security Service known as MI5 and whose advisors include a former Director of the CIA and the FBI.

IPOC Fund President resigns after criminal past is disclosed

January 31, 2004

The founding president/director of a Bermuda-registered open-ended mutual fund has resigned after it was disclosed that he had served a prison term in Germany in 1997-99 for fraud and embezzlement. Vidya Sharma, apparently a former Merrill Lynch banker, stepped down from IPOC International Growth Fund Ltd. in October of last year after his criminal conviction came out during court proceedings involving the Fund in the British Virgin Islands.