Scott Oliver

Anglo American Bank has had its banking license reinstated by the Grenada International Financial Services Authority; Nevis-based offshore provider Robin Cotterell recently established an insurance company called Old Pacific Insurance Ltd.; Former Lines Overseas Management (Cayman) salesman Scott Oliver has popped up in Costa Rica as President of 'Somerset, Tighe and Campbell', which describes itself as a firm of "professional investment advisors" at its web-site at www.offshorecostarica.com; Inter Caribbean Business Management/Global Dominion Group in Nevis, which has been accused by at least one client of not redeeming her investment, has left Nevis and also closed down its web-sites; and Vladislav Popovic, the director of Richard & Partners, which is accounting firm Pannell Kerr Forster's representative in Montenegro, has confirmed that his firm has never carried out any auditing work for Montenegro-licensed Goldstar Commercial Bank AD, as claimed by the bank's principal, Gerardo Rodriguez Reynante, who is based in Uruguay.

Annual OffshoreAlert Awards for: Worst Regulator, Worst Regulated Jurisdictions, Lie of the Year, Coward of the Year, Crooks of the Year, Jurisdiction in Most Need of a PR Make-Over, Most Small-Minded Decision, Most Arrogant Jurisdiction, Most Stupid Comments, Here Today, Gone Tomorrow Award, and Most Responsible Regulators.

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.

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 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.

Lines Overseas Management is standing by its Cayman-based salesman Scott Oliver despite the fact that a bank he is linked with is part of a major fraud and is operating illegally from Bermuda, where LOM is headquartered. LOM has decided not to fire him even though, five months after Offshore Alert caught him claiming in LOM marketing material to be 'an advisor to the International Exchange Bank of Bermuda', we have found that such a bank has indeed been operating illegally on the island.

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.

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.

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. After being exposed, Oliver sent out e-mails to associates in which he claimed that "this bank was not registered in Bermuda as initially discussed but instead was registered in another British Commonwealth offshore jurisdiction". He also declared that he was no longer an advisor to the 'bank'.

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.

An investment officer with Lines Overseas Management (Cayman) Limited has been caught misleading potential clients about his credentials by claiming in promotional literature that he sits on the board of advisors of a Bermuda bank that does not exist, we can reveal. At the centre of the controversy is Scott Oliver, a Scotsman who describes himself as an 'offshore financial strategist' for LOM, working from the company's offices in Buckingham Square, West Bay Road, Grand Cayman.