Harlequin’s David Ames disobeys court order, fails to give evidence in court. What now for investors?

David Ames – Harlequin’s Ponzi King

TLW Solicitors are here to help on a no-win no-fee basis

contributed by TLW Solicitors

Following recent reports of the Harlequin Properties’ headquarters going up for sale and the company’s chairman David Ames failing to give evidence in court, those who have lost out financially through the scheme are assured that they may still be entitled to compensation.

The Harlequin Property company was set to build 6000 luxury properties in the Caribbean, financed by deposits from UK investors. With only 300 of the properties actually built and the Harlequin Group having gone into liquidation, thousands of investors have been left in debt.

Rip Off Britain

The BBC’s consumer affairs programme Rip Off Britain investigated Harlequin Property for a second time earlier this year, after an initial broadcast in 2010. Although some early investors had been able to claim back their money, the returning of more recent deposits has been ruled out by the company since it entered liquidation.

Around 3000 UK investors are thought to have been involved in the Harlequin investments scheme. Chairman David Ames blamed the problems on the 2008 global recession and claims to have been let down by developers.

Recent evidence suggests the Harlequin case has been flawed from the start, with suggestions that it never owned much of the land it intended to build properties on, and a business model that relied wholly on continued foreign investment. (BFP Editor’s note: It’s called a ‘Ponzi Scheme’. We’ll say it, even if TLW Solicitors won’t.)

Investigations into Harlequin hotels & resorts

Harlequin Property has been subject to an ongoing investigation by the SFO (Serious Fraud Office) since 2013 and two warnings by the Financial Services Authority (FSA). 

Currency trader illegally made US$300 million for UBS Swiss Bank – He goes to jail, the big-shots keep their jobs and bonuses!!

“But so far, no senior executives have been prosecuted in a scandal that helped shred public faith in an industry and has cost some of the world’s biggest banks and brokerages $9 billion in fines and seen 21 people charged…”

Oh my children; gather round and Daddy will tell you a story of how the world really works…

In 2006 Tom Hayes was an intelligent nice young man of 25 years old who loved the numbers of finance; so much so that UBS Swiss Bank hired him to be a yen derivatives trader for their Tokyo office.

And Tom did an excellent job for UBS – earning the Swiss bank over US$300 million dollars in three years and 45,000 trades. YIKES!

Excellent job except for one thing… Tom was conspiring with other people to rig the markets, and he sent out thousands of emails to do it.

Did his bosses know? Ha! Does cheese go well on toast?

Now Tom and a few other low level people will probably be going to jail.

But the bosses? Everything be so fine, just fine. UBS and Citigroup paid fines, but none of those bosses will go to jail or lose their jobs.

Children… this is the way the world is.

Same same in Barbados. Everywhere.

Say… do we have branches of UBS or Citigroup in Barbados? Really? Well…

Insight – How Libor whiz Rain Man became ‘the guy everyone was going to blame’

He was so obsessed with the numbers that he did not see his downfall coming.

The first trader convicted by a jury in the global Libor rate-rigging scandal was a maths whiz nicknamed “Rain Man”, who slept as an adult under a superhero duvet cover he had owned since he was eight. 

Banking executive from CIBC’s FirstCaribbean International Bank carried FIFA bribe!

Why would a CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank executive travel from the Bahamas to New York to personally pick up a US$250,000 cheque?

Why not just wire the funds? Why not send the cheque via courier?

The answer appears to be that the US$250,000 was being money-laundered by one of FIFA’s top officials, Chuck Blazer. After picking up the cheque in New York, the banking executive returned to the Bahamas and deposited the cheque into Blazer’s personal offshore account.

I didn’t really catch onto this at first. I thought it was a situation where the CIBC had been unknowningly duped or had a client misuse the bank. But that isn’t what happened according to the articles in the press – the CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank was directly and knowingly involved in money-laundering.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Anyone who has seen the award-winning documentary about the 2008 meltdown – Inside Job – knows that the banks are rotten to the core, and in conjunction with bribed elected and appointed officials ensure that the motto of the inside crowd remains “Profits are private. Losses are public.”

Closer to home just look at Clico and the Barbados DLP government.

But for you and me though, just miss a mortgage payment or don’t pay taxes and see what happens. Wuhloss!

FIFA scandal exacerbates Canadian banks’ Caribbean troubles

An eyebrow-raising disclosure in the U.S. indictment of FIFA officials is that a representative of a Caribbean bank made it easy for one allegedly illegal transaction to be done by flying to New York to personally collect a check and then returned to deposit it in an account in the Bahamas.

This unusual courier service, which reduced the electronic trail on a $250,000 payment to former FIFA official Chuck Blazer in May 2011, was provided by an unnamed officer of Barbados-based CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank, the indictment shows. CIBC FirstCaribbean is a subsidiary of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Canada’s fifth-largest bank.

That cheque, U.S. prosecutors allege, was part of a $10 million bribe paid in return for the votes of then FIFA vice president Jack Warner, Blazer and another FIFA official in support of South Africa being granted the rights to host the 2010 World Cup.  

David Ames running from the courts: Percival Stewart v Harlequin Properties

David Ames – Harlequin’s Ponzi King

Both Affidavits can’t be true!

Some interesting reading from a recent court case [March 2015] in St Vincent where Dave Ames is no stranger to litigation.

Percival Stewart v Harlequin Properties (Caribbean) Limited et al

In this case  on Page 4 the judge rules on the audacious delays by Ames in filing statements…

“Mr Commissiong deposes that Mr Ames lives in England and travels a lot globally making it difficult for him to be in Saint Vincent to testify. Implicit in Mr Commissiong’s averments is the notion that for those reasons, it was impossible or extremely difficult to contact Mr Ames, receive instructions from him, or arrange for him to sign a witness statement. I make the observation that the CPR permits a party to file and serve a witness summary if he is not able to provide a witness statement, and that a witness does not need to be in the jurisdiction to sign or attest either document.”

(download court document pdf here)

Now this is totally the opposite of what lawyers and Ames claimed last October 2014 (in the group of 33 investors failed case) when the judge was told that the company was NOT run from Essex. (See Judge rules against Harlequin investors in £1.8m court case)

“The case did not centre on whether or not the investors were owed money, a point which deputy judge Nicolas Strauss QC noted ‘does not appear to be in dispute’. Instead it focussed on whether a UK court could wind up Buccament Bay, given that the company was incorporated in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

While the investments were sold through Essex-based Harlequin Management Services (South East), which filed for administration in April 2013, Strauss ruled that Harlequin’s ventures including Buccament Bay were not run with ‘bird’s eye management from Essex’. He agreed that they were largely managed in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and therefore this was the correct jurisdiction to apply for a winding up petition.”

The fact that Mr Commissiong’s claim that Ames couldn’t possibly find the time to be in St Vincent for the Stewart case makes a complete nonsense of Ames’ submission to the UK court that the Harlequin business was entirely run from the Caribbean and therefore the UK court’s jurisdiction does not apply.

Quite obviously both Affidavits cannot be true and both evade bringing Harlequin and Ames to account.

Harlequin selling Headquarters building for £525,000 – Where is the £400million taken from investors?

We’d say it was like selling off the family silverware, except there is no silverware left. Probably never was any.

After slickly removing £400 million from little old ladies and transit pensioners, David Ames and his gang are selling off their headquarters to pay the bills.

The Serious Fraud Office and the Essex Police have had an open file on the bunch since early 2013, but after two years Ames is still walking around with the rotting financial corpses of thousands of victims in his wake.

Two years should be long enough for the police and the SFO to do the job. What’s the delay?

From the Professional Adviser…

Troubled Harlequin puts HQ up for sale

Troubled overseas property investment scheme Harlequin has put its headquarters up for sale.

The warehouse and offices in the Honywood Business Park in Basildon have been listed for sale on property website Rightmove for £525,000. Harlequin owner David Ames would also consider leasing back the first floor offices at a rent of £25,000 per year, according to the advert.

A spokesperson for the company said: “Harlequin owns its Basildon offices and occupies the first floor of Unit 11, with all other space let to third parties.

“Harlequin is attempting to sell in order to discharge its liability and remove its responsibilities as a lessor.”

The move raises further questions over the financial situation of the company, which has received £400m from investors that they are currently unable to access.

Unregulated investment scheme Harlequin worked by taking deposits from mainly UK pension investors to build off-plan properties in the Caribbean, which could then be sold at a profit on completion or used to generate a rental income from holidaymakers. But out of a scheduled 6,000 properties, about 300 have been built.

… read the rest at the Professional Adviser

Gareth Fatchett of Regulatory Legal offers some advice to Harlequin victims

Harlequin Investor Update March 2015 from Regulatory Legal News on Vimeo.

Meanwhile at the Financial Services Compensation Scheme…

Financial advisers could be on the hook for hundreds of millions of pounds after the latest twist in the Harlequin saga in which the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has written down the value of the investment to nil.

In a document from the FSCS seen by Professional Adviser, dated 12 February and marked ‘compensation calculation’, the body lists the value of a Harlequin Property investment as £0.00.

A FSCS spokesperson confirmed the decision.

“Where applicable we will disregard the residual value in respect of Harlequin investments,” they said.

The move opens the floodgates for the FSCS to pay the thousands of Harlequin investors compensation on the full amount they put into the unregulated scheme, up to a £50,000 limit.

With around £400m originally invested in Harlequin, the compensation bill is set to run into hundreds of millions of pounds, putting it on a par with other investment disasters like Keydata and Arch cru.

As in those cases, the bulk of the cost of the compensation is likely to be borne by investment advisers.

Read the entire article: Spectre of £400m compensation bill looms as FSCS values Harlequin at nil

Sales persons are liable for Harlequin pension losses!

Oh boy!

“Financial advisers who recommended clients switch their pensions into self-invested schemes heavily exposed to investments being marketed by embattled overseas property group Harlequin are legally liable for losses, the Financial Services Compensation Scheme confirmed…”

… from the Financial Times article Advisers are liable for Harlequin pension transfer losses

Yup…

Do them. Do them all. Lead them away in handcuffs and beat them on the way to jail.

Lives ruined. Pensions devoured.

Barbados politicians played a pivotal role as enablers for David Ames and his gang. Do them all.

Does Leroy Parris of CLICO infamy have anything to do with Welches Insurance Agent Inc. ?

Editor’s note: Remember folks… this is an anonymous blog so don’t take anything for true without a little salt and lots of questions. We received this anonymously and have no way to check the information.

If it is true, it is news. If it’s not true, it was sent by some anonymous mischief troublemaker…

submitted by anonymous…

I would like for somebody to tell me how it is that Faye Wharton-Parris wife of CLICO Ex boss Leroy Parris has so boldly displayed on the door next to her business Premier Event Services Inc @ Welches Plaza a sign with the name Welches Insurance.

Are people so blind or is it that they don’t know of this newly formed insurance Company? I know for a fact that it is belongs to them. The PARRISES making jokes at us and turning some Bajans into parros because they can’t get their investments back.

Name    WELCHES INSURANCE AGENT INC.
Number    37958
Category    Company
Date registered / Incorporated    2014-02-18

Bushy Park – Truth and Concerns

Editor’s Note: We received this post anonymously, and like anything you read here at BFP or in the mainstream press you should keep your mind open and at the same time remember that BFP is an anonymous website. The blogs are still the wild west when it comes to accuracy… it might be true, it might not be.

It’s like this… blogs are the same as watching News Anchor Brian Williams on NBC News or Dan Rather at CBS: what they say might be true, or it might not be. Same same…

Bushy Park Truth and Concerns

by anonymous

After reading two articles in the press late last year regarding the new Bushy Park facility I think it is time that Barbadians hear the full truth about this development, my understanding is…

1. The Government of Barbados and by extension the PEOPLE of Barbados own the land.
2. Investors (SOME STILL TO BE IDENTIFIED) have erected buildings on said land presumably with a contract. Surely the details of said contract should be available to the public seeing that the land is owned by the TAXPAYERS of Barbados.
3. Mr Stephen Lashley, Minister of Sport has confirmed that part of this contract stipulates that the facility shall be leased to other SPORTING organisations at a reasonable rate after discussion with the primary shareholder, that being Government.
4. Who are the real investors in the new facility at Bushy Park?
5. Why has PERMANENT branding been allowed, which prohibits competing entities from branding their products even if they sponsor an event there? Case in point – LIME is not allowed to advertise because DIGICEL is already there .
6. Is Bushy Park Motor Sport Inc (BPMSI) a shareholder in the new development and if not what gives them the right to charge fees for the useage of the track?
7. Is it true that the revenue from the Top Gear festival went directly to BPMSI?
8. Is it true that there is a law suit pending with regard to the use of the RALLY CROSS name being used without permission at the said Top Gear event?
9. Is it also true that a certain individual has threatened to dig up the track if his demands are not met?
10. As majority owners at Bushy Park should Government not have a representative on the Board which administers the facility?

How is it possible for BPCI to employ and I assume PAY:

General Manager
Business Manager
Secretary
CEO which position was not advertised locally

… when they only had two events last year and only have one event planned for this year?

Barbadians need answers to these questions and more as it seems in today’s world MONEY does all the talking.

DOUBLE STANDARD: Another corrupt Barbados lawyer and politician walks free after paying back the money he stole

Who loaned Speaker of the House Michael Carrington the money to pay back what he purloined from his trust account?

Why should thieving lawyers be able to walk free once caught – if they pay back the money they took?

Did the Barbados Bar Association audit Carrington’s trust account?

Citizens demand transparency!

When ordinary folk get caught stealing, they can’t just hand back the money, automobile or whatever they stole and walk free, so why should Barbados lawyers and politicians have that privilege?

Barbados lawyers and politicians have something like a gentleman’s agreement between themselves that it is best for the profession if misdeeds are covered up. So the Barbados Bar Association and the political parties talk about integrity and accountability – but they don’t really want to see any of their good ‘ol boys network behind bars.

They also know that it is dangerous to put others in jail who may have as much on you and you do on them! We’ve covered this story time and time again here at BFP.

Old boy network covers for a corrupt politician and lawyer

No surprise that after lawyer and Speaker of the House Michael Carrington was unable to pay a court order to return almost $250,000 he stole from a client 14 years ago, that the old boy network came up with the money to replace what Carrington illegally took from his trust account. (But after the court and news media said it was almost a quarter million dollars, why did Carrington yesterday pay only just over $200,000?)

It only took 14 years of lawsuit, tears and a life destroyed for a 78 year old senior in a wheelchair, John Griffiths, to receive the money his aunt left him in the year 2000! Michael Carrington was supposed to surrender the money to Griffiths 14 years ago, but kept it for himself and then couldn’t pay it.

Carrington’s trust account has the evidence but the Barbados Bar Association isn’t going to go there. As Speaker of the House, Carrington is part of the elites and is as untouchable as lawyer and former Prime Minister David Thompson who money laundered millions for his friend Leroy Parris.

Nothing changes on this rock no matter which group of political elites is in power.

And the lapdog piss-itself Barbados news media won’t come close to asking the right questions in this story. Bet on that too.

Further Reading

BFP (background story) Barbados Speaker of the House Michael Carrington is a crooked lawyer – stole $250,000 from client – disobeyed court order to pay it back

Jan 30-15 Nation News: Speaker’s cheque handed over

Photo – many thanks to The Nation

Inter-American Development Bank cancels $160m loan for Barbados Four Seasons project

Another monster project left to rot in the Bajan sun

The on again – off again Barbados Four Seasons resort project may have received its final coffin-nail with the IDB finally withdrawing from this decade-old debacle. (Nation News: IDB withdraws loan for Four Seasons)

How much taxpayer funding has the Barbados government poured into this mess? Are we allowed to know? Did the government transfer any of the National Insurance Scheme pension funds to the project developers?

Barbados Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler has made all sorts of claims. In March 2013 he told Bajans that our taxpayer monies would be recovered on the sale of the Four Seasons. Well Mr. Sinckler? Where’s our money?

Back then, BFP’s readers were asked if Bajan taxpayers would recover all the monies that their government invested in the Four Seasons. 50% said we’ll never know the truth, 43.5% said there was not a chance that we would recover the monies. 6.4% said we’d get back all the money, (but that was probably Minister Sinckler himself sitting there for voting for hours.)

Former PM Thompson said that supporting Four Seasons could be “extremely risky” to the DLP Government, but Freundel Stuart went ahead and did it after Thompson died.

“Now of course the first objective is not for Government to give guarantees to projects of this type. So the Government is not available, generally speaking, for that kind of thing and I want to make that abundantly clear. It is extremely risky. It has brought down Governments in other countries and I don’t intend to let it bring down my government. And it can sometimes smack of an element of favouritism and once you start it, it becomes like a rolling stone that will gather moss…and therefore, we have to be very careful,”

February 2, 2010 – Prime Minister David Thompson in the Barbados Advocate article PM defends stance on Four Seasons

Hard Times have arrived in Barbados

We’ve said it before, and we’ll keep saying it…

1/ Shun debt. Shun expenses. Live as frugally as you can.

2/ Work hard, save what you can.

3/ Look after family and friends as you are able because you might need their help someday.

4/ Learn to grow food, repair your own car, maintain your own home. Repair clothes, repair everything. Don’t buy new anything: let some other fool pay the depreciation!

5/ Smile at the tourists, make them feel welcome but never pressured. Pick up the rubbish where you can and never do anything that takes away from the beauty of Bim.

6/ Thank God for what you do have – then get back to working harder than you ever have before.

Harlequin victims hit with new lawsuit from Guardian SIPP

Abandoned Harlequin H Hotel is a testament to Barbados politicians’ greed and incompetence.

Many “investors” in Dave Ames’ Harlequin ponzi scheme lost everything they had and more. Many of the gullible mortgaged their homes to “invest” in Harlequin, and relied upon the promises of Harlequin’s sales representatives. But the sales people knew that no legitimate investment could afford to pay the commissions that Harlequin was paying it’s representatives.

Now after losing everything, Harlequin victims are set to lose even more as Guardian SIPP is suing the investors for non-payment of the fees related to their self-invested personal pension.

Who is to blame for the mess?

Start with David Ames – but lined up with Ames should be the Government of Barbados, that allowed Harlequin companies to get away without oversight, accountability, annual filings and statements for the entire time. And our Government allowed Ames to acquire and start projects with zero oversight or consideration as to whether Ames had the means to finish those projects. As a result, the ‘H’ Hotel and Merricks projects look like bombed out disaster sites that are a testament to the greed and incompetence of the Bajan political class. Another Barbados property investment disaster that sends the wrong message to the world.

It’s fine to say that Ames and his crooked friends are responsible – but they couldn’t have done it without the wholesale purchase of willing politicians in Barbados and throughout the Caribbean.

Professional Adviser: Guardian sues Harlequin investors over SIPP fees

Last Harlequin update by Serious Fraud Office was July 2014

Harlequin Property
25 July 2014

The SFO investigation into The Harlequin Group continues. We have had several reports from worried investors who have recently received information from other sources to suggest that our investigation is now closed. This is not the case.  Due to the complex nature of our investigations and the fact that several overseas jurisdictions are included within the scope of those investigations, it is inevitable that delays in the process of gathering information and evidence will be and have been encountered. It is not possible to issue any more detailed information at this time. Once we are able to issue a further update we will do so.

Many thanks to those who have been in touch to register their details with us at confidential@sfo.gsi.gov.uk

Will the Harlequin Resorts debacle explode in 2015?

David Ames – Harlequin’s Ponzi King

The numbers tell us one giant truth: From the start Harlequin was set up as nothing less than a Ponzi scheme requiring a constant influx of new victims to keep everything going.

Consider these numbers…

– Total “deposits” by victims: US$800 million

– Percentage of “deposits” paid as salary and sales commissions: 50%

– Percentage of “deposits” used to pay interest to earlier “investors”: 22% (estimated, see below)

– Number of units sold: 9,114

– Number of units built: 230

It might be worth Ames and his merry band of supporters considering to remain silent throughout 2015.

To do so would reduce if not eliminate the anti-Harlequin responses no matter how articulate and factual they may be, given that the anti-Harlequin posts in the main are merely responses to the incessant nauseating, repulsive litany of lies emanating from Harlequin and their supporters in their never ending quest to justify “at best” the gross incompetence and abject failure by the Ames family and staff of Harlequin to operate their businesses in a proper manner.

The constant need to allay the blame for the failures of the Ames family and management at Harlequin at the door step of others demonstrates that the Ames family and management of Harlequin are in serious trouble.

And that summary is giving Ames and his cohorts far more benefit of the doubt than the facts say they deserve. The only reason I can think of that they haven’t been arrested as yet is that the Serious Fraud Office has been overwhelmed by the planned worldwide chaotic nature of the fraud through only god knows how many different companies, coupled with legal contracts bearing so much fine print, inter-jurisdictional references and available outs for the criminals.

The resorts will most probably never get built, not in the lifetime of many of the purchasers victims.      

Almost one year since Forbes called Barbados ‘Cyprus West’ – have we changed for the better?

Has Finance Minister Sinckler done the right thing… or is the situation so far out of hand that no government could be effective now?

Barbados, “the Jewel of the Caribbean,” the tiny easternmost island in the Lesser Antilles with 288,000 year-around inhabitants and lots of very rich foreign visitors and investors, is in the throes of a financial meltdown.

While its entire GDP is now only worth about $4.2 billion, and its population is smaller than that of Duluth Minnesota, this crisis is worth examining closely. For here we have a very precise example of the “finance curse,” where excessive dependence on high debt, an aggressive offshore haven industry, very low tax rates for high-net worth investors, foreign companies, and banks, and high tax rates for everyone else, have essentially brought this little country to its knees.

… from the December 2013 Forbes online article Postcard From Barbados — a.k.a. ‘Cyprus West’

See BFP’s January 2014 article Happy New Year 2014: Forbes announces that Barbados is on its knees, in a financial meltdown.

 

Corrupt Barbados politicians prepare to expropriate widow’s land – probably for personal profits

How long must ordinary Bajans put up with corrupt politicians compulsorily acquiring private lands – to be converted into private profits for the political elites and their friends?

“Sobbing uncontrollably, his mother said she was afraid that her house and land would be taken away.” (Nation News)

Minister of Housing and Lands Denis Kellman harassing widow for her property for 18 years

Every Bajan has seen or heard about this before – sometimes involving family, friends or old Aunties. Mostly we keep our mouths shut.

We keep our mouths shut because we know how it is ’bout hey. We know that there is no place to go, and we have to spend the next 70 years on this little island, God willing. Better not to cross the powerful political and financial elites who can have all your family sacked from their jobs over a few months with a word here and there.

Yes, it’s that bad on any of these small islands, including Bim. The outside world over and away in the UK and the USA don’t know the truth about living here.

Denis Kellman has been after widow’s land since 1996 “for the public interest”

Politicians get into power and then they start hunting around for victims. Widows are always high on the hit list. Better if they are money poor and land rich with any adult children living over and away. Usually involves land that was once valuable in crops or far from the city but not worth too much these days unless… unless…

… unless the building permissions are changed by the government. Then scrub land becomes worth gold… but it never happens in the widow’s hands. Never. Never ever. Never.

So the government ‘compulsorily acquires’ the land for some “really important national purpose…” but maybe after the government owns the land for a few years, development doesn’t happen. Budget problems, ya see! So the government sells the land to private interests and sometimes for less than the purchase price.

“When contacted, Kellman admitted that the land was earmarked for development purposes but refused to expand on that.”

Happens all the time… private lands seized by government for agricultural prices. Then the government flips the land to private interests for the same price, then the new owners sell it for thirty, forty or a hundred times the price paid the widow. But it is all engineered from the start. Happens all the time.

“My father bought this land in 1952, built this house in 1953 and he died in 1954 when I was only six years old, leaving this property for me and my mother…

Mr. Edwards said Minister of Housing and Lands Denis Kellman first approached him about the land in 1996.”

… from The Nation article Not Selling

Farmers are a second class of victim. Scrub land that used to be profitable, the farmer getting older and his children professionals or gone away with zero interest in agriculture. So the farmer applies for development permission. Once that permission comes through, his land is worth a fortune.

But it never comes through. He can wait 15 years but he’ll never get permission to develop his land. Then some ‘representatives for a consortium’ quietly approach him with an offer. 

How many Harlequin companies did Dave Ames register in Barbados?

Why so many Harlequin companies?

It happened like this… we were sitting around last Friday discussing how David Ames and his Ponzi partners have more companies than anybody knows about. Marketing done by this company, land held by that company, building done by another company supplied by another company delivering materials.

It all collapsed and left eyesores and abandoned building sites that are a blight upon Barbados and other nations.

And then somebody asked if anyone had run the word “Harlequin” at the Barbados Corporate Affairs and Intellectual Property Office.

Everybody looked at each other with that “aren’t we a bunch of idiots?” look. Nope, nobody had done it.

So we fired up the computer, logged into Anonymouse.org to cover our asses, and did the deed.

Here they are, folks… All the Barbados-registered companies with the word “Harlequin” in their name…

HARLEQUINS
POLLY HARLEQUIN PRODUCTIONS
HARLEQUIN DEVELOPMENTS
HARLEQUIN (BARBADOS) PROPERTY MANAGEMENT LIMITED
HARLEQUIN BOUTIQUE HOTEL LIMITED
HARLEQUIN (BARBADOS) PROPERTY LIMITED
HARLEQUIN LUXURY HOTEL LIMITED
HARLEQUIN BOUTIQUE HOTEL MANAGEMENT LIMITED
HARLEQUIN LUXURY HOTEL MANAGEMENT LIMITED
HARLEQUIN PROPERTY (SVG) LIMITED

Truly, the government looked the other way on all of this. How many of these companies filed proper reports? You know how it is here on this rock… a political donation takes care of having to worry about filing the paperwork for companies. No worries about annual reports if you make a big donation to the ruling party.

With David and Matt Ames as mentors, expect great things from Colonial Capital Group PLC

“That’s quite a team!

With quite a track record: ruined lives, pensions destroyed, homes lost. Suicides. Marriage breakups. Families falling apart as the work of a lifetime vanishes.”

The Ames Gang rides again…

These guys just won’t quit.

Last March saw Harlequin’s Matthew Ames jailed for 40 months for his Forestry for Life fraud that took £1.6million from investors. Ames stole from the rich, from the poor, from widows and pipefitters.

Matt Ames was an equal opportunity swindler who dressed well and talked with such easy confidence that people immediately trusted him. And, hey… didn’t his family develop the acclaimed Harlequin Resorts? Yeah… shouldn’t be any problem with investing in Forestry For Life. Even James Middleton was in the picture! (Oh… you don’t know James? Ah… you might be more familiar with his sister Kate and brother-in-law William: as in “our future King and Queen”.)

One of Matt Ames’ colleagues at Forestry for Life was Kevin Neil – then on the rebound from seeing the High Court shut down his two property firms in the public interest – Agri Ventura PLC and Farm Venture Ltd. Neil was also the main figure in the CleanTech NRG financial collapse.

Three of Kevin Neil’s CleanTech victims. Despite all Mr. Neil’s current directorships and past failed companies, we couldn’t find a photo of Mr. Neil. Can anyone assist?

The Mirror UK called Neil’s business a “Landbanking scam” and reported…