Extradite Strachan!
Published:Sunday | February 20, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Livern Barrett, Sunday Gleaner Writer
THE POLICE have not ruled out the possibility of seeking the extradition of the head of the failed investment scheme, World Wise Partners, but that is not an indication that investors will get their money back anytime soon.
Noel Strachan, who headed the scheme, is believed to have relocated to Florida in the United States, and local investigators are looking at using the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to get him back home.
"We will be seeking the DPP's (Director of Public Prosecutions) assistance through the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty for this person," head of the police Fraud Squad, Superintendent Colbert Edwards, told a recent Gleaner Editors' Forum.
"That is what we would seek," Edwards added when asked if the police would try to have Strachan extradited to Jamaica.
However, Edwards cautioned that the language contained in the documents signed by investors would make it difficult for the police to prove any impropriety against the World Wise boss.
Two-pronged probe
According to Edwards, the Fraud Squad has reopened its probe into the operation of World Wise Partners with a two-pronged approach.
He said in addition to probing allegations made by several investors who lost millions of dollars in the investment scheme, Fraud Squad investigators are also looking at the possibility of filing charges against the company for operating without the required regulatory approval.
Edwards said his detectives had already collected several statements from World Wise investors and would be writing to the Financial Services Commission (FSC) for additional information.
World Wise Partners was one of several unregulated financial schemes that lured investors with the promise of huge dividends. It began to crumble after it was served with a cease-and-desist order by the FSC in August 2008.
This triggered a slew of civil suits as investors, local and overseas, tried to recover hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into the organisation.
Last week, The Sunday Gleaner tried without success to contact Strachan.
Directing payouts
When we contacted the company's head office in New Kingston, the person who answered the telephone said Strachan was in Florida, from where he is directing the payout to investors.
"Mr Strachan is working on a plan to pay off all clients this year. We have not gotten the plan yet, but he said we should get it soon," said the person, who did not give a name or title.
The 'employee' claimed that World Wise made full restitution to several investors last November, but the FSC could not confirm this.
"Nobody has any information on what they do and how they do it," said FSC
The Sunday Gleaner sent several questions to an email address the 'employee' claimed belonged to Strachan, but there was no response up to late yesterday.
World Wise Partners was one of a rash of unregulated investment schemes, offering returns as high as 200 per cent a year, which mushroomed in Jamaica in the 1990s.
Most of the schemes operated quietly, if not below the radar, until the authorities, fearing the possibility of Ponzi schemes and/or money laundering, began to crack down on the businesses.
The FSC's first targets were the foreign exchange trader, Olint, and an independent agent, LewFam, whose offices were raided and documents taken away.
Another scheme which attracted the attention of many Jamaicans, the Carlos Hill-led Cash Plus, also crashed after it was unable to repay its investors.