( Following article received from a Destiny Off Shore Newsletter dated 8th
September )-
Two men held here in interest-rate scam
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Investigators here have arrested two men involved in a
high-interest Internet investment club. Police also took over real estate, bank
accounts, cash and a yacht.
The announcement came Thursday from Lic. Jorge Rojas Vargas, subdirector of
the Judicial Investigation Organization.
He identified the two men as Allen Richard Waage, 55, a
Canadian citizen, and James Michael Webb, 39, a U.S. citizen.
The investment club is called Tri-West Investment Club, and it operated from
San Diego, Calif., Belize City, Belize, and Nassau, Bahamas. Rojas said that the
club offered investors a 10 percent monthly return.
The men are being held in Costa Rica on currency transportation charges, said
Rojas, because they entered the country with as much as $10 million. The U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved, he said, and the two may face fraud
and money-laundering charges in the U.S.
Rojas said that the club attracted investors from 42 countries.
Mexican officials took Waage into custody in April when he landed on a leased
Lear jet in Puerto Vallarta, according to news reports at the time. His flight was
from Belize to Costa Rica to Mexico, and he was in the company of another
Canadian and a Mexican police official, the reports said. He was carrying $4.5
million in cashier's checks, Mexican police said at the time.
The investment club was said then to have taken in about $50 million from some
6,000 investors. Police then identified him as Alyn Richard Waage. Waage is
believed to have returned to Costa Rica from Mexico after he was let out on
bail.
Tri-West halted monthly interest payments to investors when Waage was
arrested. The club's website still was active Thursday with messages that
software problems and the failure of a bank had halted club activities. The
website promised that club activities would be reinstated in July. The messages
were signed by Jason
Kingsley, president of Tri-West. Some regulators in the United States and
Canada claim that Kingsley is really Waage. The address is
triwestinvest.com
Rojas characterized the operation as a pyramid scheme in which early investors
were paid their monthly interest from money paid in by later investors. He noted
that Tri-West had a new wrinkle in its
operation in that it paid a 15 percent commission to investors who brought new
investors and their money into the club.
Rojas noted that also involved in the operation was Haarlem Universal Corp., a
Panamanian firm. News articles note that investors paid their money to Haarlem,
which maintained the Belize office. Some of the money was shipped as far away
as Latvia, reports said.
Taken over by investigators here, according to Rojas, were:
. a yacht at Los Sueños Resort in Herradura,
. a helicopter at Tobias Bolaños Airport in Pavas,
. two late-model cars,
. the finca El Rancho Marquí in La Garita de Alajuela,
. two properties, each worth about $250,000, in Escazú and a house in
Rohrmoser,
. 720 million colons ($2.2 million) in both colons and dollar banknotes at the
finca,
. paperwork showing deposits in Costa Rican private banks.
Rojas was accompanied during his explanation of the arrests by Lic. Carlos
Arias, head of the Public Ministry, and Francisco Segura Montero, director of
the Center for Antidrug Information. Rojas said that the investigation originally
began as an anti-drug
probe because of the large amount of money that was coming into the country.
Rojas said that investigators believe that Waage brought in about $10 million to
Costa Rica when he arrived in April. The money was used to purchase the
property that was confiscated. he said.
The Tri-west operation had been targeted by securities
investigators in a number of U.S. states, Canadian provinces, New Zealand and
other countries since summer 2000. The Internet provides links to a number of
individual legal actions against the club and residents who tried to recruit new
investors and earn their 15 percent. Most securities regulations insist that
anyone who gets a commission on a transaction be licensed.
The Internet also provides links to discussion boards where investors and
would-be investors chat about the legitimacy of Tri-West. Some crow that they
have gotten their original investment back. Others express fears that
governments will try to crush small investors who deal offshore.
Tri-West said it made its money by dealing in bank debenture trading programs
and prime bank instruments. The British Columbia Securities Commission in
Vancouver issued a cease-and-desist order against Tri-West and local
promoters in
April. At that time, it said Tri-West had a $1,000 investment minimum and had
nearly 21,000 investors. |
