‘I believed in David’ – Olint investors losing hope

‘I believed in David’ – Olint investors losing hope

Published :Jamaica-Gleaner
Sunday | February 8, 2009

Tyrone Reid, Staff Reporter

THE RECENT arrest of Olint boss David Smith has shaken the faith of some investors who remained faithful to the faltering investment scheme and their embattled financial ‘messiah’.

Last Thursday, Smith was arrested and charged in the Turks and Caicos Islands following a probe into fraud allegations against him.

An investor, who requested anonymity, told The Sunday Gleaner that he really thought the charismatic Smith could take them to the financial Promised Land. “I believed in David,” he said.

The investor, who is a prominent businessman, said Smith was like the Pied Piper of the financial world.

Never asked for money

According to the businessman, it was the investors who sought out Smith. “I don’t remember David ever asking a man for money. He is like the Pied Piper – people just following and want to give him money.”

The investor added, “I approached him (and) if you are talking to him, just socially, you almost want to give him more.” The investor said he “took a big lick” because he had a lot of money in Olint when it closed down.

While admitting some disappointment over his loss, the investor said the writing was already on the wall. “I knew the risk going in. … You (are) taking a chance. We were all warned with what the FSC said … so what are you going to do?”

Not easy for investors

While he has counted his losses and is moving on, the businessman said that it might not be so easy for other investors who mortgaged their homes to get the cash to place in Olint’s foreign-exchange trading club.

The businessman claimed that Smith’s family members and close friends, as well as “a lot of churches” invested in Olint.

After Olint’s offices were raided by the Financial Services
Commission (FSC) in March 2006, Wayne Smith, the Olint boss’ brother, said the church community was praying without ceasing for his sibling.

Not finished

Bishop Peter Morgan of City Life Ministries told The Sunday Gleaner that although Smith has been arrested and charged, it is not finished until lady justice sings.

“Until the court makes its judgement, I could not make that judgement,” he said.

The bishop said members of the Church, who believed in Smith, are still on their knees. “We have intensified our prayers definitely for him as a person, and for the entire forex movement,” Morgan said.

The clergyman said he still believed “in the sincerity of David Smith”.

Movement can be saved

Smith’s arrest might be a defining blow against alternate investment schemes but Bishop Morgan believes the movement can be saved.

“The whole thing can still be redeemed and that is what I pray towards.” Morgan also said the Government could have handled the alternate investment schemes differently, attempting to regulate them, rather than forcing them to lock shop.

While admitting that he lost money when Olint crumbled, Bishop Morgan said some of his “friends and colleagues suffered more – mostly churchfolk, both locally and overseas,” he said.

tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com

Olint boss arrested

Posted: 2009-02-05

By www.radiojamaica.com

The Turks and Caicos Police have arrested Olint boss David Smith. It has been confirmed that Mr Smith was arrested on fraud related charges about 3 p.m. Assistant Superintendent Mark Knighton of the Turks and Caicos Financial Investigation Unit told our news centre a short while ago that the arrest follows months of investigation According to Knighton there are no immediate plans to make another arrest in the matter but he said this does not rule out the possibility that more people could be placed behind bars. Concerns were first raised about the operations of the investment scheme Olint after it started having difficulties making payouts to its clients. In July last year members of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force, raided David Smith’s house and seized documents and computers. This is the second major blow for the failed investment club. Olint, which operated in Jamaica, had been fighting to keep its account open with the National Commercial Bank. But last week, the London-based Privy Council ruled that the bank should go ahead and close the accounts. These developments have further raised doubts that investors will be able to recoup the money they had invested in the club.

Court rejects request to freeze Olint money

Court rejects request to freeze Olint money

Published by Jamaica Gleaner:
Sunday | February 8, 2009
Barbara Gayle, Senior Staff Reporter

AN INVESTOR in the troubled David Smith-led foreign-exchange trading club, Olint, has failed in his bid to have the Supreme Court bar the National Commercial Bank (NCB) from paying over money which it holds in accounts opened by Olint.

Dr Christopher Walker, who lives and practises in Florida, claimed that he had US$2.4 million invested with Olint and for the past 17 months, he has not received any money from his account.

He said he feared that if the money in the NCB accounts was paid to Olint, it would be dissipated without the trading club settling its debts.

Ownership of Olint money

According to Dr Walker, a substantial amount of the money in the Olint accounts belonged to him.

He was seeking an injunction from the Supreme Court to bar NCB from paying out the money to Olint. He said he wanted the money to remain in the Olint accounts for at least 15 days.

This would give him time to obtain the support of like-minded investors so they could pursue a final order to bar NCB from paying out the money to Olint.

Attorney-at-law David Rowe, who also practises at the Florida Bar, represented Dr Walker.But Michael Hylton, QC, who is representing NCB, opposed the application which was heard in chambers last Friday before Justice Lloyd Hibbert.

Last week, the United Kingdom Privy Council gave NCB the go-ahead to close Olint’s account.

The Court of Appeal had ruled last year that the account should remain open until the civil suit between Olint and NCB had been determined.

Failed to comply

The bank had served notice on Olint that it was going to close its accounts because it had failed to comply with certain requests, which included the presentation of audited financial statements.

Olint went to the Supreme Court, which turned down its application to bar NCB from closing the accounts. Olint appealed and the Court of Appeal ruled in its favour.

But NCB took the issue to the United Kingdom Privy Council and won.

Smith was arrested last Thursday in the Turks and Caicos Islands on fraud charges. He is on US$1 million bail with surety. The arrest stemmed from months of investigations into the operations of Olint.

The Jamaican Court of Appeal is to hear legal arguments tomorrow in an appeal which Olint has brought against a Supreme Court ruling in December 2007.

The court upheld a cease-and-desist order issued by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) in March 2006. The FSC issued the cease-and-desist order on the grounds that Olint had breached the Securities Act and was not licensed to carry out foreign currency trading activities.

Police await formal local complaints against Smith

Published: Saturday | February 7, 2009
By the jamaica Gleaner

Local police investigators say they are yet to receive any formal complaints from Jamaica against Olint boss, David Smith.

On Thursday, Smith was arrested and charged in the Turks and Caicos Islands following a probe into fraud allegations against him.

Smith is on charges of theft, false accounting and uttering false documents.

He has since been granted bail and is to appear in court in August.

Head of the Major Investigation Task Force, Assistant Commissioner Les Green, says investigators have received complaints from investors outside the Jamaican jurisdiction.

He says the local complaints have not been “of substance”.

“We would ask if any one feels that they have been defrauded and that they invested money in Jamaica, that they contact the Fraud Squad.”

Deputy Commissioner of Police in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Hubert Hughes, says Smith’s arrest follows months of investigations.

The Turks police are also not ruling out coming to Jamaica as part of their investigation.

In the meantime, the Turks authorities are continuing to examine the documents they seized from Smith’s house and offices last year.

The developments in the Olint case have raised further doubts that investors will be able to recoup the millions of dollars they placed in the failed financial investment scheme.