Hedge Funds & Mutual Funds

Four plead guilty to Evergreen Security charges

April 30, 2002

Four men have agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges relating to the 'Evergreen Security' investment scam, which defrauded approximately $200 million from more than 2,000 investors.They are Thomas Spencer, 51; Robert W. Boyd, 55; and Martin W. Boelens Jr., 45, all of Orlando, Florida; and Anthony V. Micciche, 72, of Tampa, Florida.Spencer and Boyd are shareholders of Bahamas-based Surety Bank and Trust (in liquidation), which ended up with some of the proceeds from the fraud.

Fund manager Ian Renert signed documents in names of pet geese, claims SEC

June 30, 2001

Investment advisor Ian Renert has been portrayed in a lawsuit as a bungling fraudster who genuinely believes that bank debenture trading programs exist and who signed mutual fund documents in the names of his pet geese.Renert, who controlled 36 mutual fund firms that were mostly incorporated in the Bahamas, has been accused of defrauding at least 850 investors who invested $22 million from June, 1997 to April, 1999.

Businessmen indicted over Evergreen Security alleged fraud

June 30, 2001

Three businessmen have been criminally indicted in the United States for allegedly stealing $27.7 million from British Virgin Islands-registered  mutual fund Evergreen Security Ltd.William J. Zylka, James P. Conroy and Martin W. Boelens Jr. were each charged with two or more counts of Grand Larceny at the Supreme Court of the State of New York on June 7, 2001.

Bank accounts frozen after Cash 4 Titles businessman arrested

October 31, 1999

Two weeks after an article in the September 30th edition of OffshoreAlert about a Bahamas-based mutual fund - Olympia Fund - that invests in a business known as Cash 4 Titles, C4T's funds were frozen following criminal and civil action in the United States.The problems came with the arrest in Fort Lauderdale on October 15 of Michael E. Gause, who helps to run the underlying business in which the fund invests.

‘Legalized loan-sharking’ fund launched in Bahamas

September 30, 1999

A Bahamas-registered mutual fund has been set up to invest in a controversial industry in which high-interest loans are issued to low income people who use their pay checks and car titles as collateral.Some call it legalized loan-sharking, others call it a cash life-line to the poor. To investors in Olympia Fund Limited, though, it is, perhaps, best called a means to earning above-average returns.