Howard Turney

The long-awaited criminal trial of Bahamas resident Yank Barry in Texas on charges that he bribed a prison governor to secure a lucrative contract for his soy-based food firm called VitaPro is due to start on August 7, 2001 following previous delays; A look at OffshoreBanc.com; Kevin Mann, Registrar of Mutual Funds in the British Virgin Islands, has issued a Cease and Desist Order against Ian Renert's so-called Equivest Premier Holdings (BVI) Inc., which has been holding itself out to be an offshore mutual fund manager; Evergreen Security - details about creditors and how much they are owed; The 'New Utopia' farce continues; Bahamian Hubert Bowe is still trotting out press releases at www.alexandersworld.net claiming that he is about to "break ground" on a major development called Alexander's World; The last remains of FIBG's sham insurer, IDIC, disappeared recently when its web-site at www.idic-ec.org went off-line; The purchase of about 10 million shares in Manchester United PLC for some GBP28 million (US$40 million) by BVI-registered The Cuban Expression Company Ltd. - pushing its overall stake up to 6.77 per cent - caused quite a stir among business and soccer reporters in England; Further misrepresentation by The Harris Organization of Panama; and Paul de Weerd leaves his position as Superintendent of the Turks & Caicos Financial Services Commission.

A scheme to build a new offshore tax haven called New Utopia off the coast of the Cayman Islands has collapsed following legal action by the Securities & Exchange Commission. A federal judge in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this month granted the SEC's application to freeze all money raised by Lazarus Long (a.k.a. Howard Turney) for his New Utopia project through a fraudulent bond offering.

Cayman Islands Government award members huge salary increases, McKeeva Bush offers $200,000 to settle $1 million liability, according to First Cayman Bank liquidators; Antigua journalist Tim Hector continues to publish despite printing presses being destroyed in an arson attack, the dubious past of New Utopia conman Prince Lazarus Long, a.k.a. Howard Turney; First Nevisian Group forms Life Offshore Group of Companies, Barron's magazine rips into Agora's The Oxford Club.

Offshore Alert has uncovered evidence that a widely-publicised scheme to build a new offshore tax haven called New Utopia off the coast of the Cayman Islands to, inter alia, compete with Bermuda in offshore insurance appears to be an elaborate advance fee fraud. That allegation is supported by the fact that the public is currently being urged to order New Utopian currency by sending off funds to an Antiguan bank that we exposed as a fraud last month.