John Wayne Zidar

Police in Bermuda have carried out raids on several offices on the island, including those of law firm Appleby Spurling and Kempe, looking for documents as part of a criminal investigation, reported The Royal Gazette newspaper on July 22, 2003; A Canadian Alliance MP wants Canada to investigate the possibility of annexing the idyllic Turks and Caicos Islands, reported the National Post, of Canada, on July 15, 2003; A court in Zurich, Switzerland, has sentenced Greek businessman Panagiotis A. Papadakis to 23 months and 16 days in prison for fraud, according to a newsletter published by the International Chamber of Commerce's Commercial Crimes Bureau; Former janitor John Wayne Zidar, 60, who orchestrated a Ponzi scheme that took in approximately $74 million from about 3,200 people in the United States and elsewhere, including Bermuda, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on July 28, 2003 at the U. S. District Court for the District of Western Washington; Mazars Neville Russell, the administrators of the Imperial Consolidated Group, have recovered relatively few assets for distribution to its clients and creditors, if a recent filing with Companies House for England & Wales is anything to go by; Just 15 months after they were formed, voluntary applications have been made to strike off two companies that were set up by former senior officers of the Imperial Consolidated Group to carry on in business as IC was collapsing after defrauding investors of $345 million; and A publicly-traded firm in the United States has written off its entire $1 million investment with Omnicorp Bank, which was closed down by regulators in St. Vincent last year but only after the bank's depositors were asked to convert their CDs to preferred shares in a highly dubious U. S.-registered, Canadian-based firm called Solara Ventures.

A former janitor whose groups persuaded Bermudians to cash in their pension plans and invest in fraudulent 'get-rich-quick' schemes has received a 30-year prison sentence in the United States.John Wayne Zidar, 60, of Gardnerville, Nevada, orchestrated a Ponzi scheme that took in approximately $74 million from about 3,200 people in the United States, Bermuda and other countries.

European Federal Union Bank Ltd. falsely claims to be based in Antigua; Barbados Central Bank revokes license of Keywest Swiss Investment Bank Inc.; DIAK Bank's Clifford Pitt fails in an attempt to quash a subpoena duces tecum; John Wayne Zidar is gound guilty of fraud and money laundering; US federal court approves IRS motion to serve John Doe summons on MasterCard International for investigation into tax evasion using offshore credit cards; Offshore bankers Julien Giraud and Brian Boeger have each been sentenced to 37 months in prison in the United States; and an auction of property belonging to Imperial Consolidated is due to take place in England.

Donald Alan Mueller was a salesman by heart and by vocation. He operated, for many years, as a real-estate business in Ohio.  He worked with customers and had good days and bad days. But even on his good days he could be described, at best, as "difficult".  Sometime in the 1990s Mueller became involved with a group of strict constitutionalists similar to groups that went on to media fame and fortune such as the 'Freemen of Montana'. Specifically, Mueller was a member of the Americans for a Constitutional Republic, an organization that doesn't recognize the authority of the police, state or courts.

Ned Richard Hart, who was criminally indicted on February 23, 2000 along with Nevis based offshore provider Raymond David Finzer and Christian G. Cooper, pleaded guilty to one count each of fraud and money laundering on May 21, 2001 at

John Wayne Zidar and four others who were allegedly involved in a multi-million dollar investment fraud that was heavily promoted in Bermuda, as well as other countries, were arrested in April and are currently being held in custody after being criminally indicted at the U. S. District Court for Western Washington on March 28, 2001.

The battle between the US authorities and a group of suspected fraudsters allegedly led by American John Wayne Zidar, whose scheme was heavily promoted in Bermuda, becomes more bizarre by the month.On November 30, 2000, an action was filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of something calling itself the 'Unity-States' against several parties, including the United States, the FBI, the SEC, the US Marshals Service, judges in the US and Western Samoa, the Western Samoan Attorney General, several banks and others, including Zidar himself.

As Bermuda struggles to cope with a recent influx of investment scam operators, one of the schemes heavily promoted on the island has had its assets frozen in the United States. The United States District Court for the Western District of Washington State issued a temporary restraining order on May 10 against several parties accused by the SEC of committing a $40 million fraud. Defendants in the lawsuit are John Wayne Zidar, John Wesley Matthews, Elizabeth Anne Phillips, Oakleaf International, Rosewood International and Meliorations Management Teem.