Steven Thayer

Nevis Court of Appeals issues bizarre ruling against Millennium Financial fraud victims and in favor of their alleged tormentor (Ian Scott, who is currently under indictment in California); in a separate action, asset planners in the US allegedly portrayed Nevis as the perfect place to hide money from creditors, according to a client who claimed to have been defrauded by those selling him the plan; The U. K. Serious Fraud Office suffers another reverse as a jury acquits former Imperial Consolidated principals Jared Brook and Lincoln Fraser on one fraud count and is undecided on another; and the SFO hopes to have better luck with recently-filed fraud charges against Terry Lindon and Giles Hutchinson, who were involved in an Imperial Consolidated spin-off known as Invaro.

A Kentucky-based husband-and-wife claim they were swindled after depositing US$1.9 million in an offshore tax planning and asset protection plan involving insurance, trust, and investment-management companies in Anguilla, the Bahamas, and Nevis. Dallen Wendt, 53, and his wife, Peggy Wendt, 50, were told the offshore products in which they invested during 2002 and 2003 carried "no-risk" and returned 8% and 8.5% annually, according to a complaint they filed at the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on June 24, 2008.