Terry Dowdell

Two United Kingdom-based former accountants have been sentenced to prison after being found guilty of perpetrating a $200 million investment fraud, in part through an offshore bank in the Caribbean. Shinder Gangar, 46, and Alan White, 49, were each sentenced to prison-terms of seven-and-a-half years at Sheffield Crown Court, in England, on April 11, 2008, comprising six years each for conspiracy to defraud and 18 months each for conspiracy to corrupt a United States official, to be served consecutively. In addition, they have both been disqualified from being company directors in the UK for 12 years.

Nine people have been indicted for fraud in the United States regarding an investment scheme that was perpetrated through a Bahamas shell company. The indictment was brought at the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia on February 28, 2007 against Shinder Singh Gangar, 45, a United Kingdom national residing in England; Alan White, 48, a U.K. national residing in England; Birgit Mechlenburg, a.k.a. Gitte Mechlenburg, a resident of Massachusetts; Kenneth Mason, a U. S. national residing in Chicago, Illinois; Michael Hardesty, a U. S. national residing in Utah; Mark Smyth, a U. S. national residing in California; Gregory Smyth, 56, a U. S. national residing in California; Mary Dowdell, 49, a U. S. national residing in Charlottesville, Virginia and wife of Terry L. Dowdell, who is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to related fraud charges in June, 2004; and Rebecca Dowdell, 30, the daughter of Terry Dowdell and a U. S. national residing in Charlottesville, Virginia.

A United Kingdom-based accounting firm accused of fraud involving an offshore bank has gone into liquidation and its two partners declared bankrupt. Orders to wind-up Dobb White & Co., of Leicester and Nottingham, in England, and bankrupt Shinder Singh Gangar and Alan White were issued by the UK High Court on December 2, 2003.

A federal court in the United States has entered a $130 million judgment against a businessman who perpetrated an investment fraud using several offshore structures. The judgment, entered on June 6, 2003 at the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, requires Terry Dowdell to pay disgorgement of $121.2 million, $8.6 million in prejudgment interest and a fine of $1 million.

Christopher Stone, ex-Managing Director of now-defunct, Dominica-based Investors Bank and Trust Ltd. was released from custody in Belgium in February on bail of 125,000 Euros, said a source; A default judgment for $130 million was entered against Bahamas-registered Vavasseur Corp. at the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia on February 21, 2003 for its part in an international Ponzi scheme; Grenada Supreme Court issued a $125 million judgment against Van Arthur Brink, a.k.a. Gilbert Allen Ziegler, former head of the First International Bank of Grenada; Allen Wheatley, former Financial Secretary of the British Virgin Islands, was sentenced to serve five months in prison on February 17 after being found guilty of corruption charges; Cayman Islands-based businessman Kenneth Dart has acquired a 5.7 per cent stake in financially crippled, Bermuda-based insurance firm Mutual Risk Management; British trader Sean Alexander Quinn, 36, was released from prison in Barbados on December 5, 2002 after pleading guilty to an amended charge of money laundering; Receivers for the fraudulently-operated asset planning group Merrill Scott & Associates have found $1.03 million of assets in the Cayman Islands; The Bahamas Ministry of Finance expects to receive a report on the status of the financially-troubled Bahamas International Securities Exchange in the first week of March, 2003; The number of companies incorporating in the Cayman Islands has steadily decreased over the last three years, according to a report by Cayman Net News based on information provided by the Registry General; Florida-based Briton Edward Myles Chism Jr., 63, was taken into custody in Florida on February 7, 2003 - one day after being criminally indicted on three counts of tax evasion at federal court in Miami; Bermuda may be about to lose its grip at the top of the offshore world; and The Irish Minister for Justice has applied to Ireland's High Court for an order directing the Cayman Islands branch of Ansbacher International to pay US$3.1 million to cover the costs of a long-running inquiry into corruption and tax evasion.

A business associate of the now-closed Overseas Development Bank & Trust Ltd., of Dominica, has pleaded guilty to 20 felony charges, including securities fraud, money laundering and wire fraud.The charges relate to a multi-million dollar fraudulent trading program that Terry L. Dowdell operated through his Bahamas-registered firm, Vavasseur Corporation, starting in 1998.

Investors Bank and Trust Ltd., formerly known as Overseas Development Bank and Trust Ltd., has been taken over by regulators in its home jurisdiction of Dominica.PricewaterhouseCoopers was appointed controller of the bank on August 20, 2002 because IBT was "insolvent" and "unable to meet its obligations", according to Prime Minister Pierre Charles.