The Offshore Institute

Mired in debt and fraud allegations, offshore businessman Jerry James, President of The Offshore Institute and founder of Colorado-licensed American International Depository & Trust, has died, apparently by suicide.

A state-owned bank in Taiwan has obtained a $25.1 million default judgment over the Government of Grenada regarding unpaid loans, OffshoreAlert can disclose; Bahamian Samuel Knowles, 48, was found guilty on one count of conspiracy to import cocaine and one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine by a jury at federal court in the USA on March 5, 2008; The forced closure by regulators of Colorado's sole remaining 'offshore bank', American Intercapital Depository Trust, on November 19, 2007 was confirmed on January 17, 2008 when no-one turned up to contest the regulatory action at a hearing before the Colorado Division of Banking; and Does anyone remember Alexandre Konanykhine?

Bermuda took another step down the road from well-respected, relatively-clean, model democracy to internationally-ridiculed, corruption-ridden, banana republic when the office of Bermuda's Auditor General, Larry Dennis, was raided by police for the second time in five months on November 17, 2007; Two ex-clients of jailed former Panama-based offshore financial services provider Marc Harris escaped prison-time when they were sentenced for tax evasion-related offenses at the U. S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on November 30, 2007; AM Costa Rica news service reported on November 9, 2007 that the Seccion de Fraudes of the Judicial Investigating Organization raided the offices of Trade Exchange SA, a.k.a. Tradex, on October 30 as part of an investigation into the activities of an expatriate financial consultant, Mark Emory Boswell, a.k.a. Rex Freeman, and his wife, Evelyn Reed; Three former employees of National Westminster Bank Plc - popularly known as the 'NatWest Three' - entered into plea agreements with the U. S. Government on November 28, 2007 in which they admitted their roles in defrauding their employer of $7.3 million in March, 2000 via transactions involving Enron Corp. and a legal vehicle in the Cayman Islands known as LJM Cayman LP Ironically, earlier in November, just before much of the British press were lauding the NatWest fraudsters, several British newspapers published the results of research by offshore banking provider NatWest International Personal Banking that indicated 1 in 10 British expatriates have been victims of banking fraud; and The manner of the collapse of Colorado's last remaining offshore bank, American Intercapital Depository and Trust, known as AIDT, which regulators recently closed down due to "hopeless" insolvency and their belief that the management was dishonest, casts doubt on the credibility of The Offshore Institute, a professional organization whose President, E. Jerry James, was AIDT's guiding force.

There were plenty of red faces this month after an offshore exhibition and conference planned for Amsterdam was called off at the eleventh hour, apparently because only eight people had signed up for it. Registrations for the Absolute Offshore International Finance Convention were being handled by EMAP Promotions, which is one of the UK's leading conference firms.