According to recently obtained Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) court documents, convicted Ponzi scheme operator, David Smith paid over $8 million in “tainted” gifts to politicians, political parties and government officials in Jamaica and the TCI.
In a Confiscation Order dated April 25, 2012, the TCI Supreme Court ruled that a number of payments made by Smith, a former banker in Jamaica, are “tainted and caught by” the Proceeds of Crime Ordinance 2007.
Payments made by Smith to political parties and individuals in Jamaica are recorded by the court as follows:
US$5 million to the Jamaica JLP Party
US$2 million to the Jamaica PNP Party
US$1 million to former prime minister of Jamaica, PJ Patterson
US$100,000 to an unnamed political candidate for Mandeville, Jamaica
US$50,000 to the former information minister in Jamaica, Daryl Vaz
US$190,000 to Dwaine Williams
The list of payments to recipients in the TCI is as follows:
US$20,000 to the former managing director of the Financial Services Commission, Neville Cadogan
US$25,000 to the Progressive National Party (PNP)
US$25,000 to former premier and leader of the PNP, Michael Misick
US$10,000 to former deputy premier and finance minister in the previous PNP government, Floyd Hall
US$10,000 to former PNP health minister Karen Delancey
US$10,000 to former deputy premier and PNP health and education minister Lillian Boyce
US$10,000 to former PNP natural resources minister McAllister Hanchell
US$25,000 to former PNP backbench member of parliament, Samuel Been
The total value of all of these gifts is included in a confiscation order totaling US$20,919,950.53 to be paid by Smith, and in default of such payment he is ordered to serve a term of imprisonment of eight years.
The larger part of the amount to be repaid by Smith is represented by assets acquired or owned by him, including $4 million worth of real estate in the TCI. In addition, the court order records almost $30 million held in various accounts with the TCI Bank, which is now in liquidation, of which only a small part will be recoverable as part of the liquidation process.
In the meantime, the revelation of the payments by Smith to Jamaican political interests has caused much controversy there, with the individuals concerned scrambling to explain the truth and the circumstances of the gifts in question.
In the TCI, the payment to Cadogan may prompt comparison to a similar situation in Antigua and Barbuda, where the former head of that country’s Financial Services Regulatory Commission, Leroy King, is one of four people accused of taking bribes to divert regulatory attention from the activities of another convicted Ponzi scheme operator, Allen Stanford.
After being sentenced to 30 years in prison in the US for money laundering and fraud, Smith was brought back to the Turks and Caicos Islands last September to finish serving a prior six-and-a-half-year sentence for similar offences in the TCI, which runs concurrently with the US sentence. Smith, who was residing in the TCI when he was arrested, was a close friend of former Premier Michael Misick, who publicly referred to him as a “model citizen”.
