Kalilah Reynolds reports.
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Chief Technical Director of the Financial Investigations Division, FID, Selvin Hay, says convicted ponzi schemer, David Smith, could still be prosecuted in Jamaica.
Smith, who ran the Olint ponzi scheme, was released from prison in the Turks and Caicos Islands last week, after serving a ten-year sentence.
Thousands of Jamaicans also fell victim to his scheme; however, he was never prosecuted here.
Speaking with Nationwide’s Business and Finance Editor, Kalilah Reynolds, Hay says he’s uncertain why charges were never pursued in Jamaica.
David Smith, who’s Jamaican, was taken to court in both the Turks and Caicos Islands and the United States, for fleecing thousands of investors of a reported 220 million US dollars.
US authorities are reportedly appealing his discharge, so it’s not yet certain whether he will also serve additional time in the United States.
The FID boss says he doesn’t know why the case was never pursued in Jamaica as well.
Mr. Hay, a former Deputy Commissioner of Police, has been head of the FID since January of this year.
He says a case like Olint would certainly attract the Division’s attention now.
Hay says it’s not too late to pursue charges against Smith in Jamaica
He adds that they’d have to go after the paper trail.
Part of that paper trail may involve talking to Smith’s many victims, as well as beneficiaries of his scheme.
It was revealed in court proceedings in the US in 2010, that Smith had donated 20-million US dollars to both the PNP and JLP, as well as TCI’s Progressive National Party.
Prosecutors told the court at the time that they’d written to the PNP and JLP seeking to recover the monies, but received no response.
