Canadian fraudster robs expats blind

PANAMA. Ponzi schemes are sprouting all over the world and Panama is not the exception. A group of foreigners, many of them Americans and Canadians have been the victims of a cunning couple that has run away with their money.

Penonome, a quiet town in the middle of the Cocle province was the center of operations of a cunning Canadian couple, that had the foresight of creating an investment company, as a way to take money from innocent investors.

According to sources, Mary Sloane (a disbarred Canadian lawyer) and her husband David Roland (who apparently is being investigated by the Canadian securities commission) created a company called, London Asset Management Inc., whose alleged aim was to invest customers’ money in foreign currencies that would give them high returns.

It appears that after seducing investors with promises of big profits , up to 60 percent in the foreign exchange market or Forex, they proceeded to transfer the money to countries all over the world.

Allegedly Sloane and Roland collaborated with a US company, Razor FX which was running a similar kind of scheme, which lost millions of investor dollars in Canada and the United States.

One the victims, who does not want to be named told the Panama Star, that when he met Mrs Sloane after arriving to Panama, she was kind and very helpful, and slowly but surely gained his trust.

After several months, she talked to him about a safe way to increase his savings which was to invest in the foreign exchange market.

He allegedly gave more than a million dollar to Sloane and Roland, and when he asked about his investment they came up with excuses.

What was really happening was that the money was being transferred to different bank accounts all over the world in Costa Rica, Belize, Switzerland, Hong Kong, China and many other places.

Finally 14 months ago, a group of disgruntled investors decided to take legal action against Sloane and Roland putting the matter on the hands of the Panamanian authorities. Mysteriously the bank account the company hadin Banvivienda was closed in December 2008.

The First Prosecution Office of the Cocle Circuit took the case and after completing the enquiries decided to proceed and transfer the case to the First Circuit Court in Panama City, where the company is registered.

It appears that Sloane and Roland defrauded millions of dollars from dozen of ex-pats living in the Cocle province.

Apparently Mary Sloane fled to her native Canada, but her husband is still in Panama. No arrest warrants have been issued yet.