Finca 910: the Big Con

BOCAS DEL TORO. At the beginning of the last century, five brothers named Surgeon emmigrated to Panama from Jamaica and prospered carrying passengers and freight between Bocas del Toro, Colon and Almirante.

In 1920, a partnership they formed named Surgeon Brothers, titled a 2,300-acre tract denominated Finca 910 at Drago on Isla Colon.

In 1949, the only partner living on the tract died. The partnership ceased paying taxes on it and settlers moved in.

On June 6 1971, with back taxes totaling over $25,000, the director general of revenue ordered that the land be seized and titled to the Nation.

This is confirmed in a special audit report of the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) published in January 2008.

Near the end of 1971, according to Engineer Roberto Lu, then chief of the Ministry of Agriculture in Bocas del Toro, General Omar Torrijos moved settlers from Los Santos on to the unoccupied parts of Finca 910.

By the mid-1990s, at the start of the real estate boom on the islands of Bocas, some 25 Panamanian families were in possession, along with 30 American retirees who had bought possession rights from some of the settlers.

In 1998, Dr. Frank Surgeon and his son Oscar, both of David, Chiriqui, relations but not heirs of the original partners, induced the Public Registry to declare defective the action taken in 1971 to seize Finca 910 for unpaid taxes, and to re-inscribe it in the name of “Surgeon Brothers”.

According to the MEF report, since the director of revenue was not consulted, the change had no legal effect, but it worked as a subterfuge.

To this day, anyone who consults the registry about 910 will be led to believe that "Surgeon Brothers" is its owner.

The name too is a subterfuge. There is the Surgeon Brothers partnership that titled the tract in 1920 and was dissolved years ago, along with another partnership called "Surgeon Hermanos," formed in 1941, of which Dr. Frank Surgeon claims to be the liquidator.

There is a corporation, Surgeon Brothers, S.A., created in 1990 and dissolved the next year. And there is another corporation, Surgeon Brothers Limited, subscribed by Frank and Oscar Surgeon in 2003 and still in existence.

The MEF report observes that "the creation of these entities seems to embody an intention to deceive."

Through these manoeuvers, Frank and Oscar Surgeon were able to pass as the owners of Finca 910.

Once aware of the threat, those occupying the tract sought to defend their rights.

Ten of the occupants, all Americans, filled suit requesting the state to accord title to those occupying the land.

Three years later a judge ruled favorably on one of the ten cases. Frank and Oscar Surgeon appealed.

The original judge was assigned elsewhere, and Manuel Garcia was appointed circuit judge for Bocas. Three days later, on November 19, 2004, he overthrew the first decision and ruled for Frank and Oscar Surgeon in all the cases.

His argument took advantage of General Torrijos's action.

By conveniently forgetting that it occurred after the tract had been seized for unpaid taxes, the ruling transformed due process into dictatorial expropriation.

"The supposed seizing of the tract in question," said the ruling, "was the product of an act of force imposed by the head of government."

Thanks to this ruling, Finca 910 remains inscribed in the name of "Surgeon Brothers" in the Public Registry.

One of the Americans, Courtney Parks, appealed and for three years managed to forestall an eviction order.

Meanwhile, Frank and Oscar Surgeon managed to sell some of the occupants land that was already theirs, segregating their land from 910 at $1200 per acre.

These transactions were inscribed in the Public Registry, yet the MEF report calls them illegal in that 910 has been the property of the Nation since 1971.

In 2007, Courtney Parks had a stroke of luck. At a US embassy reception he met Mariano Quintero, chief of Catastro at the MEF, and arranged to meet with people from his office.

It wasn't about a few farmers and gringos, he told them.

The party being defrauded was the Panamanian - the Nation. Convinced by this argument, Quintero sent to case file to the minister, who opened an investigation.

In 2007 Judge Garcia, who declined to comment on his cases, ordered the eviction of all occupants of tract 910. Parks and his lawyers convinced the province governor to intervene. It won him five months. On another occasion, he and members of his group piled gravel on the road to prevent the police from getting to Drago.

In January 2008 the MEF investigation concluded that the half brothers had defrauded the Panamanian Nation to the sum of $93 million.

Their lawyer, Licenciate José Lezcano, told the Star that he had documents proving that the ministry had rejected the investigation, but that the reporter would have to view them in person in David. The report's author, Luis Ponce, told the Star that the ministry backed it.

In September 2008 the director of revenue embargoed Finca 910, freezing all transactions concerning it.

Bocas del Toro, however, is like another country, if not another planet. There, the eviction orders keep coming.