Central Bank’s Email to F.I.U. Regarding Sanctuary Bay Scam Surfaces
The Sanctuary Bay scam is one that has many legs. One of the allegations made by the Federal Trade Commission in relation to Sanctuary Belize lands at the Central Bank of Belize. According to documents filed in U.S. courts, the Central Bank allegedly knew about the fraud, but did nothing. In 2016, former governor of the Central Bank, Glen Ysaguirre sent an email to the then Director of the Financial Intelligence Unit, Joy Grant, who now is the Governor of the Central Bank. News Five has obtained a purported copy of that email. In the correspondence, dated September twenty-sixth, Ysaguirre introduces grant to Thomas Herskowitz, a retired U.S. citizen, who resides in Sanctuary Belize. Ysaguirre tells Grant that Herskowitz has “brought to the attention of the Central Bank a situation that is subject of an ongoing investigation into massive violations of our Foreign Exchange Regulations by the principals and developers of the S.R.W.R. real estate project.” The email goes further to state that Herskowitz is believed to be a credible witness, who has a lot of compelling evidence that may be of interest of the F.I.U. While confirming the existence of the email, Grant, on Wednesday, told the media that she did not move on it because Ysaguirre said that there ‘may be’ a fraud and not necessarily that there was a fraud occurring.
Joy Grant
, Governor Central Bank [File: July 10th, 2019]
“I looked up and I found that an email was sent by then Governor Ysaguirre and I was at the F.I.U. That is dated twenty-sixth of September. Four days after that, I took up my appointment as Governor of the Central Bank.”
Reporter
“The allegation is that the Central Bank did not act on the fraud that was talking place. The fraud that was taking place had to do with the banking industry.”
Joy Grant
“I want to go back to the memo. What the memo, Mr. Ysaguirre said that there may be. He did not say that there was fraud and that is not said in the document. I want to make clear to every that he said that there may be, he did not say that there was fraud.”
Dean Barrow
Prime Minister Dean Barrow [File: July 10th, 2019]
“The notion that somehow the Central Bank of Belizt to have stopped this fraud or the government of Belize ought this fraud makes no sense to anybody who is familiar with our system. This is not an allegation of criminal conduct such as that would get us to move the police authorities to bring charges. This is a civil complaint. If you pay a man to build a house and he doesn’t do so, you take him to court. You don’t go to the police to get back your money. There is no kind of criminal fraud alleged. So the whole premise that, dealing firstly with the Central Bank, the Central Bank ought to have stopped what was happening from happening again I repeat makes no sense. The Central Bank is the regulator of financial matters and financial institutions, not real estate development. What would have been the authority for the Central Bank? What could the Central Bank have done?”
