Okke Ornstein in Panama | Dispatches from the isthmus

Every once and a while you come across one of those real scumbags who are setting up shop in Panama. Washed ashore with other sewage and vomit from up north. And yes, we have another one! His name is Monte Friesner and he is a convicted fraud artist. A swindler. A thief. Here’s what the  United States Court of Appeals had to say about him when he appealed – unsuccessfully – a conviction on twenty counts of wire fraud, money laundering and related stuff:

The evidence presented at trial established Mr. Friesner was a consummate fraud artist. He sought out potential victims who were seeking enormous loans. Mr. Friesner would then enter into contractual agreements requiring the prospective borrowers to deposit a large sum of money, usually $250,000, in an escrow account as a commitment fee, demonstrating their ability and devotion to obtaining the large loans. The borrowers understood these commitment fees were to be returned to them in the event Mr. Friesner could not secure a loan for them. They were further led to believe Mr. Friesner would obtain a commission fee from other sources. No loan transactions were ever completed and the funds deposited in escrow were purloined by Mr. Friesner.

Neat, huh?

Mr. Friesner, who originates from Canada, left a trail of fraud cases and victims of theft in his wake. He was banned from trading in Toronto. There was something about a stolen car in Toronto and he was forced to retire from a fund raising project for cancer research. And now he’s in Panama running a sailing school, of which he is listed as the Commodore on the website.

The Panama Sailing School is the only company that actually lists him as a principal, but that’s not the only thing he does in our little republic. He’s also the driving force behind something called Financiera Pronto Cash (prepaid MasterCard plastic, supposedly) and One World Financial Solutions which – surprise, surprise – specializes in asset management, private equity participation and venture capital. We assume these great services are best consumed in the famous 419 position, after all, Panama has its reputation of being the Nigeria of the Americas to uphold.

With such a proven track record of theft, embezzlement and money laundering, who’d want to do business with such a reputable character?

Well, ummm, in Panama you never have to look very far.

There is, for example, one Martin Rodin. That is the same Rodin who was so prominently involved in the CEMIS scandal:

The head of a prominent business family, Lew Rodin, has gone on television calling his eldest son Martin, ”a hoodlum.” Martin, whose San Lorenzo Consortium is the main developer of the CEMIS project, is accused by his father of secretly siphoning assets from a company owned jointly with his younger brother Peter and placing then in a company under his control.

And the “hoodlum” also owned the luxury car dealership that supplied one Mr. Murcia with Ferrari automobiles and other than that they were drinking buddies. But Mr. Rodin is also involved in the Pronto Cash venture, or at least that’s where he receives his email. That is, before he left the country when Murcia started to talk from his Bogotá prison suite. Could it be – just a suggestion to stimulate further thinking – that Pronto Cash was to be a Panamanian debit card outlet then for Murcia’s DMG pyramid scam, which thrived on the sales of exactly such cards?

Oh, and we forgot about the inevitable real estate outfit. It’s called Swiss Hannover, and the president is one Mrs. Rita Moreno Pretto de Young. She happens to be the wife of Mr. Herbert Young-Rodriguez – the well known lawyer of Bosco the Clown and, very appropriate in the case at hand, a former director of Panama’s gambling board. He also does, the public registry shows, all of Mr. Friesner’s incorporation work.

For those who doubt: Check the office addresses and phone numbers for the various outfits: Pronto Cash, Swiss Hannover and One World Financial are all located at Calle 50, Edificio Global Bank, piso 12, oficina 1201. And the phone numbers for all of them are 340-4444 and fax 340-3181. And Mr. Friesner’s wife sits on the board of all of these companies plus the Panama Sailing School.

To top it up: None of the financial schemes appear to be licensed as such in Panama by any of the regulatory bodies.

So, you ask, where is my good friend, the inevitable Don Winner in all this?

Indeed!

Our national scam pimp and promoter of every fraud under the Panamanian sun has been pumping the sailing school of Mr. Friesner heavily on his website. Well, so far so good. Maybe he didn’t know what we know about that Canadian scumbag – research has never been his strong point and less so where it comes to Canadian hustlers. But now it seems that Mr. Winner, once again embarrassing his upscale advertisers such as the award-winning yet imaginary Emerald Monkey Resort, has teamed up with Monte Friesner in a dispute the latter has with his Panamanian web host. And Winner doesn’t disclose that his cowardly unsourced attack on that web hosting service (Winner never takes on big companies but gets off on trashing small businesses he doesn’t like) is in fact exclusively based on a complaint the Canadian scammer has reportedly filed with the authorities and not, as he writes, on complaints from “the American expat community” (whatever that is).  Why the secrecy? Because Winner remembers something Friesner doesn’t: His previous exploits as publicist and PR agent of a convicted financial hustler in the Marc Boswell a/k/a Rex Freeman saga. Tar and feathers, that is in short how that one ended for him.

So now that we have our cast of characters complete, now what? Well, dear reader, stay tuned. There’s much more to follow. Like election donations. Happy sailing!

Tags: 419, advance fee fraud, cemis, credit card fraud, david murcia, don winner, emerald monkey, fraud, herbert young, martin rodin, money laundering, monte friesner, nigeria, one world, panama sailing school, pronto cash, scam, swindle, yacht