Man in legal fight with DeGroote jailed
A Canadian businessman embroiled in a bitter dispute with one of Canada’s wealthiest men over a US $112-million investment in Caribbean casinos has been jailed in the Dominican Republic, officials say.
Antonio Carbone of Woodbridge, north of Toronto, and his brother Francesco are fighting with billionaire Michael DeGroote over a large casino venture that went horribly awry, bringing accusations of Mafia exploitation, death threats and fraud.
Antonio Carbone was arrested at the airport in Punta Cana two weeks ago as he waited for a return flight to Canada, the local prosecutor’s office told the National Post.
Newspapers reported he has been charged over a plot against the life of a local lawyer who was involved in the casino. Details of the charges could not be independently verified Monday. Calls and emails to lawyers who represented the Carbone brothers in Canada were not returned by deadline.
The Department of Foreign Affairs is aware of the arrest, but could provide little information. “Consular services are being provided to the Canadian citizen who has been detained in Dominican Republic. Consular officials are in contact with local authorities,” said spokesman Nicolas Doire.
A spokeswoman for the Dominican Republic’s prosecutor’s office said both Carbone brothers were detained, questioned and arrested. After a court appearance, they were transferred to La Victoria National Penitentiary in Santo Domingo, the country’s capital.
Local media reported only Antonio Carbone had been ordered held for a year in preventive detention, a form of pre-trial incarceration.
The newspaper Listin Diario named the alleged victim of a car bomb plot as Fernando Arturo Baez Guerrero, a Dominican lawyer working as an administrator for Dream Corporation Inc., the troubled casino firm.
Mr. Baez Guerrero was saved by a slight change in his daily routine. Usually, he stays a few minutes in his Jaguar car, gathering his things, but, on Dec. 1, he climbed out promptly, the newspaper reported. Then came the explosion. In a sworn statement to police reportedly obtained by Listin Diario, the lawyer accused the Carbones and another man, Jorge Andres Kan Lijtenstein, of the bomb plot. Mr. Kan Lijtenstein was arrested in 2013 when found with two AK-47 machine guns and two pistols, the paper said.
The account could not be independently confirmed and none of the accusations have been tested in court.
The Carbones are fighting in court in Canada with their former partners over a US$112-million investment in their casino plans by Mr. DeGroote, one of Canada’s wealthiest businessmen. Mr. DeGroote, 81, an Order of Canada recipient and wealthy philanthropist, fronted the money in instalments starting in 2011 to the Dream casino company, run by the Carbones, who jointly held 85%, and Andrew Pajak, who owned 15%.
Suspicions and arguments between the partners began less than a year into their venture. By the time the disputes hit the courts, the widening circle of players linked to the casino included Peter Shoniker, a disbarred Toronto lawyer convicted of money laundering; a man who has several passports from different countries in different names; and various Montreal mobsters, including Vito Rizzuto, who, until his death three months after he strolled through Dream’s casino, was the top Mafia boss in Canada.
The civil suits in Ontario remain unsettled.
The problems at Dream have an impact beyond the owners and investors, leaving hundreds of jobs in jeopardy and paycheques in limbo. So much so the country’s president, Danilo Medina Sánchez, has reportedly ordered an investigation at senior levels.
In 2009, the Carbones were charged in Canada after their cigar business was raided in a tobacco tax probe and police found two loaded firearms.
The brothers later told court they had been “seriously threatened” and the guns bought as protection. The Crown accepted the guns were not “for any nefarious purpose.” The Carbones pleaded guilty to possessing prohibited firearms and ammunition, and received 60 days in jail.
William McDowell, a Toronto lawyer acting for Mr. DeGroote, earlier told the Post his client “regrets and is embarrassed” by getting involved with the casino project. On Monday, he had no comment on the new developments in the Dominican Republic.
Human rights groups have criticized La Victoria prison, the country’s largest, for extreme overcrowding and unsanitary conditions.