SL businessman was an FCID target

Rienzie Edwards is a Sri Lankan investment banker and property owner. In 2015, Sri Lanka’s Financial Crimes Investigation Division (FCID) took him and his wife, Punya Priyanthi Menike, to magistrate’s court, saying they had allegedly smuggled in more than US$ 40 million. Reports say the file was sent to the Attorney General’s (AG) Department for advice, after which nothing was heard. But sources close to the couple insist the case was “settled”.

The Sunday Times contacted Mrs Edwards yesterday. She said her husband was participating in religious “poojas” and would call back no sooner he was free. He has earlier denied involvement in the crimes he has been indicted for, saying he does not know any of the other suspects.

Michael Jacobs and Ruby HandlerJacobs are Americans from Albuquerque, New Mexico. KRQE News 13, a regional news outlet, reports they were in trouble four years ago, over promises to build “a Hollywood-like studio” in Albuquerque. They were accused of taking US$ 500,000 in investors’ money to develop an entertainment district here, with a movie studio and amusement park along the river. “Obviously,” writes invited to the New York Fed’s headquarters in Manhattan to finalise their investment contracts after they invested, which meetings never occurred,” the indictment says. It reveals that Edwards, Jacobs and Ho had even held themselves out to be New York Fed representatives during in-person meetings and in emails with investors.

Thus, in November 2013, Edwards, Michael Jacobs and Handler-Jacobs met with a potential investor at a hotel in Hong Kong, “at which meeting Edwards and Jacobs pretended to be New York Fed representatives”.

“In addition, on at least one occasion, Jacobs spoke to an investor by telephone while posing as a New York Fed official,” it says. “Many victims invested in the CUP after such meetings and conversations.” The suspects caused the investors to sign bogus contracts, such as escrow agreements and profit-sharing agreements, to which the New York Fed was purportedly a party. Typically, these agreements were countersigned by a purported representative of the New York Fed.

They also provided investors with wiring instructions for making their investments in the CUP scheme. Victims were assured that the bank accounts, to which journalist Aaron Drawhorn, “that never happened.”

The New Mexico AG filed charges against the couple. But they “dodged a bullet”, because they weren’t tried quickly enough, Mr Drawhorn states. He says people who worked for the Jacobs at the time, told KRQE News 13 the couple had taken their money too.

Meanwhile, the Straits Times in Singapore reports that an 80-year old Singaporean named Ho Fook Kee (F.K. Ho) is being investigated by the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) there, over his role in the US scam. The newspaper also said he is currently out on bail for a case unrelated to the US scam.

Journalist Tan Tam Mei tracked down Mr Ho’s full name and employment history. He was formerly a director and owner of numerous companies in the oil and gas industry. Additional court records obtained by Straits Times showed that Ho, together with his accomplices, not only lured a lawyer in Hong Kong into the scam, but also duped him into acting as a money mule. “The lawyer transferred US$ 31 million, including his own monies, to the syndicate’s accounts,” the newspaper states. their funds would be transferred and held for the duration of the trading programme, were ‘ Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts’ (IOLTA) or, other types of escrow accounts established and maintained by the New York Fed for the CUP. And they were told their entire principal investment would be returned at the end of the trading programme or, within a short period of time upon the investors’ demand.

But, in an attempt to prevent or delay investors from requesting the return of their principal, when the CUP programme failed to generate the promised returns, Edwards, Jacobs, HandlerJacobs, Ho, Lester and Gendreau are alleged to have made or, caused to be made, additional misrepresentations to investors.

“For example, the defendants often told investors there were delays in the start of the trading programme or that, there were purported ‘compliance’ issues that the New York Fed had to resolve before investors could be paid,” the indictment reveals. “In other cases, the defendants arranged for new investors to buy out earlier investors. In most cases, however, the defendants simply failed to pay victims the promised returns or, return their principal investments, and ceased communications with the victims.”