Court grants Forfeiture of over $14 million US dollars and €17 million Euros.
On 13th November 2024, Justice Rene Williams in the High Court of Justice granted the Attorney General a Recovery Order under section 60BB of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1993 forfeiting all the property of the Panamanian company Creswell Overseas SA held at Meinl Bank (Antigua) Ltd. (In Receivership). This included the recovery of $14,019,257.08 United States Dollars and €17,587,692.84 Euros.
The claim was based on the financial investigations of the Office of National Drug and Money Laundering Control Policy (ONDCP), which froze the funds and proceeded to do a thorough investigation after Creswell Overseas SA demanded the release of its monies but failed and refused to provide proof of business contracts alleged to be the basis on which monies in its accounts had been paid to it. The claim alleged that investigators of the ONDCP had found links to the Brazilian company Odebrecht.
The case for the Recovery Order alleged that monies in the accounts at Meinl Bank (Antigua) Ltd. came from accounts controlled by the Brazilian company Odebrecht SA as part of the notorious Operation Car Wash, alleged to be in connection with the payment of bribes in relation to awarding of or the payment of invoices connected to large-scale construction contracts. The Court, taking into consideration the guidance of the Privy Council in Lux Locations v. Yida Zhang [2023], was satisfied that the grounds for the judgment was met.
The Director of the ONDCP, Lt. Col Edward Croft, has expressed great satisfaction with the performance of his financial investigators of the ONDCP’s Investigations Department, whose investigations have brought about the recovery of the proceeds of ill-gotten gains and thereby taken the profit out of crime.
Director Croft indicated that the year of 2024 ended reasonably well with the ONDCP successfully pursuing several forfeitures, confiscation, and civil recovery orders of property to the value in excess of US $35,214,698.61 or EC $95,079,686.25.
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Please, just allow those with the brains and know-how, NOT the noise and Pinocchio tales, to steer this country in the path it needs to go. Be part of the solution, NOT THE PROBLEM.