By Elizabeth Hume
A Citrus Heights couple lose retirement money to an offshore bank scam.
The investment couldn't miss. Put $80,000 in an offshore bank and watch the money grow.
At first, it seemed as if Jim and Phyllis Miller were smart to follow a friend's financial advice. Five months after making the plunge, the Citrus Heights couple received an interest check for $5,000, far more than their old IRA would have returned.
Then the checks stopped. The retirement money disappeared. The Millers, authorities say, were victims of a multimillion-dollar scam.
A federal grand jury in Portland, Ore., indicted five people in January for allegedly defrauding 4,000 U.S. and Canadian citizens out of more than $200 million by persuading them to invest in banks, said Beth Anne Steele, spokeswoman for the Portland FBI office.
The two lead players were arrested May 28 in Kampala, Uganda, authorities said.
"It's a huge case, which is why we went to all the trouble to track them down in Uganda," Steele said.
The indictment alleges the defendants set up banks including the Fidelity International Bank and the First International Bank of Grenada. Investors were promised 3 percent to 300 percent returns on their investments.
Rita L. Regale, 51, of Florida; Robert J. Skirving, 56, of Nevada; and Laurent E. Barnabe, 65, of Nevada, were arrested in January.
Gilbert A. Ziegler, 53, and Douglas Ferguson, 71, were arrested May 28 at a residential compound in Kampala. They have been returned to the United States.
Although the Millers are pleased to see the defendants behind bars, Phyllis Miller believes the scam hasn't stopped. The Miller family still gets e-mails from Ziegler associates claiming they want to take care of all the people who lost their money.
"People need to believe they are not going to get their money back," she said. "For one minute I believed it, and then I realized they were still scamming."
Steele said the FBI investigation is ongoing.
The Millers' plunge into the world of international bank fraud began in 1999, when Jim Miller retired after 20 years at Raley's. The couple wanted to re-invest their IRA and turned for advice to a friend they had known for 12 years. They trusted him when he said he and another friend had started Harbor Bank, a subsidiary of the First International Bank of Grenada.
They even took a trip to Grenada, where they met Ziegler and Ferguson.
An empty building was pointed out as the future site for their bank.
"We wondered if we had made a mistake, but we had already sent our money in before we left," she said.
Their minds were eased when their first check for $5,039 - minus $1,000 in taxes - arrived. The extra money couldn't have come at a better time. Phyllis Miller's mother was receiving chemotherapy for breast cancer. Her father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Her brother was disabled with a neck injury.
She also decided she could afford to retire from her work as a real estate agent and spend more time with her family.
The last check came the day before her mother died in June 2000.
"We started freaking out and calling the bank in Grenada," Phyllis Miller said. "They said it was just some hang-up. Then I saw a warning on the Internet about an offshore investment alert. I knew we were scammed when our friend wouldn't return our calls."
Phyllis Miller, 55, returned to work in February. Jim Miller, 68, cannot go back to work due to high blood pressure.
Now they are learning about the items their money allegedly helped purchase. There is a palace in Uganda and expensive homes in Oregon, Nevada and Grenada. There is an organic vegetable farm in Oregon, plus luxury cars, jewelry, gambling junkets, private jet rentals and travel.
Source: Sacramento Bee
