| OLINT’s Smith gets 30-year U.S. prison sentence | | Print | |
| Written by Richard Green/richard@fptci.com | |||
| Thursday, 18 August 2011 10:01 | |||
 David Smith was sentenced Aug. 11 in the United States to 30 years in prison for defrauding more than 6,000 investors out of more than $220 million in a ponzi scheme involving his Overseas Locket International Corporation and other businesses. Smith, 42, a Jamaican who was living in the Turks and Caicos Islands on Providenciales, must first serve 6½ years in Her Majesty’s Prison on Grand Turk before the U.S. will seek to extradite him to serve the remainder of the 30-year sentence, with credit for time served in the TCI. Smith could have received a sentence of up to life in prison in the U.S., but he was given a lower sentence because he has been cooperating with investigators in recovering a $128 million judgment filed against him in the United States. Smith also got leniency in the TCI for his cooperation. Both guilty pleas shielded his wife from prosecution in both countries. Not only is Smith helping with the recovery of OLINT-related assets, but he has been helping the TCI’s Special Investigation and Prosecution Team (SIPT) inquiry into allegations of corruption against former TCI government officials and others. If his cooperation is substantial, U.S. prosecutors can ask that his U.S. sentence be reduced. According to court documents, for more than three years, Smith executed a scheme to defraud more than 6,000 investors located in Florida and the Caribbean out of more than $220 million. Smith led investors to believe that he was investing their money in foreign currency trading and earning, on average, 10 percent per month, when in fact he was not trading their funds. Foreign currency trading is a highly volatile and risky investment vehicle that is regulated in the United States by the Commodity Futures Commission and the National Futures Association. Smith also conspired with others to launder approximately $128 million of proceeds that were obtained as a result of the wire fraud scheme. U.S. Attorney Robert E. O’Neill thanked other agencies that helped on Smith’s case, including the SIPT, the Financial Crimes Unit of the Royal Turks and Caicos Police Force, the Financial Services Commission in Jamaica, and the governments of the TCI, United Kingdom and Jamaica. U.S. agencies on the case included the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The U.S. has said it will not be going after people outside the United States in recovering money to satisfy the $128 million judgment. In the TCI, the attorney general’s office is continuing confiscation and compensation proceedings and investigations to protect Smith’s victims’ investments in OLINT TCFX Limited and TCI FX Traders Limited, which collapsed in 2008. Smith reportedly had $6 million of investors’ money tied up in TCI Bank Ltd., which was closed in April 2010 and is currently in liquidation.
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