25355: Hermantin(News)Feds: Trio targeted Little Haiti in $6 million investment scheme (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Feds: Trio targeted Little Haiti in $6 million investment scheme



By Ihosvani Rodriguez
Miami Bureau

June 10, 2005

Federal regulators filed a complaint on Thursday claiming three South Florida 
residents defrauded at least 600 Haitian-Americans out of $6 million in a phony 
investment scheme that relied heavily on the community's pride and trust.

The three men targeted residents living in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood 
and swindled many out of their entire savings, said investigators with the U.S. 
Securities and Exchange Commission and community activists.

The group's three leaders, each of Haitian descent, regularly appeared on local 
Haitian radio shows and at church meetings with sales pitches that rallied the 
community into investing in itself. The group claimed the investments would 
help build new businesses in Little Haiti and create new jobs. At the same 
time, investors were enticed with a guarantee of a 15-20 percent return each 
year, officials said.

"A lot of people fell for it, and toward the end it created a scandal," said 
Gepsie Metellus, executive director of Sant La, the Haitian Neighborhood Center 
in Little Haiti. "They took this community for a ride."

According to the complaint filed on Thursday in a federal court, SEC 
investigators said Max François, 48, of Pembroke Pines, founded and directed 
the investment group called Focus Development Center Inc in 2001. François and 
others told investors that the group aimed to create or expand Haitian-American 
businesses carrying different variations of the "Focus" name.

The men said the businesses included an airline that would provide direct 
flights between Miami and Haiti, a chiropractic center and car dealerships, the 
complaint said.

But the businesses did not exist or went broke because of poor management, said 
Teresa Verges, assistant regional director of the SEC.

The group did pay some initial investors "profits" but those funds came mostly 
from new investors, said Verges.

"The heart of it is a Ponzi scheme that created a lot of sad stories," said 
Verges.

The company stopped its operations in September after word of the scheme and a 
federal investigation began to spread. Metellus said that many of the defrauded 
investors began taking to the airwaves to warn others. She thinks there are 
other victims who are too embarrassed to come forward.

"They go after hardworking people who are very trusting of their own," said 
Metellus. "They get away with it because most are ashamed to say they were 
fooled out of thousands."

SEC attorney Roger Cruz said the complaint asks a federal judge to force the 
men to hand back any profit or assets made through the scheme. None of the men 
has been charged criminally, said Cruz. Attorneys representing the men could 
not be reached late Thursday.

SEC officials have already translated investor education brochures into Creole 
and plan to stage town hall meetings in Little Haiti later this year.

Ihosvani Rodriguez can be reached at ijrodriguez@sun-sentinel.com or 
305-810-5005.


Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel