It made news earlier this week when 48 year old US Investment Fund Manager Brent Borland was charged with multiple counts of securities fraud. It's related to Belize, because he's accused of tricking investors to front 21.9 million dollars in bridge financing for an International Airport project in Placencia.
Jules Vasquez did a deeper dig:...
Jules Vasquez reporting
The only time we saw the Placencia Airport in use was in December of 2014 when a SICA Summit was held in Belize.
But, this man - Brent Borland - seen here at what looks to be the very same airport - was using it as an investment package.
He told investors that his Placencia Group had invested 24 million dollars into the project and was getting a loan for 45 million dollars more to finish the project. The pitch was that this airport will have two 12,000 foot runaways to bring in flights from as far as Asia along with an export free zone.
But they hadn't gotten the money yet and needed from investors what he called bridge financing until they did. High yield short term bridge financing secured with supposedly real, high value properties in Placencia.
Borland was a principal at Borland Capital Group, and this court compliant from the securities and exchange commission says that he raised 21.9 million US dollars with that pitch.
But the Securities and Exchange Commission says he spent at least 6 million dollars of it on a lavish lifestyle in Florida - buying a 140 thousand dollars SUV, paying off his wife's 2.7 million dollar credit card debt, among many other luxuries.
Borland raised the money through the Florida based company called the Belize Infrastructure fund.
The pledged properties in Placencia are owned by the Mayan Estate group. You can see on this pledge document where the well-known peninsula developer Marco Caruso co-signed one of the pledges.
As the complaint notes though the same property, Placencia north block 36 parcel 2169, lots 84 and l32 were pledged for security for at least 10 investors and every time he gave it a different value - as low as 200 thousand US dollars or as high as two million dollars.
Now, how much - of any of the money did go into this airport? Investigators say he diverted at least 30% of the funds for personal use. Whether any long term financing was ever on the horizon is still unknown as the investment languishes.
Notably, the SEC investigators concluded that the pledged properties in Placencia quote, "does not appear to exist."
Marco Caruso did not return our requests for comment.
Email
Print