Athaliah Reynolds, Staff Reporter

DESPITE AN ardent denial from Hands Across Jamaica founder and director, Yvonne Coke, regarding her involvement in unregulated financial schemes, The Sunday Gleaner has unearthed information implicating two of her four companies in a failed forex (foreign exchange) investment club worth more than US$30 million (J$2.7 billion).

In a Sunday Gleaner article carried last week, Coke, denied that any of her companies - Hands Across Jamaica, Write Vision, E. Private Partners Members Club, Outstretched Hands Limited and Vision Increase SA Corp - was dealing in securities, taking deposits or carrying out any kind of monetary exchange.

However, several club members have since come forward claiming to have invested millions of dollars in Coke's investment scheme, Write Visions E. Partners Private Members' Club, which promised monthly net returns of up to 18 per cent.

A cover

According to a former employee, who worked for the charity organiser for more than a year, Coke's publishing company, Write Visions Limited, was like a cover for an investment scheme, which operated through her Panama-based company, Visions Increase SA Corporation.

She said club members would lodge their investments to the bank account of Write Visions Limited and the money would be later wired to Visions Increase's United States or St Kitts bank accounts.

One investor told The Sunday Gleaner that she dropped off cheques on many occasions at the office of Hands Across Jamaica. The money, she said, was later sent over to Write Visions Limited.

The employee said the club had more than 900 investors, many of whom invested more than US$1,000 each in the scheme. The employee admitted that she and her husband lost US$6,000, a major chunk of their life savings, in the plan.

A copy of the investment contract, which was provided to The Sunday Gleaner by one of the dis-gruntled investors, promised that "all funds maintained in the account (would) be traded in the worldwide foreign-currency market through a trader selected and approved by Write Visions Limited".

The contract also stated that the charity organisation, Hands Across Jamaica for Righteousness, would receive a percentage of the gross gains.

The employee also informed The Gleaner that a large number of churches and ministers of religion, as well as many prominent persons, including entrepreneurs, lawyers and doctors, based both locally and overseas, invested in the club.

"However a large portion of the club members were normal Jamaicans, like myself, who just wanted to make good returns on our savings," she said. "I even know of one lady who was saving to buy a house but didn't have enough money, so she invested her deposit for the house. She ended up losing everything and, of course, she has no house," the former employee added.

She said there was even a special 'pastors' arrangement' where ministers were encouraged to garner investments from their congregations, which would be invested under the name of the church.

Legit investment

One investor who also spoke to The Sunday Gleaner on condition of anonymity said she and her son collectively lost US$9,000 in the scheme. She joined the club in 2007 through referral, which she said was Coke's way of recruiting depositors.

"A friend of mine who was part of the scheme referred me to it telling me that it seemed like a good legit investment and that the lady was a Christian. That is one of the main reasons I joined because I know of Miss Coke and her involvement with charitable Christian organisations," she said. The investor said that for the first few months she received her returns as promised. However, things gradually turned sour as the foreign-exchange market worsened.

It is understood that Coke, through her Panama-based company, Visions Increase, gave funds to a foreign exchange trader to invest.

However, according to a copy of a litigation, which was filed in the Supreme Court last year by Coke, those funds were then turned over to David Smith of Olint Investment Limited.

Coke has claimed a breach of contract, which she said occurred when the trader invested the money in Olint, contrary to what was agreed.

"The board of directors have not received any funds (from the investor) or David Smith or Olint despite several requests and since April 2008," the correspondence said.

"Until April 2008, payments from (the investor) were regular, since then payments have ceased. This has caused great embarrassment to the board of directors," the letter continued.

When contacted last week, Coke pointed The Sunday Gleaner to the trader who she said had the money for those who invested in Write Visions.

"Leave me out of it please, because they all knew that we were not traders," she said. When pressed on the point that the monies were actually paid over to a company registered in her name and therefore were paid to her, Coke said she needed to contact her lawyer before she could comment further.

She, however, went on to say: "I'm not trying to hide or run from anything. People knew that we were not traders, we made that clear ... we believed that he (the trader) invested the money with David Smith, but we don't have any money invested with David Smith directly."

She added: "We never gave him permission to invest the money anywhere else; he was purporting to be a trader."

When asked whether she was therefore admitting that her companies collected monies to be traded on the forex market, promising returns of up to 18 per cent, Coke said: "Persons invested the money with the traders; we simply acted on behalf of the traders and the people."

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com

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