‘SSL FRAUD RUINED ME’

A 78-year-old woman from St Andrew, who invested $60 million in the fraud-hit investment firm Stocks & Securities Limited (SSL) in 2019, a sum which she said investigators later told her was never actually invested, says she has been left financially ruined.

The elderly woman, who asked The Sunday Gleaner not to identify her, said the multibillion-dollar fraud that came to public attention in January 2023 caused her to seek medical attention, including sedation, on several occasions.

The scandal-scarred investment firm had been recommended to the woman by “quite a few friends”, she told The Sunday Gleaner during an interview last Thursday. She was told SSL paid “good interest”.

Track and field great Usain Bolt’s name was also used as a pull factor, she said, along with “all kinds of other big names”.

So when a Market Street property in Montego Bay, willed to her and three other siblings by her father, was sold and she collected her proceeds – a cheque of $60 million – it was easy to turn in at 33½ Hope Road, SSL’s now-abandoned St Andrew head office while on her way home.

NO RESEARCH On COMPANY

She admitted, however, that she had done no research on the company that was fraught with irregularities that the state regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), failed to publicly disclose for more than a decade. SSL was flagged in 2017 by FSC for a “culture of non-compliance and mismanagement of client funds”.

“Unsafe and unsound practices” eight years earlier in 2009 forced the FSC to disrupt the repurchase agreement (repo) business of the firm in 2010 after it noted a $1.3-billion deficit between client liabilities and other similar arrangements and SSL’s matching assets.

SSL offered financial planning, private wealth management and brokerage services, falling under the purview of the FSC, whose role it is to supervise and regulate the securities, insurance and private pensions industries.

The woman recalled delivering the cheque in September 2019, a moment she has come to regret, she repeatedly shared.

“They were very excited. They were very happy. They told me not to worry because I wanted to go to BNS (Bank of Nova Scotia) or JMMB (Jamaica Money Market Brokers). The guy ... said to me, ‘If SSL goes under, your money is in Cayman’. I never forget that. Those were his words,” she said of her first encounter with SSL.

She was asked the amount of interest she was expecting, but noted that she stressed instead the preservation of her capital, which she did not want to “dwindle” away.

Her intent, she said, was to keep the money with the firm until she identified a suitable property for purchase.

A January 3, 2020, proposal from SSL to the woman, which was seen by The Sunday Gleaner, outlined how the firm had intended to invest $58.6 million from the funds she handed over.

“The below proposal was created on a conservative basis to increase the current income derived while keeping to an acceptable risk-adjusted level given your risk appetite,” the document signed by then portfolio manager Shannon Harris and SSL founder and director Hugh Croskery said.

It said the $58,697,150.56 would be spread across its group of companies, predominantly in US-dollar income solutions and Jamaica-dollar equities.

Further, it stated that capital preservation, liquidity, and high income were the key income objectives.

A total of $5 million would be invested in SSL Jamaica Brokerage. Broken down, $2 million would purchase stocks in the National Commercial Bank, $2 million in WISYNCO, and $1 million set aside for specific upcoming IPOs.

The remaining sum of $53,697,150.56 would be invested in SSL Private Wealth Management and SSL Asset Management Cayman.

A breakdown of how those funds would be managed said US$100,000 would be invested in Eden Garden private financing, offering 6.5 per cent per annum for two years.

It added that US$290,808.95 would go on FTSM and would be kept “earning interest” until solutions proposed were activated.

These solutions included US$200,000 in Mortgage Fund Secured Lending; US$50,000 in SSL’s BTG Contingent Convertible at 8 per cent Canadian dollars, and US$40,000 in a high-yield liquid bond ETF.

“When I went on the Internet and looked, the money was there. Everything was there even long after everything happened, it was there. Honestly, I don’t know why I turned in there (SSL). It was just the convenience of it. I just wanted to put it somewhere until I decided to buy an apartment with it and have a little left over to live off,” she said.

She said when she learnt of the US$30-million – or approximately J$4.7 billion – fraud at SSL, she called one of SSL’s directors, who reportedly told her not to worry and that her funds had not been touched and were safe.

More than 200 accounts were impacted by the fraud, including a holding company for Bolt that invested US$6.2 million.

“But, you see, I did not know that there was a red flag on SSL from 2015 or 2016 and I wasn’t business-minded like that way to research it properly. Then when you hear that they are listed on the Jamaica Stock Exchange, it felt better. But when I went to get back my money, it was chaos,” the woman said.

The woman said she had hoped that after a FSC-appointed manager was installed and she responded quickly to a request for clients to come in, she would be among the first to get back her money.

But the FSC later lost control of SSL in May 2024 and was forced by court order to hand over the reins of the company to licensed trustee Caydion Campbell.

The elderly woman said she had left her banking details, but that proved to be in vain.

She told The Sunday Gleaner that since the unravelling of the fraud scandal, she had been contacted by the Financial Investigations Division (FID) and the United Kingdom-based Kroll Associates hired by the Government to determine what happened at SSL.

She said twice she was questioned by the FID in a soundproof room, but she refused a third “interrogation” on the basis that it was yielding nothing. She said detectives also went through her phone, scrutinising messages and emails.

She said after writing her signature on a paper more than 20 times, the FID told her that it had been “water forged” for transactions at SSL.

Kroll, too, she said quizzed her at The Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston, coming to the same conclusion about her signature.

Both entities sought to ascertain who recommended SSL to her, but the UK firm went a step further, she said, informing her that it was unlikely that her money was ever invested.

“The FSC should not have allowed SSL to keep on taking money because they are there to regulate them and if they know that a company has red flags, they should have gone back and stopped everything until they had sorted themselves,” she said.

Still, she recalled that she was “having a ball” while collecting US$2,000, monthly.

Her son had cautioned her, she said, not to get comfortable and to pull her funds and purchase the apartment as planned.

FIVE ATTEMPTS TO WITHDRAW

She said she visited the firm five times requesting the money since that conversation, but she ended up leaving without a cheque each time.

“I said, ‘I need my money now.’ [name redacted] would say, ‘No, man, [name omitted]. Everything is fine. Stop worrying about it’, and hug me up. This was all before the crash that I was asking for my money ... . Until this day, nothing,” she said.

“Sometimes I talk to God, I say, ‘What is the lesson and what is the reason for this?’

“I had to go to the doctor and get tranquilizers. I was a wreck,” she added.

The woman said she has since secured a part-time job and her rent and other bills are taken care of by her children.

“But I need my money, man. This has ruined me financially,” she said, noting that she contacted The Sunday Gleaner following a recent interview done by Bolt on The Fix.

Jean-Ann Panton, a former client relationship manager at SSL, is the only person charged in the matter so far. She is facing a 22-count indictment after being charged with forgery, larceny as a servant, and engaging in a transaction involving criminal property.

Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn said her office is awaiting outstanding documents from the FID to determine if charges are to be laid against other people.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com