Press Association Newsfile
HEADLINE: SWINDLER CONVICTED OF MULTI-MILLION POUND BANK STING
BYLINE: Melvyn Howe, PA News
A “clever” swindler who posed as a member of a mega-rich American industrial dynasty was behind bars today after being convicted of trying to pull off a multi-million pound bank sting. Sloan Dupont, 48, attempted to sweet-talk executives in a London branch of the US-based Chase Manhattan Bank into opening an account for what turned out to be a bogus 9.6 million (£6 million) cheque. London’s Southwark Crown Court heard the draft appeared to have been issued by one of its sister branches in Southern America. And by choosing a Friday to pull-off the deception in this country he had hoped that as the transatlantic time difference meant “Texas was asleep”, the swindle would not be discovered until after the weekend. But despite his cunning – including a bogus passport and a change of name to make it seem he was part of the DuPont Corporation – bank staff became suspicious and called police. He and two men with him were arrested shortly afterwards. Dupont, of Battersea, West London, showed little reaction as the jury trying him rejected his claim that he had always believed the transaction was genuine, and convicted him of one count of using a false instrument last December.
August 14, 1999, Saturday, BC cycle
HEADLINE: London judge sentences con man also is wanted in Oklahoma
DATELINE: OKLAHOMA CITY
An international con artists wanted in Oklahoma on fraud charges may not be extradited here until he completes his three-year prison sentence in Britain, officials said. James Rice, 52, was handed the term Friday by a London judge. He may not be available to face charges in the United States until that term is finished.
“How that is ultimately going to be treated by the British authorities is up in the air,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Hank Hockeimer said. “Our bottom line is we want to get him back as soon as possible.”
Federal prosecutors in Oklahoma allege Rice was a top player in a separate $ 10 million fraud scheme using defunct 19th-century bonds.
As “Sloan Dupont,” a would-be scion of the DuPont industrial fortune, Rice tried to pass a bogus $ 9.6 million check at a London branch of Chase Manhattan Bank. Detective Constable Nigel Howard arrested Rice in December after bank officials called police.
“His fiance believes he’s part of the DuPont family,” Howard said Friday. “He’s a very charming con man, and a ladies’ man, too.”
Rice was convicted July 30 on one fraud count but has been jailed for eight months. Howard estimated the U.S. citizen will serve about another year before he can be released. He also will be deported.
Oklahoma prosecutors allege Rice also posed as Dupont to give credibility to selling shares in old railroad bonds. Rice and others, including three Oklahomans, claimed the bonds were worth millions, but they were actually museum curios, prosecutors allege. Scores of investors as far away as New Zealand lost at least $ 10 million in the scheme, officials allege. Rice has four previous fraud and forgery convictions.
Besides a passport in the name of Sloan Dupont, Rice also carried an identification card falsely claiming he was vice president of Japan Air Lines, a federal affidavit said.
HEADLINE: Scam nets Yukon man five years probation
DATELINE: OKLAHOMA CITY
An investor scam that began with worthless 19th century railroad bonds found in an attic has led to five years of probation for a Yukon man who failed to tell authorities about the scam.
District Judge David Russell sentenced Terry O’Toole, 49, on Thursday for not telling authorities when he learned of the scam. Authorities think the fraud scheme resulted in at least a $ 10 million loss for investors from Oklahoma to New Zealand. A federal affidavit says an alleged con man’s story to investors was that if they put down $ 40,000, they would get as much as $ 80 million in return.
The pitch man, who uses the alias Sloan Dupont, 50, is in a London jail after being arrested on allegations he tried to cash a $ 3,000 check he altered to appear as a $ 9.3 million check. Dupont, who also uses the names James Sloan Rice, James Sloan Dupont and James Clinton Rice, is charged in federal court in Oklahoma City with conspiracy to commit mail fraud. The U.S. attorney’s office is trying to extradite him.
O’Toole invested $ 17,000 in the scheme and persuaded friends and associates to add to his funds to invest in one $ 40,000 railroad bond, he said. O’Toole also talked to other potential investors in the bond scheme.
The scheme was based mostly on Chicago, Saginaw & Canada Railroad bonds issued last century. The bonds were found in the attic of an old federal building in Grand Rapids, Mich. and later given to a museum as historical curios.
O’Toole said he didn’t realize the scheme was a fraud until January 1998. He said he was told the bonds could not be cashed in the United States but were accepted as leverage or collateral in top European banks.
He testified that Dupont and Eric Berry, an alleged accomplice, said they would put the money in lucrative humanitarian projects, including an existing cancer cure, and return millions of dollars to investors.
O’Toole said meetings in California and London with Dupont were among the events that convinced him the deal was legitimate. O’Toole said he wasn’t part of the fraud scheme. He pleaded guilty in September to failing to tell authorities when he found out it was a scam. “I can be accused of gullibility or whatever, but I was not part of a fraud,” he said. “We tried to do the right thing for everybody involved.”
Russell told O’Toole he didn’t believe him. He also said the “whole thing is the most preposterous thing I’ve ever heard in my 17 years on the bench.” O’Toole was ordered to serve four months of home confinement with electronic monitoring. He also was ordered to pay $ 163,000 to victims of the scam, with payments of at least $ 500 wacg.
Bath Chronicle
EDITION: BATH CHRONICLE
HEADLINE: 6m sting foiled as swindler tried to open account
A SWINDLER, who posed as a member of a mega-rich American industrial dynasty to try and pull off a 6m bank sting, was jailed for three years yesterday.
Sloan Dupont, 52, was told by Judge Bathurst-Norman that his scam had no chance of succeeding. Arizona-born Dupont, of Battersea, south London, tried to sweet talk Chase Manhattan executors in London into opening an account for what turned out to be a bogus $9.6m dollar – 6m – cheque. The plan was to use a receipt for the amount as “proof of wealth”. Routine bank checks revealed that the cheque was a fraud and Dupont was arrested along with two German nationals last December.
He was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court, after a trial last month. A German national Ulrich Kuitowski, 39, from West Yorkshire was found not guilty at the same time of using a false instrument. A third man, also German, absconded to Germany and has not been tried.
The judge told Dupont that he could have faced up to eight years in jail if he had succeeded in getting the money. But he went on: “I am satisfied that this had no hope whatsoever of succeeding.”
Dupont – whose real name is James Rice – has been living in London since 1997. The judge said he would be recommending Dupont for deportation.
Police revealed that extradition procedures were under way in the USA over a $12m fraud.
THE DAILY OKLAHOMAN
HEADLINE: Agents Investigate Anadarko Bank Group Suspected of Money, Bond Schemes
BYLINE: John Parker, Staff Writer
BODY:
Federal investigators are examining a self-described Anadarko
bank that offers “Swiss secrecy” and has ties to an alleged
railroad bond fraud scheme that has attracted more than $ 1
million from investors.
Authorities executed three search warrants in March and April to
investigate suspected mail fraud, money laundering and illegal
banking that stretches from Oklahoma to at least seven other states.
The Internal Revenue Service, the FBI, the U.S. Postal Service
and the Securities & Exchange Commission are involved in the
investigation. At least five suspects have been identified, but no
charges have been publicly filed.
On March 10, FBI agents seized business records, memos and
computer data from First Americans Bank Ltd., located in rooms
between a bingo hall and smoke shop in the community building of
the Apache Tribe in Anadarko.
The self-described bank represents itself as a financial system
on “sovereign tribal land” that offers bank services with the
“utmost in privacy and asset protection,” according to search
warrant records in Oklahoma City’s U.S. District Court.
Financial transactions are not reported to the “Internal Revenue
division” of the Federal Reserve or state regulatory agencies, the
bank advertises. The bank has marketed its services worldwide on an
Internet site.
The state banking commissioner warned Oklahomans in September to
be wary of the bank, which he said was not chartered or bonded.
Apache Tribe officials also denied authorizing the bank.
Nonetheless, people from all over the continental United States
have sent checks and money orders, ranging from $ 500 to $ 1,500, to
open accounts with First Americans, warrant records said.
Through First Americans Management and First Americans Trust –
entities associated with the bank – the organization has received
about $ 1.5 million in deposits, affidavits signed by FBI and IRS
agents said.
The money received was actually placed in regular bank accounts
held by First Americans Management, records said.
Some of the depositors’ checks were payable to the Native
American Free Trade Association, the bank’s marketing arm at 5555 N
Grand Blvd. in Oklahoma City, records said.
The March 10 warrant said the FBI is investigating illegal
banking allegations against Ron Sparks, a trade association
representative; Brian Condon, president and chief executive officer
of First Americans Trust; and John Wilkerson, identified as a trade
association “private banking specialist.”
FBI agents conducted a search March 20 at the association’s
Oklahoma City office, which also houses First American Management
Corp. and U.S. Heritage Capital Corp.
Attempts to reach the three men were unsuccessful. In an
interview last year with The Oklahoman , Condon said he was a
consultant and the idea for the Indian bank came from Nevada
investors.
“I know they have some agreements with the Apache Tribe, but I
better defer to the board,” he said.
A second focus of the investigation is the sale of 19th century,
“gold-backed” railroad bonds that are worthless, except as
collector items, affidavits said.
Records said agents are investigating at least three men for
alleged mail and wire fraud related to the bonds: Steven Marler of
Yukon; Jerry Graves, a former trade association representative; and
Wilkerson. Marler and Graves also could not be reached for comment.
Agents searched Marler’s home April 23, seizing records related
to “Global Trust Group International,” an entity formed by Marler,
Graves and Wilkerson, records said.
Marler is the leader of the group, even though the entity
appeared to have no actual office before the search of Marler’s
home, the affidavit said. Documents related to First Americans
Management, the trade association and Global Trust were seized
during the search, a warrant return form shows.
Since summer 1997, the men have solicited investors for the
railroad bonds and collected about $ 1.3 million, warrant records
said.
Investors are told they will reap tremendous profits by
investing in the old bonds, the most common being Chicago, Saginaw
& Canada Railroad, or “Saginaw,” bonds issued in the 1870s.
Investors are falsely told the bonds are valid and payable by a
chain of successor companies ending with CSX Transportation Inc.,
the nation’s largest railroad, warrant records said.
The sales pitch includes a purported “authentication document”
signed by Gerald A. Dobbins, a Huntington Beach, Calif., man who
operates Fidelity Secured Deposit Corp.
Dobbins claims to be a “master curator” and values the bond at
$ 110 million. The valuation of the $ 1,000 bond is based on
accumulated interest from 1873 to April 1997 and the “gold weight”
or value of the 1873 dollar, records said.
The document may have appeared serious, but, in person, Dobbins
told a different story.
Agents interviewed Dobbins in January, and he admitted doing the
bond valuations. But when asked for which state he was “master
curator,” Dobbins said, “the state of confusion,” an affidavit said.
Dobbins said he has no training in evaluating bonds, and that he
knows the Saginaw bonds only have collector value. His valuation
was hypothetical, he is reported as saying.
“Dobbins stated that anyone who believed that a CS&C (Saginaw)
bond was worth $ 110 million ‘was a ******* (sic) idiot and deserves
to lose his money,’” an affidavit said.
The Securities and Exchange Commission won a court order in
March that stopped Dobbins from passing off the bonds as valid
investments, the Los Angeles Times reported. He also has
cease-and-desist orders in Nevada and Maryland on other financial
enterprises.
The Saginaw bonds actually came from the Grand Rapids, Mich.,
Public Museum, which sold them as curios after they were discovered
in an attic and donated to the museum, an affidavit said.
About 1,600 of the bonds were sold for $ 22.95 each.
The affidavits also said one of the sellers of the railroad
bonds calls himself “Sloan Dupont” and falsely tells people he is a
member of the Dupont family that started Dupont Chemical Co.
The investigation has stretched to Colorado, Wyoming, Utah,
Kansas, Missouri, California and Washington state, affidavits said.