Executive Overview
On March 24, 2003 a serious fraud against US investors in the island of St. Kitts was revealed with a letter to all the investors of Paradise Beach Resorts. All the telephone lines were cut and investors in Paradise Beach were in a panic to find out what happened to their millions of dollars invested in the resort.
Mary Estes, the owner of the resort, was on her death bed under very suspicious circumstances. She was removed from the island of St. Kitts to Florida. On her death bed, a suspicious stamped signature turned over the resort and all the assets to companies and individuals managed by Roland M. Thomas, a British citizen operating out of Las Vegas and St.Kitts.
Thomas had a history of unusual stock transactions and sharp business dealings, so it was a surprise to many that Thomas stood next to the Prime Minister and Minister of Finance (St. Kitts) Dr. Denzil L. Douglas on July 12, 2003 and announced that Paradise Beach Resorts has been reopened as “The Angelus Resort”. No mention was made of any of the over 120 US investors or their money.
Because the investors did not know each other before the fraud was revealed, it took quite a few months for an investor group to organize and try to make sense of what had happened. All communications with the new “owners” of the resort were in vain, and it is now known that Estes et al were operating an elaborate international Ponzi scheme unknown to investors who were supporting the resort.
In March of 2004, the investor group had become organized enough to file their first claim in the courts of St. Kitts. The evidence of their investments and claim to the resort were indisputable; so, in a effort to conceal evidence, Thomas used the guise of an illegal IRS summons to send all investor records to IRS examiners, effectively washing his hands of all the investors as if they did not exist. The funds of the investors were stolen, perfected by Thomas in his takeover of the property, and all assets, on the death bed of the owner.
It is now known that the summons by the IRS was a direct violation of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between the US and St. Kitts. Under the MLAT treaty, the US government was required to make a formal request for the documents to their counterparts in the St. Kitts government.
Instead of following the law, designed to protect evidence and establish a change of custody of records, an IRS examiner issued an illegal summons directly to Roland M. Thomas as the CEO of a St Kitts company; and Thomas was all too pleased to comply.
Subsequent evidence shows correspondence between Thomas and the IRS as they conspired to undermine the investors who had been defrauded by Thomas. Making this more unbelievable, all of this illegal concealment of evidence was done under a discovery court order by the Courts in St. Kitts to produce the same documents.
In a nutshell, IRS examiners conspired with Thomas et al to deny justice to over 120 US citizens who had been a victim of an elaborate international Ponzi scheme.
The government of St. Kitts has never addressed the issue of the investors and their losses and the investor group has never received a favorable ruling or acknowledge from any St. Kitts government official, now four and a half years since the fraud and theft was discovered.
Making matters more unbelievable, the St. Kitts government took control of the property, turning a blind eye to the investors, and negotiated to sell it to the Ritz Carlton.
This site has a large array of many of the public documents and news releases related to this amazing story. With more twists and turns than a John Grisham novel, the story continues today – only this is a true story.
The Story of the Angelus Resort.
