You can run, but you can’t hide

Panama gets more than its share of scam artists, thieves and general criminals who are running from the law of another country. I have seen many of them over the years that have come here thinking that Panama would protect them from their crimes. We used to say that Panama is a shady place for shady people, but the numbers being picked up and hauled out by the FBI and other authorities is becoming pretty regular. Just in the last few months several people in Boquete have been taken out of the country and back to jurisdictions where they had committed offences.

One, claiming he was a U.S. federal judge left me with a horse he had boarded on my property leaving me with the feed bills and the horse to take care of. Child molesters and sex criminal come here believing they can hide or buy their way out of any problems that arise. Several have found out that this society takes a harder line on that type of behavior than where they came from.  In all the cases I have heard of where the PTJ (Panama FBI) works with the foreign authorities, the persons are under indictment or have been convicted of a crime back in their home country and then skipped out before serving their sentence.

But many scammers have never been prosecuted in their home country. Fake stock promoters, shady real estate developers and get rich quick schemers top the list. A number of foreign gold bond deals, and 100% returns a year scams proliferate in Panama. Boquete is becoming a magnet for them as more elderly Americans come to retire here. The scammers follow right behind the furniture containers, knowing that in Panama the chances of them being prosecuted is slim to none and U.S. authorities have no jurisdiction to go after them for securities fraud in Panama. Don’t call the U.S. embassy because they get the calls regularly and can only sympathize. Many foreigners don’t report the crime as they are too embarrassed according to embassy sources.

I have seen the scammers come and go and usually it is after they have fleeced their prey for a lot of money. A friend told me the other day of a scammer who had taken millions of investment dollars from a number of Boquete retirees and then disappeared. For the life of me, I can’t understand how people who have worked so hard to build their retirement nest eggs can be so foolish as to believe someone they don’t know, in a foreign country is going to take them to a higher financial level. The old adage that says, “if it sounds to good to be true it usually is”, seems to be forgotten by many of the good folks coming here.

Yesterday carried a story about Wesley Snipes associate who helped him illegally claim back millions in taxes, being picked up in Panama City and taken back to the U.S.A..