Licenses don't give you morals: My take on the SSL/Usain Bolt fraud scandal.

 Author: S. Jeffery

Olympic champion Usain St. Leo Bolt

By now the world knows that the eight-time Olympic gold medalist, Usain Bolt was defrauded of USD $12 million. The circumstances under which this occurred and what is happening now I will do my best to explain. 

So in 2012, Usain Bolt opened an account with the now embattled Stocks and Securities Limited. He opened the account with USD $10 million. The money was to go towards his old age retirement, you know like a nest egg for the future. That being the case Mr. Bolt never touched the money, and it seems he may not have checked on it regularly either. 

In October of 2022, he received a financial statement from the institution which said that his account was currently over USD $12 million, however by the time scandal broke earlier this week, the public was aware that the champ's balance had gone down to USD $2,000. Further verification by Jamaica's top media houses such as The Jamaica Observer and the Jamaica Gleaner revealed however that Mr. Bolt's account actually had USD12,000 left in it. 

Now here's the part that would flip anyone's gig. Apparently, the company Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL - will be referred as such going forward) knew that the alleged fraudster was siphoning off monies from several customers' accounts for a good while and were sneakily --or so they claim --investigating her activities. 

Stocks & Securities Limited building.

But listen to what one social media sports commentator claims.

Oral Tracy, the popular sports commentator on local television station, TVJ, on his Youtube channel alleges that the woman approached Bolt to "borrow" some money from him. Upon hearing the request and questioning her further, Bolt and his team realised that something was 'fishy' and rushed down to the investment company to find out if his money was safe. You can watch his colorful take on the issue here: https://youtu.be/r5ndQfQw_Dk

So after demanding more info about his account, Tracy claims that the company confessed to Bolt that monies were taken, because of this they were forced to make a public statement about Bolt's account being compromised. Yesterday, we learned that her name is Jean Panton, a wealth advisor/manager that had been with the company for 25 years. Last night (January 17, 2023) a statement was released from Ms Panton which showed a spreadsheet of 39 people who she defrauded out of millions. She dipped her fingers into both USD and Jamaican dollar accounts of her clients. In some instances, she cunningly changed email authorisation by creating new email accounts using her access to her clients' personal data to make herself the recipient of money transactions.

Jean Panton, holding up her business card with the SSL logo on it.
In the photo she claims "My clients trust me". I guess they shouldn't have.

She claimed that she started "borrowing" her clients' monies because she was in a desperate situation. Her father was terminally ill with cancer and she was the sole caregiver for both of her parents. So, she took money for his treatment, she "borrowed" money again to pay for his funeral after he died and then she went back to "borrow" again to deal with other family expenses.

Of the 39 persons mentioned, Usain's name was not among the list. Her lawyer says she is cooperating with the police to the fullest extent. So if we should take the list as a true list, does that mean that she was not the one who stole Usain's money? And if in fact she did not take his money, who did? 

Bolt has contacted the company through his lawyers and threatened they must return all the USD $12 million dollars to his account within the next 10 days or face the consequences. Yes sah! Bolt a guh sue dem baxide!

The crux of the matter for me though, is this defrauding of people's hard earned monies has become too common for my liking. 

In 2020, an NCB executive during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was charged with defrauding approximately JMD $35 million but as far back as 2009 another NCB executive was caught creating fictitious names to siphon off JMD $5 million dollars from the bank, and this year (2023) along with the breaking story of Bolt losing his money was the charging of another NCB bank employee defrauding thousands of US dollars from the Ocho Rios branch.

What am I saying? These people are trained, all of them were probably university graduates. So it's possible they have an accounting or a finance degree. To enter the financial sector and act as a financial advisor or an account manager, they also have to go through rigorous training. They are then given an exam and they must pass it to be considered for a license/be registered. After you pass the exam, you are placed under the supervision of a manager or senior personnel, who will oversee your preliminary entry period into the industry. There are also associations and professional groups you have to qualify to enter to be considered a professional in this sector, for example the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Jamaica for accountants who want to be licensed to work in the country. 

In the financial sector, the Financial Services Commission exists as a sort of licensing and oversight body to monitor the activities of dealers, advisors or their agents, but it could not prevent Jean Panton from defrauding her clients. As a matter of fact, no licensing body would be able to stop something that is an internal issue in the heart and mind of a member who decides to do wrong.

The FSC itself needs an overall, after the scandal broke out, they revealed that they flagged SSL for a "culture of non-compliance". They are now being criticized for not warning the public of the discrepancies they identified from as far back as 2010. The FSC it would seem turned a blind eye to the problems at the company. If there was a culture of non-compliance why wasn't the company's license suspended? Something to think about. How can we trust a regulatory body that is slack at doing its job?

You can be trained and licensed to the hilt, licenses don't make up for being honest, possessing integrity and morals. Sure, you know how to trade stocks and bonds, you know when to buy and when to sell, but somehow you don't understand that that is not your money you're working with. It's your client's money, who trusted you to do the right thing, ensuring their investment is secured, and ironically one of the reasons they trusted you was because you presented a piece of paper which said you were trained and licensed to do that sort of business.

But a piece of paper doesn't make you honest, moral standards do. If you know what's right from wrong and choose to do the right thing to protect your customers' interests then that is how it should be. If you do otherwise and defraud persons of their money, you should be in jail.  

Today the FSC did a press conference to reveal what they learned so far from their investigations. It is a sad situation and one that will have tongues wagging for some time. It however has implications for the financial sector overall not just securities dealers but also banks and lending agencies. If we can't trust the supposedly regulated and licensed to do their professional responsibility --what they were trained to do --who can we trust?