|
By Hank Guichelaar
What did you say?
It’s hidden and concealed and almost impossible to connect The Man
Enrique with his other businesses? The “network” and “system” is set
up and therefore the money is “there” and “working”?
How foolish an excuse that is. Because if this were really the case,
and all this money is still “there” and “working”, then WHY, oh, WHY
is this ingeniously secretive system not used to give us our goddamn
money back?
If all these businesses can run and if these millions can “work”
without implicating Enrique, than it must therefore be plausible to
make it “work” our way.
Or at least send us some interest once and a while…
Jeez, any more of this hocus-pocus and I’m gonna run out of
quotation marks!
This entire last year, Enrique has managed to pay his attorneys and
managed to sell his helicopter operations in La Gloria for a cool
1.5 million. Implication seems to be the least of his worries.
He’s moving money like a speed freak playing monopoly but none of it
is moving our way…
Now what did you say? Enrique did have a money exchange business?
Well, technically his brother Osvaldo operated the Ofinter exchange
house. But that 3-½-office outfit did not produce enough profit to
pay 6000 investors their monthly interest.
If the estimates are correct and the principal investments totaled
about 800 million, than the 3 percent rule dictates that somehow,
Enrique had to come up with 24 million dollars to pay out every
month.
24 million each month from a skeleton crew three-office operation!
Phew, praise the lord so many people chose to roll over and
re-invest, otherwise it would have cost that poor bastard a fricking
fortune in manila envelopes!
To run such a humongous financial empire from a storefront in a mall
is a small miracle by itself. Especially when you consider that
Enrique hardly ever traveled.
Or did you think that he had a private plane parked at the Pavas
airport? A nice business jet in which he could zoom around the globe
to personally check into all of his financial ventures?
Or are you under the impression that he jumped on Taca or American
at regular intervals to inspect that our money was “working” the way
he wanted it to?
No friends, the second to last trip our friend Enrique undertook was
an expedition to the Holy Land, organized by Benny Hinn of
televangelist fame.
Except for that and his current journey, he could almost always be
found behind his desk.
Enrique was secretive about his business. Not one single investor
ever saw a Financial Plan, a Balance Sheet or a Business Strategy at
the time of investment. Not that we asked for this, we all crossed
our fingers and hoped for the best.
At 3% per month, who cares what we he did? We were going to be
wealthy beyond are wildest dreams; we never had to work again a day
in our lives!
Ask yourselves, how many common sense folks will invest heavily into
a venture that does not disclose its business?
Well, we did.
The house I presently live in was paid in part by one of my
investments. Who has never heard of Fidelity Magellan?
An outperforming mutual fund, headed by Peter Lynch, a wizard who
took this fund to the outer reaches of the financial cosmos. Because
of it’s huge success - and it only produced a mere fraction of what
The Brothers paid - this fund became so popular and so big that it
was forced to become a “closed” fund before it became unmanageable.
In other words, it continued its magic but no additional investors
were allowed in.
No matter where on the globe, financial ventures that outperform the
norm get noticed immediately in the small world of finance. It is
impossible to move almost a billion bucks and make millions without
drawing any attention to yourself.
But these Tico Brothers, who claimed to be outperforming Warren
Buffet and the entire western economy with it, did so with secrecy
as a business model while evading answers to many questions.
So what the hell happened to us?
Most of us possess enough common sense to make it through life
without doing anything wildly foolish or rash. And yet, as soon as
we set foot in this Tropical Paradise, we go bonkers!
Not many of us would plunk down a sizable amount of cash in a smoky
Chicago backroom because we were promised high returns. Few among us
would invest without seeing a color brochure, a business plan, a
balance sheet and scores of recommendations, pages of small print
and prudent warnings.
But hell, we step across the border and just like our forgotten
toothbrush; we leave our brains and common sense at home!
The beauty of the people, the food, the awesome beaches, the
magnificent rainforest and damn, they’re giving away money too!
Few asked Enrique how and what he did to turn a profit and pay us
handsomely. Those who insisted got a variety of answers.
The lamest among these was printed in some publication shortly
before he relocated: “I buy low and sell high,” he stated.
Yes, Warren Buffet of the Central Plateau uttered these words to a
reporter. “I buy low and sell high”.
If this were the genius plan, well, then how can we go wrong???
And then there is the biggest lie of all, the blatantly ignorant
excuse given for Enrique’s absence.
“Enrique has been threatened, some irate investors want to kill
him”, is a common retort.
And then we are told he is waiting for the legal obstacles to be
removed so “he can return…”
Oh, really, like removing the legal obstacles will also somehow
remove the anger of some irate criminals who want to kill him?
These potential murderers are somehow going to have a change of
heart when some judge rules against the prosecutor?
Please, give yourselves a well deserved and common sense break from
this, will ya?
If Enrique is “afraid” now, he will remain “afraid” until the end of
times.
And that period will likely coincide with the return of our
investments.
Hank
|
