CRIMINAL CASE AGAINST PANAMANIAN LAWYER DETAILS HOW BEARER SHARE FRAUD OCCURS

Ismael Gerli Champsaur

As a follow-up to our recent article, covering the fraud indictment, brought against Panama City attorney Ismael Gerli Champsaur, we are going to the mechanics of how bearer share fraud was accomplished by Gerli. This is the single most important reason that no country should still have a law permitting bearer shares still on the books.

The specific charge against Gerli* is Falsifying Public Documents. He unilaterally, and without client knowledge and consent, changed the composition of the board of directors, of corporations,and foundations, that he himself had set up for his client, which allowed him to appropriate the entities, and the real properties such entities owned. The client was Vladimir Kokorev, whose case has come to the attention of human rights groups, due to his illegal treatment, by the Government of Spain, in what has been regarded as a purely political case.

Gerli subsequently changed the names of the corporation. Tellingly, he named the new company after the Panamanian prison where his client was detained, after Gerli gave false testimony against the client, leading to his detention, on a material witness warrant from Spain.Thereafter, his clients were extradited to the Canary Islands,  a Spanish territory, where they unlawfully remain, more than a year later, not having ben charged with a crime, nor having to testify as material witnesses. All of this was the result of Gerli giving perjured testimony, in seeking a six figure fee, due to his lawful termination by Kokorev, as attorney.

When shares of corporate stock are in bearer form, and not registered, in a stock transfer ledger, whosoever hold the shares owns the stock, and therefore, all the corporate assets. Many countries with a serious level of corruption allow bad actors to easily obtain a fraudulent notarization of the client's signature, and illegal transfer of shares & all the assets. A bill of sale, which can be easily forged, and notarized, completes the fraud.

 Rule of thumb: DO NOT allow clients or customers to use corporations formed in the Republic of Panama, or the British Virgin Islands, or any other dodgy jurisdiction where bearer shares are still legal. To allow such companies, for any purpose, means to assume an extraordinary amount of risk.
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*Ismael Gerli's most notorious client, the American expat, Gary James Lundgren, whose massive bearer share frauds, and other sins, we have covered extensively on this blog, lost his US securities licenses, for life, after a FINRA investigation. While this blog was not named in the opinion, the references to our articles about Lundgren's criminal activities clearly show that they contributed to the investigation, and final outcome. We continue to expose securities crimes, and to make that news available to regulatory agencies, in the United States and Canada, so that justice may be served.

Gary James Lundgren