Auditor for Dominica registered insurance company sentenced for his role in a $670 million scam

According to U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride and Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, more than 3,500 victims throughout the United States and abroad were affected by the mail and wire fraud.

In addition to his prison term, Castillo was sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to pay $43,582,699 in forfeiture.

Provident Capital Indemnity LTD (PCI), an insurance company registered in Dominica with business operations in Costa Rica. The sentencing of Castillo has brought new scrutiny to Dominica’s offshore sector, which has developed a reputation for attracting dubious business operatives.

On November 23, 2011 Police in London arrested Vladimir Antonov, who had a majority stake in Lithuanian bank Snoras and his business partner Raimondas Baranauskas. The men were charged with fraudulent accounting, forgery of documents, abuse of authority, misappropriation of property, money laundering and other criminal offences.

Antonov, 36 owned an offshore bank in Dominica called Banco Transatlantico, formerly Griffon Bank, which was operating out of the Government Headquarters building in Roseau, Dominica.

Also last year, it was revealed that Anders Behring Breivik the man known as Norway’s worst mass murderer, laundered hundreds of thousands of Euro’s through offshore accounts in Dominica.

According to the indictment against Castillo, PCI provided financial guarantee bonds on life settlements and claims to protect investors’ interests in life insurance policies by promising to pay the death benefit if the insured lives beyond his or her estimated life expectancy.

After registering its offices in Dominica , PCI began selling what it called "life expectancy guarantee bonds" to life settlement investment companies that sold them to investors. From at least 2004 to March 2010, PCI issued approximately 197 bonds backstopping numerous bonded offerings of investments in life insurance policies with a face value of more than $670 million.

Castillo admitted in court that he conspired with Minor Vargas Calvo, 61, the president and majority owner of PCI, to prepare audited financial statements that falsely claimed that PCI had entered into reinsurance contracts with major reinsurance companies.