A former Bermuda Sun reporter's pivotal role in the downfall of an American fraudster has been shared with tens of thousands of TV viewers.
David Marchant, now based in Miami, helped expose Marc Harris as a crook who stole millions from investors.
The story was featured on MSNBC's 'American Greed', which aired on Wednesday night and will be repeated on Sunday, February 8 at midnight Bermuda time.
In March 1998, Mr. Marchant's newsletter OffshoreAlert first revealed that Mr. Harris was scamming investors who were looking to avoid paying U.S. taxes. The money manager filed a $300m libel suit but a trial ruled in favour of Mr. Marchant and bad publicity against Mr. Harris started to pile up.
The fraudulent Marc Harris Organization was based in Panama but eventually Mr. Harris was arrested in Florida by Internal Revenue Service investigators.
OffshoreAlert's coverage of the fraudster, allied to the IRS probe, helped bring him down. He had boasted of a billion dollar business empire but Mr. Marchant's probe showed it was more like $40million.
In 2003, Mr. Harris was sentenced to 17 years in a U.S. prison and fined $27 million for tax evasion.
"When OffshoreAlert first began exposing him as a fraudster, tax evader and money launderer in March, 1998, Mr. Harris was generally considered to be a successful businessman and something of a financial guru," Mr. Marchant said.
"OffshoreAlert exposed Harris five years before the authorities charged him with criminal activity. That speaks for itself in terms of the role OffshoreAlert had in bringing down his empire."
Asked what Bermudians can learn from this case, Mr. Marchant said: "The over-riding lesson of the Marc Harris story for any investor, whether they live in Bermuda or elsewhere, is to conduct proper due diligence before parting with your money or entering into any significant business relationship.
"The willingness of people, many of whom are otherwise intelligent and generally sophisticated, to throw their money away on schemes that, to me, are obviously fraudulent never ceases to amaze me."
Mr. Marchant worked in Bermuda in the 1990s but his take-no-prisoners, investigative reporting style upset some powerful figures and he was forced to leave the island.
On the show - which is viewed by an average of 200,000 people per episode - Mr. Marchant explains how people were duped.
OffshoreAlert will be holding its annual financial due diligence conference in Miami on April 26-28. For more, visit: www.offshorealertconference.com/OAC2009/home.asp
