Scam pimp Don Winner in grand theft GPS maps

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NOW what do we read in our beloved Panama Guide™ webzine? Another one of Don Winner's good friends bites the dust! On the run for the law. Fleeing charges of copyright violations and theft and whatnot in Panama and the US.

What happened? Well, we're not really sure, but it appears there was this company that provided GPS map services in Panama, and it was owned by Republican congressional candidate Jerry Hall and some guy called Steve Magaric did most of the work. And then, according to what we read, Magaric thought, "Fuck Hall", and started to scheme to just keep all the money for himself.

Don Winner in this ploy served to create smoke screens by keeping Hall busy with all kinds of weird attacks on his person, while Magaric managed to obfuscate $150k from the company's coffers.

And then all was discovered by Hall when Magaric suddenly left and moved to Australia, taking all the maps and software with him which aren't his! So, criminal complaints and charges.

Did scam pimp Don Winner profit? We don't know for sure, but we must assume he did. Why? Because of his track record, which includes:

  • - Sides with Tom McMurrain in ongoing scandal about San Cristobal noni and teak scam, until McMurrain is finally arrested, extradited and thrown in the slammer;
  • - With McMurrain gone, Winner then starts pumping the "accountancy services" of one Thomas Rowley, the former "bookkeeper" of the San Cristobal scam who, according to documents of the Public Ministry, was also wanted by Interpol in relation to some kind of European subsidy fraud;
  • - Promotes "Templar Panama", a real esate firm of Gonzalo de la Guardia which took investments for a condo tower they never built and which sold land next to resorts and marinas of Carlos Slim and Mel Gibson that didn't exist. Another principal of this outfit was Kevin Bradley, a friend of Winner who was instrumental in shaking down a Canadian retiree for a couple of million together with HSBC Panama. Templar employs one Martin Roy Lamb as its sales director, a convicted high yield investment swindler from Canada and notorious coke junk, and Winner tries to suppress exposure of Lamb on behalf of the Templar hustlers. Lamb, de la Guardia et al eventually resort to hacking this website to stop them from being exposed as a bunch of crooks. Then Templar itself collapses without a trace (of clients paid deposits);
  • - Promotes a project called "Canal Valley" which purports to be a resort community inside the Canal watershed - where no such communities are allowed to be built. Principals are a bunch of convicted stock swindlers from Canada who haven't paid the land and the broker. Winner vows to prove that the project will be allowed by the Canal Authority, and then hopelessly fails to do so. Despite Winner's support, project goes belly-up and we receive many emails from victims who lost their money.
  • - Promotes a shady former extremist militia guy who goes by the name of "Rex Freeman" but whose real name is Marc Boswell and who runs financial frauds. As in, fake "investment clubs" and scammy forex things and online gambling scams. So Winner makes him financial columnist of Panama Guide, and defends him vehemently against ongoing revelations involving lots of stolen money, money laundering, fake cheques, arrests and prison. Cheered on by Don Winner, Boswell starts criminal defamation case against Eric Jackson of The Panama News and loses spectacularly after a Costa Rican arrest warrant for him is published on the front page of La Estrella.
  • - Starts defending Mary K. Sloane, a former Canadian lawyer who was disbarred for stealing client money and then came to Panama to steal some more by posing as a consultant and expat community leader. Sloane takes off again when too many people want their money back and was last seen running an MLM scheme featuring sanitary napkins (no joke!) from somewhere in the far east.
  • - Outs an anonymous source in a porn scandal that La Estrella wrote about, in which one of Winner's friends is accused of producing child pornography. Claims that revealing the source's identity somehow absolves his friend of everything.
  • - Promotes the Panamanian "businesses" of Monte Friesner, a Canadian psychopath and serial fraud artist with a criminal record from here to Tokyo which includes advance fee fraud, theft, money laundering, arson, assault, and so on. Serves as a publicist for Friesner and his accomplice Tatiana Nazarova running a never-ending series of bizarre nonsense stories;
  • - Takes a PR gig for Marcos Shrem, who sold arms to a Colombian right-wing terrorist group called the AUC, known for massacring women and children and cutting them up with chainsaws when they're still alive. While his clients were busy butchering kids, Shrem laundered the proceeds of these sales through a series of questionable real estate schemes, we're told. One of these schemes was a beachfront development in Gorgona where investors lost all their money - Don Winner's job being to endlessly repeat that there's nothing to worry about and all will be well, which it will not, but he doesn't care as long as he's being paid with the blood money of Colombian terrorists.

See a pattern here? Yes, so do we. So what do YOU think we should believe about this Magaric story?

9 thoughts on “Scam pimp Don Winner in grand theft GPS maps

  1. Hi, Okke! I’m new to Panama and trying to sort out the local media picture: who can be trusted, who’s just a shill, who’s professional, who isn’t, etc. This Winner guy is certainly a piece of work. He can’t write or spell, and on one hand he claims NOT to be a journalist (which is pretty obvious), then on another he often claims he is. He seems mainly concerned with puffing himself up. Maybe he doesn’t realize that he comes across as a redneck idiot, a Big Man on Campus blowhard, and a wannabe “tough guy.” He recently compared himself to the editor of the New York Times! Talk about divorced from reality.

    See below for instances of his schizo claims.

    From December 23, 2011: “. . . Here’s a little secret so don’t tell anyone. I’m not a journalist. . .”

    [http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20111223102732482#comments]

    From January 5, 2012: “. . . But, this is a news operation, not an employment agency. I receive email like this frequently, and I never answer them. If you want to investigate employment opportunities in New York City, would you write an email to the editor of the New York Times? Of course not. . .”

    [http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/2012010508594893]

    From January 3, 2012: “. . . There are no truly independent journalists in Panama, besides me. . .”

    [http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20120103135709714]

    From November 12, 2011: “. . . I just want them to invite me if they invite the Panamanian media. What, I’m being discriminated against simply because I speak English? Makes no sense, from a common sense point of view. It’s different for journalists because we have to know about the events before they occur, and it’s just not the same to read about it in a press release, after it’s happened. . .”

    [http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20111112131154844]

    Does this Winner guy have delusions of grandeur? Seems like he could use the services of a good talkin’ doctor.

    • Soooooo: Here’s what a Bananama Republic diplomatic source just wrote us about Don Winner’s terrorist client Marcos Shrem:

      Marcos is the son of one Ovadia Schrem, one of 2 brothers arriving from Peru in about 1980. They were both seen leaving their El Tigre store at La Cuchilla de Calidonia after an unsuccesful fire, a landmark case in Panama, because the Supreme Court determined that the Oficina de Seguridad “carecía de la fé pública” in finding that said store had been torched, so Internacional de Seguros had to part with a pretty penny. Ovadia has since gone on to a number of curious transactions which have left a goodly number of people unhappy. Ovadia has that development on the second island at Amador: Mireya authorised filling in some 50 metres for parking, but by the time they finally stopped him, Ovadia had filled in about 500. And so forth and so on.

      But the best story was how Ovadia complained to Sarah Harari’s son how he was ruining his business by telling his tale of woe at Shevet Ahim synagogue. Apparently Ovadia had sold him discounted First Class tickets, which were revealed to come from ticket stocks stolen in Lima (Ovadia had once operated a travel agency there…..) and Sarah’s son was forced to fork over a one-way First Class from Tel Aviv…..
      So you see, young Marcos is simply following in his father’s footsteps — only big time….!

  2. Pingback: Friesner case goes nowhere | Bananama Republic

  3. Thanks so much for bringing this out Don Winner (Blood in the Water Winner, needs a lot of light shown on who this crook really is. Don Winner is all about the con, I think that is where he thinks he is this genius, when if the guy had a brain, he would use it for honest deals. But instead he thinks it cooler to steal and defraud from people.

    THE GREAT REPORTS LIKE YOURSELF Sure could use some more great advertising I AM HERE TO TELL YOU YOU ARE THE BEST IN WRITING AND TELLING THE TRUTH SO KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK AND THANK YOU, YOU WILL always be a friend.

  4. Steve Margaric Avoids Prosecutiion In Australia -Comes to Panama to start New Scams [ edit | delete ]
    By Panama-Guide | February 05, 2012 at 03:50 PM EST | No Comments (0 new)

    Steve Magaric involved in Security Fraud had to flee Australia, and came to Panama

    04-231 ASIC continues investigation into unlicensed investment club

    Thursday 15 July 2004

    The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) today confirmed that its investigation into a number of unlicensed investment clubs operating out of Vanuatu is continuing.

    ASIC has obtained court orders by consent against Messrs Philip Northam, Steve Magaric and Graham Laughlin, the directors of Biri International Limited, Biri Limited (the Biri companies) ClubInvest Limited (ClubInvest) and Gramax Investment Club Ltd (Gramax), all of which are incorporated in the Republic of Vanuatu.

    ASIC has also obtained court orders by consent against Mr Allan Veivers and Mr Peter Kerin, who are involved with one or more of these companies.

    The court orders restrain:

    Gramax and ClubInvest from carrying on a financial services business;
    Mr Laughlin and the Biri companies from providing a financial service in Australia on behalf of Gramax;
    Messrs Northam, Magaric, Veivers and Kerin and the Biri companies from providing financial services in Australia on behalf of ClubInvest;
    Gramax from operating an unregistered managed investment scheme
    ClubInvest from offering securities to Australian investors and entities without disclosure documents;
    Mr Laughlin, Gramax and the Biri companies from inducing Australians to invest, or accepting money to invest, in the Gramax Investment Club, and
    Messrs Northam, Magaric, Veivers and Kerin, the Biri companies and ClubInvest from inducing Australian investors or entities to acquire shares in Club Invest, or accepting monies from Australians for shares in Club Invest.

    Orders restraining Messrs Northam, Magaric and Laughlin from leaving Australia expired after the Federal Court accepted evidence from the directors that certain documents which would substantiate the existence of $15 million of investors’ money do not exist.

    Orders restraining the parties from taking or sending money out of Australia still remain.

    ASIC alleges that the respondents are involved in the operation of an unlicensed investment scheme based in Vanuatu, and are offering financial services to and raising funds from Australian investors, in contravention of the Corporations Act.

    Australians who have had trouble redeeming their investment moneys, or have been told they may experience delays in redeeming their investment moneys, should contact ASIC’s Infoline on 1300 300 630.

    The matter returns to court on 20 August 2004.

  5. Don winner better be careful,there are a lot of very nasty people out there, who Don’t like been ripped off.
    Keep up the good work,honest reporting is hard to find these days

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