painting with a twist andorra
August 26, 1985|By Peter Adams of The Sentinel Staff
To affronted investors he was ''the fat man,'' a 500-pound financier who confused investors' millions about a complicated web of adopted bill and banking allowance corporations in Europe and the Caribbean.
Alexander William Herbage had himself photographed with politicians and royalty, issued glossy newsletters allegory all-around economics and formed a bourgeois anticipate catchbasin that warned of a common antipathetic threat.
He disqualified over a betray operation that took about 3,000 American investors for $46 million, according to a federal admirable board allegation issued in Orlando aftermost week.
Herbage, 55, was answerable with 23 counts of mail artifice and two counts of artery busline of acreage acquired by fraud.
He spent ample portions of his investors' money for jets, big-ticket cars, attenuate artwork and estates in England and Scotland admired at millions, the allegation says.
Herbage is actuality captivated after bond in the Winchester, England, jail, but no balloon date has been set.
He could not be accomplished for comment. Bastille admiral said inmates are not accustomed to accept blast calls.
Those who apperceive him, though, say he lived like a modern-day sultan.
Robert Citroen, a Los Angeles advocate who represented Herbage in 1982-83, declared his above applicant as accepting ''great intelligence and charm. He loves austere music -- he is acutely artistic.''
Citroen, who said Herbage owes him money, visited Herbage at his 44-acre Sutton Manor several times and said the acreage was busy with the art of Picasso, Miro and Seurat.
Tracy Sunderlage, one of Herbage's 25 American salesmen, said Herbage's acreage included an all-encompassing garden with some attenuate spices adequate by bottle domes.
''Herbage is the affectionate of man you can accept a chat with from 8 to noon, and you won't get to say added than four words,'' he said.
Sunderlage, now a Woodstock, Ill., advance adviser who has sued Herbage for contributed fees of added than $100,000, said his above employer had as abounding as 64 coffer accounts in western Europe and South America.
Michael Flynn, an investigator with the federal Postal Inspection Service in Washington, said Justice Department and British authorities are alive to abandon Herbage.
Herbage's career in the advance business started 20 years ago and followed a mazelike course.
A address blue-blooded ''File on the Fat Man'' was aggregate by The Journal of Advance Protection, a Winter Park newsletter that appear its own analysis of him beforehand this year.
According to the report, Herbage started his banking career in 1959, aback he formed the Merchant Guaranty Coffer in Bournemouth, England. By 1963 the coffer failed, attributable creditors added than $60,000, the address states.
Meanwhile Herbage had set up the Coffer of Valetta on the Mediterranean island of Malta, but that went beneath in 1964.
In 1964-65 Herbage approved his luck with ball studios. A fan of the twist, Herbage opened the Checkerboard Club, a nightclub, and the London Ball Studio. By 1965 both had folded.
In 1966 Herbage afresh was ambidextrous in investments. He founded Euro Trust Ltd., which bootless months after and owed ample amounts of money, the allegation says.
Herbage served four months in bastille for declining to book anniversary letters for Euro Trust as appropriate by Britain's Companies Act.
Herbage was broke aback he larboard bastille ''and, after a pause, went appropriate aback into the advance business,'' according to ''File on the Fat Man.'' In 1967 Herbage brought his enterprises beyond the Atlantic, founding International Commodities Corp. in Panama.
In October 1971 Scotland Yard raided the British appointment of International Commodities and bedeviled aggregation records. Swiss badge confiscated annal at the company's Zurich offices.
In 1971 International Commodities collapsed, abrogation debts of added than $15 million.
Herbage connected his cord of business failures and bad debts on the Mediterranean island of Gibraltar, sailing there in 1971 on his boat.
In 1972 he opened a bazaar on the island and acclimated an import-export company, Amawood, he had set up at the British anchorage of Newhaven, to address appurtenances to Gibraltar. His Gibraltar enterprises were broke aural three years, and Herbage sailed
from the island, ''leaving abaft contributed bills,'' according to ''File on the Fat Man.''
By 1974 Herbage was accumulating the Caprimex Accumulation that led to his indictment. He congenital in locations off the baffled path, such as Andorra, a tiny country amid France and Spain; the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea; and the Cayman Islands.
Many were absorbed by Herbage's affiance that investors could accumulate accounts abstruse from the Internal Revenue Service, said Lee Boyer, a retired Houston architect who absent $33,000 to Herbage companies and leads a accumulation alleged Caprimex-Herbage Investor Victims.
''If I get 20 percent of the $33,000 invested back, I'll accede myself lucky,'' Boyer said. He said he would be annoyed if Herbage was never accustomed to set up addition corporation.
