Peter, I thank you for taking the time to explain everything that has happened so clearly. I don't think you need to say anything else, obviously some people are here to hate, sadly this forum is not immune to haters either, they are everywhere these days.
Some of you, specially the haters, should really try to talk to the Commissioner of the OCIF. You should ask her a number of questions, like:
"Why did she really close the bank?"
"Why didn't she allow the sale of the bank to Qenta?"
"Why didn't she allow Peter to inject more capital into the bank, and liquidate the bank himself?"
"Why did you have to appoint a Receiver, a Receiver with obviously zero experience?"
"Why did you give a press conference which resulted in the freeze of EPB accounts by the correspondent bank, and why did you say things during the press conference that turned out to be false?"
It's been more than a Year since the bank was closed, customers haven't seen a penny of their money, "is this what you call protecting the interest of the customers, shouldn't that be the priority of the Commissioner?"
Until these questions are answered no one should blame Peter for anything that's happened, no I'm not defending anybody, I'm just not a hater (although as time has gone by I have developed a decent amount of hate towards the OCIF and the Receiver,) it's obvious by now the OCIF has done a terrible job, never thinking about the consequences of her actions, never behaving in a responsible and professional manner.
And I don't want to get into the complete lack of information since the bank was closed, we had to wait a year for the useless Receiver to come out of hibernation just to end up telling us that the funds are still stuck in Novo bank, and if Novo releases the funds then he will send us a liquidation report where supposedly we will learn about his master plan to return the funds, and if we will end up getting all our money back after he is done charging his fees.
I hope everything that has happened is made public. Unfortunately we are victims at the mercy of the decisions made by the Commissioner and the Receiver, which have been a total disaster, so even though there's nothing that we have been able to do up to now, we have to do our best to protect others by informing them of the risks involved when you open an account in the jurisdiction of Puerto Rico, FUBAR.
Once again Peter, thank you for taking the time, at least I hope you get some money from 60 Minutes Australia.
I do wish you could have also filed a lawsuit against the OCIF, even if the chances of winning such a case in a Puerto Rican court would've been very slim, but just the publicity of it would have been well worth it.
Few more weeks and we will know more, I truly hope everybody, opt-in and opt-out customers, get all their money back before this year is over.
I find it insulting that a new guy in this thread has said that all of us who opened an account at EPB did it to launder money and evade taxes. I feel tempted to upload my tax returns so you see that many of us are not so "naive" to think that when you open an offshore account you can just ignore one of the very few things that are certain about this world that we live in, and that is having to pay taxes in your country of residency.
And I would like to add that I've had bank accounts at
UBS, Couts&Co, Bank of America, Chase, BBVA, and Barclay's Bank and the
KYC that I had to go through to open an account at EPB was arguably one of the strictest I've gone through. And after a few years of having the account at EPB I wanted to add my wife to the account in case something ever happened to me, and I almost gave up as EPB kept asking for documentation, I also had to send information of my wife's employer, it was more documentation than any other bank has ever required in order to just add my wife to an existing account.
At some point I also had a company account, it took me 2 months to open the account.
I also had a brokerage account, so those of us who had that type of account know that we had to submit a
CRS form before being able to start trading, and that's just a fact.
I know for sure there are many other banks in the world that will not hesitate to open an account with a fraction of the documents, and let's not talk about all the EMIs where you can currently open an account, some without even sending a copy of your passport. And of course let's not get into all the exchanges where you can hide your
crypto, a perfect paradise for scammers and all kinds of criminals.
So to come here and say that EPB was this and that when it came to opening an account is just FALSE.
Final words, if things don't get solved, meaning if the OCIF and the Receiver keep delaying things without having a proper reason beyond their control, I will happily join other customers to try to go after OCIF, as far as I'm concerned we are where we are because of the actions and irresponsible conduct of OCIF, in particular the Commissioner Natalia Zequeira Diaz.
And even though I'm sure she was pressured by the J5 to close the bank, there is no doubt in my mind that she could have easily allowed Peter to liquidate the bank without the need of appointing a Receiver, and without giving a press conference full of innuendos and false accusations that resulted in the freeze by Novo bank. And here we are still paying the price, I hope you are listening Natalia Zequeira Diaz, you should apologize and resign immediately!! You're to blame for everything that's happened!! What you throw into the fire becomes fuel for the fire, that's exactly what you've done stupid girl!
All that I've done during these months is work to take care of my family, no holidays, no going to the movies or going out for dinner, nothing whatsoever, but I don't regret banking at EuroPacific Bank, the bank was great, customer service was excellent, the bank offered a very wide selection of
investments,
precious metals accounts, mutual funds, multi currency accounts, prepaid cards, and a brokerage account linked to Interactive Brokers, what else would you want from a bank? The bank had everything, it was perfect! And a full-reserve bank!
Unfortunately I never anticipated that a Regulator would work against the customers. I've had accounts with different banks that ended up getting closed and in all those cases the Regulator made sure that the failed bank was sold to a more solid institution, I never lost access to my money, not even for 1 minute.
And I find it ludicrous to suggest that EPB should've been making sure that customers were paying their taxes back home, WTF?, No bank does that. You are the only one responsible for paying your taxes, and if you don't want to pay taxes that's fine with me, just move to Dubai or any other jurisdiction where you can legally avoid paying taxes.
I hope at some point we can all direct our hate towards the OCIF and if needed take legal action. I'm sure Peter will be more than willing to help us.
Hopefully we will get all our money back during the next months and this ordeal will stay as another lesson, that's life, an eternal classroom.
My main worry is Novo bank, who knows what they've done with the money, but if Novo releases the fund this battle will be over very soon.
And to all the haters, specially those that don't even have an account, go waste your time in Twitter, that's the perfect place for you to waste your life hating 24/7.
