The Sludge Report #12 – Rodney’s Trip To Fiji

Wednesday, 14 June 2000, 2:00 pm
Column: C.D. Sludge

Another instalment in the Free Money for the Greedy Mystery….

C.D. Sludge has now caught up with the MP who made a trip to Fiji last year to attend a seminar of Investors International, the principal of which, Rudolf van Lin, was later arrested and charged in the US with Securities fraud. And an organisation which appears to be involved in teaching NZ investors how to use Offshore trusts and “International Business Corporations” to avoid paying tax on their income.

See…
Sludge Report #11 – More Evidence In Money Mystery
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0006/S00043.htm

Sludge Report #10 - Free Money For Greedy Mystery
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0006/S00034.htm
…for background

ACT MP Rodney Hide Talks About His Trip To Fiji

ACT MP Rodney Hide has told the Sludge Report that he did not see anything untoward or underhand at the conference he spoke at in Fiji on January 28th 1999 of Investors International.

He said the first he knew there was anything odd about the conference was when he was rung several months later by one of the people who attended. They had mentioned the fact that a warning had been issued by the Securities Commission.

Hide said he had been rung around Christmas about the conference by a friend who spoke regularly to seminars on property investment. Another friend, author, and celebrated IRD victim, Dave Henderson had also been invited to speak. At the conference both had received standing ovations.

After speaking he had sat on a panel discussion. “My line was to ask if anything was going to be solved?”

As for the super returns of 500% to 1500% allegedly being offered on investment documents obtained by Sludge, and related to the organisation, Hide said he knew nothing of this.

“I don’t believe there is any such thing as a golden investment”, he said.

Everybody he had heard speaking from the stage had been clear that you could not get anymore than a 5% return on a secure investment, he said. However he hadn’t attended the entire conference and had only stayed for 3-4 days.

He did not know how much the participants had been charged to attend but his impression was they were all having a good time.

“My sense of it was that the people were people who worked as business people and appreciated coming together and talking about capitalism.”

© Sludge 2000

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Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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