Hello everyone. I'm Martin Lamb, President of Templar Panama's Investment Division. I was planning to write my first blog (ever!) on my favorite Caribbean beach in Panama. However, that dream was overtaken by current events. Templar Panama and I have recently come under attack from a person masquerading as journalist in order to damage our organization and help a rival company, and I need to clear the air before we move on to the fun stuff.
Here’s the story:
My ex-partners at a competing real estate firm here in Panama City have leaked confidential personal information about me to a friend of theirs, blogger Okke Ornstein. Ornstein has since used that grain of truth about my background as the basis for several lies that they hope will hurt us at Templar Panama.
Ornstein is a longtime friend of my ex-partners, who are upset with me because I took my contact list and I notified my clients of my departure from that company. Many of those clients chose to continue doing business with me at Templar. These attacks are my ex-partners’ way of getting even.
So let me take a minute to identify these allegations, sift out that grain of truth and dispel the rest of these nasty rumors.
First, the allegations
I had planned to link my response to the offending pages on the BananamaRepublic blog in order to save time and space, but Mr. Ornstein appears to have lost his site content recently. So, I’ll list the main points here:
- I am a scammer who stole money from old ladies False
- Templar Panama, under my direction, has fraudulently claimed to be selling land near property owned by Mel Gibson False
- Templar Panama hacked Bananama Republic False
All of above are false, and we are currently pursuing legal action prevent Okke Ornstein from spreading more lies about our company. In the meantime, read on for the true stories behind each of these lies.
Grain of truth: Canada and UGT
The truth at the heart of all this is I was named in a US Federal Trade Commission investigation nearly a decade ago because my Canada-based financial services company, Union Global Trading, processed credit card purchases for several companies found to be running an illegal lottery. At the time it was customary for a financial services company to process transactions without prying into their client’s business. But to this day I sincerely regret that, as the owner of a financial services company, I failed to investigate my clients more thoroughly.
The allegation that I was “stealing money from old ladies” is simply false. My company provided financial services to companies undertaking illegal activities and I failed to properly monitor them. Once I had a look at the evidence of wrongdoing by my clients, I immediately ordered my company to cease doing business with the accused parties and agreed to pay the FTC a settlement to help those harmed by the illegal lottery.
The investigation was settled with neither me nor my companies found guilty of any wrongdoing. Information regarding the inquiry has been publicly available since 2000. News of the settlement was published in 2002.
The most frustrating part for me is that this has never been a secret. The only reason this story has become an such an issue here in Panama is because I disclosed my background in good faith when I signed on as a partner with Mr. Ornstein’s friends. I provided the same disclosure to Templar and to clients who have asked me about the issue after performing their own due diligence.
After I left parted ways with my ex-partners and went to Templar Panama, they allowed their friend to twist this information in order to hurt my new company and me. Ornstein manipulated this truth in an attempt to make me look like a proven scam artist and make Templar look complicit, accusations on which he then based his claim that the Mel Gibson purchase was also a scam.
Which brings me to lie number two…
Regarding Mel Gibson
The idea that Mel Gibson hasn’t bought land in Panama is just wrong. My former partners and I worked with him personally on the sale. Click here for the Panama America newspaper article that confirms Gibson bought land and was here in Panama over Christmas getting things in order (English translation).
While working at the company, I was the one who put the package together for Mr. Gibson and was in the helicopter flying over the parcel with him when he decided to buy it. Soon after, I left the company over differences regarding payment (they wouldn’t/couldn’t give me my back pay) and how to structure the Gibson deal.
Since the sale was completed, my ex-partners have had trouble collecting their fees because they failed to structure the deal properly, and as Templar continues to succeed they feel the need to attack me.
Templar and hacking
This one is just silly. Something happened to Mr. Ornstein’s website recently and he feels like blaming one of the few organizations that have stood up to his internet bullying. Templar is a real estate firm, not a computer company. I had trouble figuring out how to put up this blog!
I hate to speculate, but it looks as if Mr. Ornstein either lost his own database somehow or his poor journalistic practices upset someone with a little more internet know-how then this Panamanian real estate firm.
Sour grapes
This whole infantile ordeal is nothing more than a case of sour grapes: Templar is going strong, while ex-partners continue to struggle. I apologize if this misinformation has caused Templar or any of our clients distress. Our company is pursuing legal action to have the lies removed from the internet as soon as possible.
Templar believes in transparency and wants all of our customers to have the right information. If you want to learn more about about me or anything else regarding the company, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Whew! Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to more exciting and interesting topics!
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