Even the Rich Can Fall For It....

[eric]

I picked up this one this morning while I was reading my morning paper. About the only reason I noticed it was because I lived for roughly ten years beside the Dare Cookie Plant in Kitchener - the smells even made it up 17 floors to my balcony.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canad ... panys-fate
Summary - heiress to family fortune fell for the UN human rights sovereign scam. She has rights to roughly 30 million and was even given at one point a cash payout of 5 M$, However all is not going well for the heiress:

So while her brothers enjoy a “very comfortable lifestyle,” Carolyn claims she “struggles to make ends meet” and is now “surviving at a subsistence level.”

So what's the issue here:

And in a twist that adds geopolitical intrigue to corporate family discord, Carolyn claims that a key reason her family allegedly shut her out was her marriage, against her father’s wishers, to Harmon Wilfred, a self-styled whistleblower against the U.S. government, and one of the relatively few people in the world who are legally stateless.

So who is Harmon? He runs a series of web sites like this:
http://www.courtofpublicjustice.com
http://www.harmonwilfred.com
Here's an example of his work:
http://www.harmonwilfred.com/content/li ... ber_32.pdf

I can only shake my head...

[Pottapaug1938]

My wife has spoken of a family which lived down the street from her when she was growing up in New Jersey. The paterfamilias built a prosperous business and then died, leaving enough to guarantee all of his heirs a comfortable lifestyle. Unfortunately, the heirs could not agree on who should get what "I deserved more because I.../he (she) should get less because"; and by the time that the matter was finally resolved (can you say "cash cow", lawyers representing the various family members?), there was hardly anything left.

[TheNewSaint]

Harmon Wilfred, a self-styled whistleblower against the U.S. government, and one of the relatively few people in the world who are legally stateless.

I have to hand it to charmin' Harmon, it sounds like he found the ticket to the sweet life: latch onto an heiress, and find a loophole in the deportation laws. Apparently he convinced the US to let him renounce citizenship when he didn't have another one lined up, then went to New Zealand, which can't deport him because the US won't take him back as a non-citizen. Neat trick. Apparently he can even run fraudulent companies despite being stateless, apparently with his wife as a front.

[grixit]

And who would he appeal to if the wife's family called in a fixer to deal with him?

[eric]

Court started yesterday in the heiress' suit against her brothers. It seems to be unfolding the way I suspected. Many of the family owned businesses in that part of Canada are run in a particular fashion. Everybody, from owners to employees are considered part of the family and make some sort of contribution. Family members who are non-contributing owners are treated well, but pushed to one side and expected to quietly let the rest of the family thrive.
http://business.financialpost.com/news/ ... ods-empire
I would quietly go off to New Zealand if I was treated the same way she was: 341 K$ per year in dividends plus a lump sum of 5 M$.