Canadian tourist operators in Honduras charged with money laundering and fraud related to sales of Indigenous Garifuna lands

In Honduras, three Canadian citizens, Randy “porn king” Jorgensen, Malik Zoharan and Darren Wade, have been charged with money laundering and fraud related to sales to other Canadian tourist investors of lands that have been violently taken from the Garifuna people for decades.

The most corrupt and violent time for the Garifuna people, in terms of foreign tourist “investors” seizing their lands, was 2009-2022 when Honduras was ruled with an iron fist by the “Open for Global Business,” military-backed, drug-trafficking regime of President Juan Orlando Hernandez, a government supported the entire time as a “democratic ally” of the US and Canadian governments.

After the US and Canadian-backed military coup in 2009 ousted Honduras’ government led by President Manuel Zelaya, the US and Canadian governments maintained full relations with the post-coup regimes and openly promoted the expansion of North American investors and corporate interests into Honduras.

During the ensuing 13 years of the repressive drug-trafficking regime of President Juan Orlando Hernandez, many Canadians (amongst others) happily came to buy their “piece of paradise” along Honduras’ Caribbean shore.

During this entire time, OFRANEH – the leading Garifuna rights organization – denounced investors purchasing lands stolen from the Garifuna people. Rights Action and other US/ Canadian organizations helped document and denounce numerous violent land invasions of foreign investors in partnership with corrupt government officials. Randy “porn king” Jorgensen, and a good number of his associates, were at the center of many such schemes.

Now, as it turns out, the “porn king” and his named associates were allegedly frauding other investors from Canada (and beyond) who had been all too happy to buy a “piece of paradise” in Honduras during the 13 years of the US and Canadian-backed drug-trafficking regime in power, according to El Heraldo News.

A total of 233 property assets, two trading companies and eight vehicles were seized from Jorgensen, Zoharan and Wade in the department of Colon in northern Honduras.

The companies were identified as Desarrollos Visión de Vida S. de R.L. and Grande Trujillo Autoridad S. de R.L. with properties located in the cities of Trujillo and Santa Fe.

#EstáPasando| @MP_Honduras asegura 233 bienes inmuebles en inmobiliaria, cuyos propietarios estafaron a varios ciudadanos canadienses en Colón. pic.twitter.com/70aAW85gG6

— tunotacom (@tunota_com) April 11, 2024

According to the investigations of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the three Canadians, since 2008, signed contracts for the purchase and sale of land lots, valued between $29,000 and $45,000 each, in alleged real estate developments between the municipalities of Trujillo and Santa Fe.

Authorities say the complex is made up of the subdivisions Campa Vista, Alta Vista Beach, Alta Vista Mountain, Campo del Mar, Park Side and Corazalta, registered in the Property Institute of Trujillo, under different licenses, and which were offered to their compatriots in order to be subdivided.

After investigations by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, it was verified that the purchase and sale value stated in the public deeds is not in fact the price paid by each buyer, most of them from Canada, committing the crimes of money laundering and continuous swindling.

This operation was carried out by the Public Prosecutor’s Office through the Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Organized Crime (FESCCO) and the Technical Agency of Criminal Investigation (ATIC) within the framework of Operation Corozo, with the support of the 15th Battalion of Special Forces.

Grahame Russell is the director of Rights Action. Grahame is a non-practicing lawyer and part-time adjunct professor at University of Northern British Columbia. He is the co-editor with Catherine Nolin of Testimonio: Canadian Mining in the Aftermath of Genocides in Guatemala.