In the past I’d written about Andris Pukke from AmeriDebt fame. Pukke went on to become affiliated with a real estate development in Belize named Sanctuary Belize.
I just received the following user supplied content on events at the development. It appears there is some similar information on this site.
Sanctuary Belize Submitted Update
“I thought you might be interested in an update in regards to current events at Sanctuary Belize. It has gotten even more ugly.
I’m assuming that you are aware of the Independent Owners of Sanctuary Belize, Ltd. and their website independentownerssanctuarybelize.com. The IOSB at this point has over 300 owner members. As you may also know there is an IOSB supported lawsuit underway in the Belize Supreme Court. I say supported because it was not filed by the IOSB but has 10 IOSB plaintiffs and the IOSB financially supports it through donations from the membership. There have been difficulties because in July our side asked Judge Abel to recuse himself which he did and has subsequently been replaced by Madam Judge Arana. In addition their attorney, Michael Young, died of apparent suicide a few weeks ago and we’ve had to start anew with another senior attorney. The next hearing will be December 8th but it may only be an administrative hearing but hopefully the case will go to trial. If the petition prevails, then the owners, take over the development from Sittee River Wildlife Reserve (SRWR). In addition, other lawsuits are flying at SB at this point; I’m not sure how many there are but roughly 6-8 maybe more and more are developing.
October 10th, 2016, marked a new chapter in Sanctuary Belize history. Eco Futures announced that a new development management team was in place. In the couple weeks prior we had heard that Andris Pukke and Peter Baker had been down to SB and that John Usher had been or was going to be “fired”. On the first ever SRWR Annual General Meeting scheduled for October 4th, no member of the board showed up even though apparently the Chairman of the Board, John Usher, was in his office in the same building as the meeting was held. The meeting had to run for an hour to give the board time to appear and none did but it was a cat fight while the audience and acting chair waited. Clearly something was going on.
On the 10th, owners received an email informing them of the new development team consisting of George and Julie Mock, Frank Connelly (real name Frank Michael Costanza), Kelly Roy (communications director), and Alfonzo Bailey. It was implied but not established that they had taken over John Usher’s company Eco Futures Belize, Ltd. (there are multiple Eco Futures companies and marketing names). George Mock had been the construction manager at Kanantik Belize. Frank Connelly had been the Sustainability Director for Sanctuary until he fled on the QT to Kanantik along with Luke Chadwick in August 2014. Frank in 2016 apparently quit Kanantik and moved to California to join Pukke and Baker’s company, Global Property Alliance. GPA runs Sanctuary and has since it was founded in 2011. The basic thing is that the Mock’s, Frank, and Roy are GPA since anything with the name Eco Futures equals GPA. Baker has been onsite running things since early last month.
To further illustrate GPA’s direct control, Peter Baker, President of GPA, is now the Chairman of Sittee River Wildlife Reserve (replacing Usher). New members of the board along with SRWR “Full Members” (of which there are 20) include Marc Romeo, which means Andris Pukke is publicly back under his old alias. In Federal court on November 13, 2015 during a parole violation hearing in Maryland, Pukke finally admitted during his testimony his use of the Marc Romeo alias. Baker is now back openly running the Sanctuary Belize development with Pukke in the background. Other members include Baker’s mother Joan Medhurst, and his sister Maya Baker.
In another matter that will come back relative to the new management arrangement, in the spring of 2016 the Belize Central Bank found SRWR and Eco Futures guilty of currency violations related to having loan receivables sent to GPA in California. This is illegal and the CB forced SB corporate to have the loan payments sent directly to Belize. This may have caused Pukke, Baker, and GPA great hardship (and I would note we have still had no accounting for what has been done with the $100-150 million dollars they and their predecessor companies have received to date). So Pukke and Baker have removed Usher both for, we suspect, incompetence as developer but probably more importantly because of all the money going to Belize. So Usher is removed and we have no idea what that means in detail and what his current status is. As soon as they took over, they formed a new company in California on October 25th, 2016 named Eco Futures Development, Inc. and directed owners to send their loan payments to the new company. They apparently do not have permission to do this from the Central Bank but it seems pretty clear at this point they don’t care what Belize law says and are willing to deal with it whenever down the line.
There was also an encounter between Tom Herskowitz, the IOSB President, and 6 SB security guards on the 18th of November in which Tom, age 71, received three broken ribs from being pushed to the ground by a guard and landing on his left side on a large angular rock. Tom was trying to go to the SB Beach Club but he and any owner not paying their HOA fees to the SBPOA (SB Property Owners Association) are allowed on SB amenities (eliminated over 60% of owners). They actually put up a guard post at the entry to the Beach Club to keep him out (they say for all non-paying owners but it’s almost certainly mainly there for Tom given the hand full of owners that live there). Another owner couple were with Tom and his wife, Tricia, and most of the event was videoed but the video may not be available for a while since it’s major evidence in whatever legal actions develop from this affair. The other side claims that three of the guards were injured and hospitalized from the event, but no evidence of that is seen in the video. You would not normally have 6 guards stationed at the new post and it was clearly because they know his habits and were waiting to confront him.
Eco Futures is also now foreclosing on all owners who are more than two months behind on their payments and this may be several hundred owners. Many owners have not wanted to contribute to the GPA coffers and were waiting on the outcome of the lawsuit. Over 60% of all owners are refusing to pay their HOA fees of $100/mo and the POA is threatening all kind of legal actions as well. Eco Futures is also sending out letters from a Belize law firm to all owners who have said unkind things about SB on social media etc. threatening to file defamation lawsuits (that’s going to be a lot of SB owners).
Anyway, Sanctuary is seriously starting to come apart at the seams.”
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I think that many of the lot owners were scammed and now may be out of a lot of money.
Have you heard anything from the court-appointed Receiver?
I just came across your article about Eco Future Development coming apart. I was down about 30 days ago, before I read your article, and really didn’t see or hear about the issues you wrote about. The One guy Tom was sued by the developer, and had his home taken from him as part of a plea. Also wrote an apology letter to The WSJ for his remarks. Have you been down there to look at the project, or was it Hear Say information that you received. I’m just a land owner, but hope to make this Development my home. Maybe you should take a tour, and write an update?
Bobby K.
Thanks for the update.