By NICO SCAVELLA
Tribune Staff Reporter
nscavella@tribunemedia.net
THE American investigator hired by environmental group Save The Bays to investigate Canadian fashion mogul Peter Nygard and the two “hit men” he allegedly contracted, did not have a work permit to conduct his investigations, Director of Immigration William Pratt said on Thursday.
Mr Pratt said John Joseph DiPaolo, a Fort Lauderdale investigator, entered the country as a “regular visitor”, according to the department's records.
Mr Pratt's comments came more than a week after Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade questioned how Mr DiPaolo was able to come into the Bahamas and conduct an investigation without the permission of the Royal Bahamas Police Force or a work permit from the Department of Immigration.
Former Assistant Commissioner of Police Paul Thompson also raised concerns on Thursday, suggesting that at the very least, Mr DiPaolo could have enlisted the services of a local security firm and have them apply for a temporary work permit for him to use.
Mr DiPaolo, along with a team of retired FBI and Scotland Yard professionals and Bahamian investigators, conducted a lengthy investigation into claims that Mr Nygard contracted two “criminals”- Livingston “Toggie” Bullard and Wisler “Bobo” Davilma - to harass, intimidate and cause physical harm and property damage to four directors of the Save The Bays organisation, Reverend CB Moss, a government official and several others.
The investigation is part of a controversy over how Mr Nygard allegedly orchestrated a murderous plot against his billionaire neighbour Louis Bacon and lawyer Fred Smith, his chief opponents in an ongoing campaign against development at Nygard Cay.
On March 14, Mr Greenslade questioned how Mr DiPaolo came into the country to “work without any reference to the Royal Bahamas Police Force”. He said at the time that he would be speaking to Mr Pratt “to see if he has anything on file” regarding Mr DiPaolo's entry into the Bahamas.
Mr Pratt said on Thursday: “He doesn't have a work permit, not to my knowledge. According to our records he entered as a visitor. Whether he deceived the officers and pretended to be a tourist that's another thing. But apparently he was admitted as a regular visitor. According to our records he never had a work permit.”
Mr Thompson also weighed in on the matter, suggesting that while the work Mr DiPaolo and the others conducted might not have been illegal, their “coming in and doing the work” without a permit was.
“To do it legally, and not to break the laws of the Bahamas, a security or a investigator coming in here should make contact with a firm here or a person here who can get a temp permit for him to come in,” he said. “When he comes in he's working, he's interviewing people, he's taking pictures and that type of thing. Now if he's going to do that he should get permission from immigration because he's working. That's my take on it. Not to just come in.”
Mr Thompson also said that the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF) should have been engaged a lot sooner in the matter.
“I think the people who knew about this a year ago, more than a year ago, should have gone to the police,” he said. “If you have two alleged hit men living in your country, the police should know about it. If I knew that this fellow is a hit man I'm going to the police.
“This is what honest, decent citizens, law abiding citizens should do. So if this was known, from what I've been reading from last year February, the police should have been in on that long time, and those men would have been picked up. But you see people don't have faith in our police force, and politicians in particular, from all areas, do not respect the police.”
Last week, Mr Greenslade announced that he had launched an official investigation into the allegations. He said the independent investigation would determine whether there is anything of a criminal nature that the RBPF should be pursuing.
Comments
B_I_D___ 8 years, 1 month ago
Deflect and distract...
cmiller 8 years, 1 month ago
So what if they did not have work permits. Makes no difference to the dirt they dug up.. Can't even imagine what they would have found if they had proper permits and could move around as they needed to!!!
GrassRoot 8 years, 1 month ago
yep and cant even imagine the dirt that would have been found and all the indictments filed by now, would the Bahamian police and AG's office not be part of this political mess and be halfway honest and unbiased. I still can not stomach that foreigners (2 Cubans, 1 Jamaican, 1 Japanese) can be locked up in this country for years without a court hearing and no one of the Government, Law Enforcement, Prosecution, Immigration gets punished for these horrendous violations of human rights.
John 8 years, 1 month ago
Two wrongs does not make a right. Especially when they are associating with self professed gangsters to discuss murder plots among other crimes.
Sickened 8 years, 1 month ago
Hello, Mr. Airport Immigration Officer, I'm here to investigate Fred Mitchell and Ellison Greenslade. I would like to apply for a work permit and get approval from the RBDF please. I LOVE IT!!!!! LMAO!!!
MonkeeDoo 8 years, 1 month ago
Everyone in the Civil Service is like the bloody gangsters. William Pratt noting that the investigator doesn't have a work permit like that will wash away the sin that he was investigating. This is why all this shit has to stop now and have a Commission or Enquiry established with power to sit from place to place and power to send for persons and papers. This country is fast descending into anarchy. Can anyone imagine what the foreign embassies are writing in their Cables. We really need a Wikileaks for this shit. I mean what civilized country on earth has this kind of shit going on. Everyone in the PLP or FNM that is involved with any of this must now step down and let the chips fall where they may. Can Davis and Christie be impeached ? What power does the Constitution offer in matters such as this ?. Every Government Agency is Corrupt, including the Attorney General's Office for God's sake ! People of the Bahamas - do whatever the hell you want. The State has FAILED.
GrassRoot 8 years, 1 month ago
I bet they will issue the FBI and the IRS Agents the Government is calling, work permits and will charge them for it.
Frosty 8 years, 1 month ago
The thing i am thinking is, if the matter goes before the courts wouldn't that report get thrown out? Any information that investigator found would be considered illegally gained due to not having work status to conduct that investigation in the country and therefore not allowed to be presented before the courts. Anyone more informed with experience in the legal system can clearify?
GrassRoot 8 years, 1 month ago
I bet that is the plan. Having said this, I highly doubt that Bacon, Smith & Co have not considered that. Bacon that has anticipated a breach of confidentiality by the Bahamian government years ago and pulled his far reaching fund business from the Bahamas for exactly this reason. So to win against a savvy guy like Bacon, it needs more than the brain of one or several Ministers of the Bahamian Government. Further, as you can tell from today's revelation about the DPM in his capacity as a Member of the Cabinet having contract issued to the two thugs, should show anybody trying to stop Bacon, Smith from getting what they want, will be destroyed if they dont play along. I bet Bacon & Smith have much more dirt on all these politicians than these politicians will believe. In all fairness the plaintiffs (in Smith's own words) gave the PM and DPM a free pass and made it clear that they are not after the PM and the DPM and would not get them embarrassed, if the PM and DPM chose to stay on the sidelines. But - luckily or not - both the PM and the DPM chose to side with Nygard and not to take the invitation to stay neutral. And all the other egos in the Government, Gibson, Mitchell, Fitzgerald took the bait and did not shut up but rather decided to side with Nygard. To the extent they have not embarrassed themselves yet, they will be exposed mercilessly. The foul odor of corruption and money laundering is all over this. My prediction is that either in the Bahamas or any other jurisdiction will eventually get active investigating possible corruption involving Bahamian politicians and foreign nationals. Albeit not as strong and far reaching as the U.S. foreign corruption legislation, lets not forget that Canada has a similar law on the books, and it makes one wonder anyhow ,whether the money spent by Mr. Nygard on the PLP has been properly reported for tax purposes in Canada. We will see. The good thing is the facts never change. The facts are the facts, and the sun will bring it to daylight.
Disgruntled1 8 years, 1 month ago
The character that has been delineated by this PLP government and it's spineless leaders, has turned this country( that once based its morals on christianity) into the Devil's recreational area. These egotistical, avaricious, and prosaic men we called leaders, have destroyed this country of what little innocence it may have had. If what we are seeing now, does not reflect who this government really is, then we are imperceptive and clueless. Perry Christie and his band of merry men have continued to put on display how not to manage a country. Let alone there own personal lives. They take advantage of the under privilege, they pry on the weak, and abhor the strong, technologically literate, intuitive Bahamians; who refuse to accept the bull@#$% they keep trying to feed us. This is 2016!!!! Hello Mr. PM, and DPM, this is not the 50's, 60's, 70's or 80's. Bahamians are more educated now on world affairs, a structural government and what it is to be an autocratic government. How can we have leaders of this country who are entagled with anything from a web of deceit, to unscrupulousness. It's a like a reality show gone wrong, and the Bahamian people are the "extras". This is nonsensical. They(PM, DPM and others involved) need to be impeached by the British High Commission and the financial records of this country need to be examined meticulously. #Ourcurrentstate #punintended
SP 8 years, 1 month ago
............................... Everybody with any sense saw this one coming! ...............................
Dumb goat syndrome causes denial making them fail to rationalize that slackness and a lack of checks and balances in THEIR OWN immigration policies allowed this man and many dozens if not hundreds of other short term "illegal workers" to enter the Bahamas without the slightest care in the world.
If asked upon arrival, an individual only need tell the immigration officer he is here as a tourist or better, he is in transit to "wherever" and the officer allows the person to enter the country, walk straight out of the airport and do anything he likes.
No real country would allow an individual traveling in transit to exit an airport!
People have done this for time immemorial. If the dumb goats are unaware of it, they have no business "leading" the country.
Over and repeatedly dumb goats are being self defeated at every turn by decades of their own penchant for asinine stupidity which is now catching up and biting them in the ass!
Time longer than rope. Dumb goats ran out of rope several years ago.....They are just finding out now!
John 8 years, 1 month ago
Apparently the country is overrun with foreign gangsters trying to take control of this country. Because John Joseph DiPaolo entered the country under false pretenses and worked without a permit, he should be placed on the stop list. Since Louis Bacon was responsible for bringing him to this country to work without a permit he should be fined and censored. He could have smuggled terrorists in the country the same way.
GrassRoot 8 years, 1 month ago
right, why would we need foreign gangsters if we have enough local ones.
GrassRoot 8 years, 1 month ago
what about all the prostitutes the other dude brought into the country for his parties? Cant wait to see pictures of local politicians hanging out at Camp Nygard with foreign prostitutes without work permits.
SP 8 years, 1 month ago
AaHaa dear Watson! What's to be done about the hundreds if not thousands of illegals that entered the country sponsored by legal relatives or friends?
Jamaicans, Haitians, Latinos, Aficans, Asians etc, use extensions to run circle's around our dumb goats. Taking employement opportunities from ligitament workers.
The only solution is to deny any further extensions and cancel existing ones. BUT goats would never do it.
The country has been so poorly managed for extended periods, that we have no way of knowing who is here doing what and when!
Get rid or the dumb goats or prepare to ride this disaster to even deeper chaos and disaster.
TalRussell 8 years, 1 month ago
Comrade Director of Immigration William Pratt, rather than you as a senior civil, doing the political bidding of those higher up, who may or may not be implicated in Nygardgate, I want you to imagine what it would be like to actually have a public hospital in which each bed would not only have a patients call button - but one that not only works when the patients push it but having someone at the other end, who will respond to the patients requests?
Comrade Director, while I got's you on your imaginary trip, imagine a people's public hospital, where monitors hooked up to patients, will actually have staff on duty to monitor the damn monitors? Imagine a hospital that actually have the medications and supplies on hand that the doctors need to treat their patients? Supplies as simple as damn bandages?
Comrade Director, imagine a hospital where citizens. legal residents and tourists, don't have wait to see a doctor for 20 plus hours - behind hundreds illegal patients?
Comrade Director, there will be more names added to the casualties list, some deserving - while there will be others no more guilty, than they hadn't got's the 'guts,' not be have been sucked into this dirty mess, by little-minded people who are not worth going down for.
Trust me, there will be no one at the other end of a sinking ship, to answer the call bells -when they start endlessly ringing, ringing, ringing, ringing.
Next time they come a calling, take the day off.
by TalRussell
sheeprunner12 8 years, 1 month ago
Soooooooo, did Fitzgerald get permission from the parties concerned to table the private emails?????? ............... SMH ......... the dirty tricks of the PLP dwarf any other organization in this country
TalRussell 8 years, 1 month ago
Comrade Sheeprunner12, who in their wildest imagination could have possibly foreseen such a destructive force that has the potential to destroy the leadership of both of the two main political parties leadership - with the potential to forever wipe out both political parties appeal to voters?
I cannot believe they do not know what in the hell I am talking about?
Comrade do you think it's possible that they're so caught up in their self- importance - not to recognize when eminent danger lurks?
John 8 years, 1 month ago
In the main time the republican campaign in the US has resorted to bragging about personal endowments and ripping down other candidates' wives. Nothing seems to be sacred or off limits. This politics!
BMW 8 years, 1 month ago
These politicians will go to the ends of eternity to shuffle and dance around the fact that they have been and are going to be further exsposed for what they truly are. CORRUPT!!!!!!
birdiestrachan 8 years, 1 month ago
STB was dealing with men who were smarter than them, they admitted that they paid for the information they received. Now pray tell what happened to the Scotland yard investigators mentioned before. STB started this whole big mess and they were caught right in the middle. The men have given three different stories. I am sure for a price they will give another.. wicked wicked
,
licks2 8 years, 1 month ago
LOOK HERE. . . PRAY TELL WHAT ARE PEOPLE LIVING IN THIS COUNTRY DO WHEN THEY REPORT TO POLICE. . . TO PGC "RIGHT-HAND" MAN IN THE POLICE FORCE (STEVEN SEYMOUR) WHO NOW IS INVESTIGATING THE NYGARD CASE FOR THE GOVERNMENT!! CHILD PLEASE!!
sheeprunner12 8 years, 1 month ago
you gat to be kidding!!!!!! ........... a re-retiree???????
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