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by Val Ellicott
Staff Writer
Impressing would-be investors comes easily to
Shimmy Qureshi.
A jet-setting international businessman who drives
Ferraris and swings a polo mallet with some of the world's top
players, Qureshi seems a model of successful enterprise.
Even his first name - Sheikh - hints at membership
in an elite social circle.
But not everyone who does business with Qureshi has
been happy with the results.
At least 17 civil lawsuits and one federal
bankruptcy action accuse the Wellington millionaire of bilking
partners and clients or defaulting on loans. Plaintiffs range from
one of the wealthiest men in the country to a bankrupt Cayman Islands bank.
``I feel that he has no business,'' a former friend
and associate, Syed Kazmi, said in a deposition in October. ``He
scams people's money.''
Qureshi, 47, says such assertions are ``total nonsense.''
``I have a good reputation, and so does my
family,'' he said. ``We are regular businessmen. Living in America
and doing business here -lawsuits are part of life.''
Sheikh Abdus Shimveel Qureshi - ``Shimmy'' to his
friends - was born in Pakistan but hasn't lived there for about 30
years. He says his true home is Sweden, where he does most of his
business and where he sponsors a professional soccer team, Orgrytes.
The polo team he finances and plays for - Escue -
won the U.S. Open title in April, although Qureshi says he isn't
playing these days because he isn't feeling fit.
Qureshi's wealth and status are so well-established
in Sweden that newspapers there have said his investment decisions
``can affect the value of the Swedish crown,'' court documents say.
Kazmi told bankruptcy attorneys in October that
Qureshi, who was heavily invested in Southeast Asia, took a drubbing
when financial markets there plunged, forcing Qureshi to sell homes
and other property he had purchased in Wellington.
But Qureshi remains immensely wealthy, Kazmi said
in his deposition. He recalled seeing financial statements reporting
Qureshi's net worth at $100 million.
``He claims he has nothing,'' Kazmi said. ``He's a
rich man, I believe.' '
Qureshi, who said he has a bachelor's degree in
economics from a university in England, has described himself in
court papers as a financial adviser and sometimes travel agency owner
whose company, Escue Management, invests in ``various projects, from
real estate to the stock market.' ' ``Sheikh,'' he says, is a family
name, not a title.
``Simply, through his company, Escue Management, he
invests other people's money and executes promissory notes to pay at
a fixed rate of return,'' Qureshi's attorneys wrote in his 1995
divorce papers.
State records show Escue was dissolved in October
after failing to file an annual report. But Qureshi said he will
refile the necessary paperwork.
Qureshi's ex-wife, Carina, said in court papers
that Escue sometimes guaranteed customers a return of 20 percent. In
an interview last week, Qureshi said he has made good on every pledge.
``Everything that I have promised my clients I have
delivered, 100 percent,'' he said.
The civil suits filed against Qureshi - almost all
have been settled - tell a different story.
George Lindemann, the billionaire founder of
Cellular One, and his wife, Frayda, took Qureshi to court in April,
saying he had cheated them in a deal to buy their home on Hurlingham
Drive in Wellington for $3.5 million.
Qureshi couldn't come up with the entire purchase
price, so he offered 42 polo ponies as collateral on his pledge to
make up the difference later. The Lindemanns agreed, and said Qureshi
could continue using the horses for polo matches.
But when the couple tried to verify the status of
their collateral, they said they received disturbing reports.
``The Lindemanns have learned that 10 of the horses
are missing from the stable, some have been sold, others traded and
still others have been claimed by third parties,'' attorneys for the
couple said in court papers.
Qureshi's attorney, Jay Jacknin, said Qureshi
ultimately won a court order confirming that the ponies were his.
Jacknin said the suit is being settled based on commitments by
Qureshi and the Lindemanns to divide the horses and pay their own
legal fees.
According to property records, the Lindemanns
bought the Hurlingham Drive house back from Qureshi for $2.9 million,
then sold it to Joseph A. Zada for $3.5 million.
``I have resolved most of my lawsuits,'' Qureshi
said. ``Everybody has been paid in full. Now I'm in the position of
chasing after people who owe me lots and lots of money.''
A year before the Lindemanns filed their suit,
Qureshi bartered with another wealthy family - the al-Thanis, who
rule the Arab country of Qatar - to buy Gulf Union Bank in the Cayman Islands.
In May 1997, the al-Thanis agreed to sell Gulf
Union to International Business Holdings - a Cayman Islands company
owned by Qureshi - for $4.5 million, according to court records.
While Cayman Islands officials were reviewing the
deal, Qureshi named an associate, Kazmi, to run Gulf Union and a
subsidiary, First Cayman Bank. Within three months, Kazmi, acting at
Qureshi's direction, had shunted more than $5 million from First
Cayman into his own account and into accounts held by Qureshi and the
al-Thanis, according to court papers filed by liquidators of the
bank's estate.
Qureshi used much of the money to pay off ``certain
`investors' '' whom he had targeted as part of a ``Ponzi scheme,''
the records say. And the liquidators say he used bank money to pay
off a $1.75 million civil judgment entered against him in connection
with the same scheme.
Kazmi used another $830,000 in bank money to buy a
house at the Palm Beach Polo Club in Wellington, court records say.
In the fall of 1997, Cayman Islands officials
announced that First Cayman was bankrupt. By that time, documents
say, ``Qureshi and Kazmi had departed Grand Cayman.''
Qureshi responded by accusing First Cayman in court
papers of misplacing $1 million he had deposited at the bank. He said
other money he received from First Cayman bank was in the form of
loans and claimed the bank never credited him for $2 million in repayments.
None of the Palm Beach County lawsuits filed
against Qureshi refer to a Ponzi scheme - an illegal operation in
which money paid by some investors is used to pay off other investors.
Kazmi also denied siphoning money from the bank. He
acknowledged that Qureshi made substantial withdrawals of the bank's
money but said he assumed Qureshi, whom he had come to regard as a
close friend, would pay it back.
The First Cayman case received prominent play in a
fax sent anonymously to an unknown number of Wellington residents
last year.
The highly incendiary document includes a long list
of people identified as ``Quraeshi victims'' - an alternative
spelling of the family name - and accuses Qureshi and two of his
brothers, Shahid and Sohail, of a wide range of illegal activities.
The fax also mentions a civil court case filed in
March in which Sohail Quraeshi, who spells his last name slightly
differently from his brother, is accused of bilking a St. Lucie
County woman of $100,000 in an investment deal.
Shimmy Qureshi, responding to a phone call to
Sohail, said his brother did nothing wrong and the case is being settled.
``I don't know why we're being targeted,'' he said.
``Welcome to America.' '
Palm Beach County criminal court records show no
cases filed against Shahid or Sohail.
Shimmy Qureshi was charged in 1996 with custodial
interference after his wife, Carina, said he took their 3-year-old
daughter to Pakistan and Sweden during their divorce. Qureshi said
he'd merely taken his daughter on a long-planned trip.
The girl was brought back to the United States and
the case was dropped as part of a deferred prosecution agreement.
Qureshi's divorce became final in July 1996. He remarried in May.
The yearlong divorce had a more lasting impact on
Qureshi's finances, according to court records.
``A number of investors have demanded immediate
return of their investments which (Qureshi) is not in a position to
honor,'' Qureshi's attorneys said. *more
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