She saved US$80,000 for her daughter’s future - THEN IT WAS GONE

Mary Jane’s* 12-year-old daughter has Down’s syndrome, is autistic and cognitively delayed, and will require medical care for the rest of her life.

Determined to provide for her daughter’s future, the retired Jamaican entrepreneur, now living in the United States, had built a US$80,000 nest egg by 2021 to cover her future medical needs.

She began exploring short-term investments as a way to increase her savings and that’s when a friend introduced her to Delta Capital Partners, Jane recounted during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner last Wednesday.

“I went online and their website was very detailed, very professionally done, and I was impressed,” she said of her efforts to learn more about the company.

Still, Jane wanted to be “extra cautious” and claimed she asked to meet with then Delta Capital executives Zachary Harding, Anthony Dunn and Ivan Carter.

The retired businesswoman said she was “still a little unsure” after several conversations with each executive, but opted to go ahead and invest her nest egg with the St Lucia-based Delta Capital after disclosing to them the reason she was saving the money and delivering a stern warning.

A promissory note seen by The Sunday Gleaner indicated that it was issued on November 18, 2021, would mature on May 18, 2023, and guaranteed an annual interest rate of 8.5 per cent. The name ‘Anthony Dunn’ and what appeared to be a signature for Harding were also on the document.

“I said to them, ‘Please, do not invest it in any kind of risky business’,” Jane recounted.

“I was very clear with them. I said, ‘I have an option of investing here in the United States or with you guys in Jamaica’. And this is the part that hurts me the most – I said to them, ‘I would rather trust my own Jamaicans with my money than some Americans’,” she added.

The Delta Capital executives were “very convincing” as they sought to assure her that there was nothing to worry about, Jane claimed.

“We are not in the business of taking risks,” she claimed one of the executives said.

The Sunday Gleaner contacted Dunn on Friday and he offered no comment on the record.

The Sunday Gleaner also sought a response from Harding to the assertions made by Jane, but he directed questions to his attorney, Deborah Martin.

When contacted on Friday, Martin declined to comment, citing the criminal charges pending against her client and Delta Capital.

She said the question of legal representation has not yet been settled for Delta Capital, and “until then, I would not wish to speak and I prefer that he not speak in his personal capacity on matters touching and concerning Delta Capital in circumstances where they are both before court”.

“In other words, I would wish to fully understand the issues before I commented on them,” said Martin.

Jane told The Sunday Gleaner that, up to a week after the maturity date, there was no payment from the company and “everything just fell apart right there”.

Several missed

payment deadlines

During the interview last week and in a complaint filed with the Financial Services Commission (FSC), she said, after several missed payment deadlines, and as a compromise to allow the company more time, a new promissory note was negotiated. The second promissory note, which guaranteed an annual interest rate of 10 per cent, was issued on July 1, 2023 and was set to mature on October 2 that year, according to documents seen by The Sunday Gleaner.

The FSC is Jamaica’s regulatory authority for the securities, insurance and private pensions industries.

“To my surprise, disappointment and disgust, this matured note has not been repaid and Harding is still not able to indicate its repayment,” Jane said in a complaint filed with the FSC on October 9, 2023.

The response from the FSC opened a can of worms.

In a letter to Jane dated June 16, 2025, the regulatory body disclosed that its investigations uncovered evidence that promissory notes were brokered by Stocks & Securities Limited (SSL) and issued in the name of Delta Capital.

SSL is the Jamaican investment firm that collapsed in January 2023 amid allegations of fraudulent activities amounting to $3 billion that affected the accounts of over 200 clients, including Jamaican sprint legend Usain Bolt.

Harding served as chief executive officer of SSL between 2019 and 2022 before co-founding Delta Capital.

The FSC said in the letter that its investigation focused on SSL’s alleged role in arranging, issuing and distributing unregistered securities by SSL, “affiliates of SSL and other related entities”.

It alleged that this was in the form of promissory notes, convertible loan agreements, and shareholder loan agreements with varying rates of interest and maturity dates, which is in contravention of the securities legislation.

The regulatory body signalled, too, that like Jane, there were other investors awaiting the return of their principal and interest payments.

“The findings of our investigation have confirmed that SSL and other issuers have missed several interest payments that were due to investors and [that] notwithstanding several promises, they have either failed to make interest payments or repay the sums owed,” it said.

Joint probe

The FSC disclosed that a joint probe by the Financial Investigations Division (FID) and the police into allegations of fraud at Delta Capital and its affiliated companies was “well advanced”.

“In the normal course of operation, complaints submitted to the FSC would have been dealt with individually. However, in this instance, due to the scope of the investigation being conducted, your individual complaint file is now closed as the matter has been subsumed into our investigation into SSL and its affiliated companies,” the regulatory body wrote to Jane.

The FID confirmed last Thursday that no criminal charges have been filed against Harding in relation to Jane’s complaint.

However, Harding, along with former SSL founding director Hugh Croskery and his daughter Sarah Meany, a former SSL branch manager, is awaiting trial on multiple criminal charges related to the operations of SSL and Delta Capital.

Jane won a legal victory in March this year when a lawsuit she filed against Delta Capital ended with an order from the Supreme Court that the company pay her US$101,547 (approximately JMD$16 million) with interest to be calculated at three per cent per annum until the payment is made.

Delta Capital did not file a defence to the lawsuit.

The retired entrepreneur acknowledged that she may never get her money back, but insisted: “I am not going to walk away from it so easily.”

“If I am not going to get my money back, somebody must be put in jail. It is very painful to me and heartbreaking,” she said.

*Name changed to protect identi ty.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com