On 13 th November 2024, Justice Rene Williams in the High Court of Justice granted the Attorney General a Recovery Order under
section 60BB of the Proceeds of Crime Act 1993 forfeiting all the property of the
Panamanian company Creswell Overseas SA held at Meinl Bank (Antigua) Ltd. (In
Receivership). This included the recovery of $14,019,257.08 United States Dollars and
€17,587,692.84 Euros.

The claim was based on the financial investigations of the Office of National Drug and
Money Laundering Control Policy (ONDCP) which froze the funds and proceeded to do a
thorough investigation after Creswell Overseas SA demanded the release of its monies but
failed and refused to provide proof of business contracts alleged to be the basis on which
monies in its accounts had been paid to it. The claim alleged that investigators of the
ONDCP had found links to the Brazilian company Odebrecht.

The case for the Recovery Order alleged that monies in the accounts at Meinl Bank
(Antigua) Ltd. came from accounts controlled by the Brazilian company Odebrecht SA as
part of the notorious Operation Car Wash, alleged to be in connection with the payment of
bribes in relation to awarding of or the payment of invoices connected to large-scale
construction contracts. The Court, taking into consideration the guidance of the Privy
Council in Lux Locations v. Yida Zhang [2023] was satisfied that the grounds for the
judgement was met.

The Director of the ONDCP, Lt. Col Edward Croft, has expressed great satisfaction with the
performance of his financial investigators of the ONDCP’s Investigations Department,
whose investigations have brought about the recovery of the proceeds of ill-gotten gains
and thereby taken the profit out of crime.

Director Croft indicated that the year of 2024 ended reasonably well with the ONDCP
successful pursuing several forfeitures, confiscation and civil recovery orders of property to
the value in excess of US $35,214,698.61 or EC $ 95,079,686.25.