Campside Media. Hi, mommy. Hi, mommy. Can you see it? Yes, please. Thank you. I got to get you by by. Do you know how much I miss you? How much? I miss you to the moon and the stars and the bottom of the ocean back times 100. Are you guys in Florida? Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Where are you with my kids, Andrew?

It was hard to know over all the months when Jasmine was fighting for custody, what Andrew Ashcroft was doing, let alone thinking. Some of the time, she didn't even know where her kids were. Where are you guys?

Where are my babies? Where are the children? Oh, he's hung up on me. Great. Well, that's nice.

But just days after that ruling in Andrew's favor, when her attorney stormed out of court in protest, Jasmine got word that one of her worst fears had come true. Andrew and the kids had left Belize, and not just on a trip. He had packed up the condo at Grand Colony and moved to Turks and Caicos. Nearly 2,000 miles away.

What's unbelievable to me is I text and call him all the time to try to speak to my children. I said, I know you're in Turks, Andrew. Just tell me where my kids are. And he doesn't even have the decency to respond.

Then on June 13th, 2022, Andrew did something no one expected. He released a written statement to the press, breaking the news to everyone, including the mother of his kids, that he had officially left Belize.

On May the 25th, 2022, I was given legal custody of my two five-year-old children pursuant to the Families and Children Act, Chapter 173 of the Laws of Belize.

This is not Andrew. It's a voice actor reading a statement verbatim.

I hope that in due course, the magistrate will provide his full reasoning for this important decision. The Belize Alaia Hotel in San Pedro is now fully operational and open for business. I had an opportunity to develop a similar hotel in the Turks and Caicos Islands and have therefore moved there with my family to perform my new job.

This was rich. I thought immediately of the thing Andrew said to the crowd upon the opening of Alaia, only a year or so earlier. We are 100% committed to Belize. We're here to stay and do more investments in Belize. Andrew talked about how the kids were starting school, growing new roots in that loomy tropical soil. This being a thing that was very important to his father, who had said similar things publicly. He is totally committed to the nation of Belize. I'm proud that those kids are the fourth generation of Ashcross with a connection to Belize. Committed from afar, I guess. Anyway, Andrew's statement continued.

I will come back to Belize from time to time, where I have enjoyed bringing a new cutting-edge tourist development to San Pedro.

I knew the statement was not going to go over well with Jasmine, especially this part.

I hold no ill will or malice towards Jasmine and wish her well with the court proceedings in which she is facing charges of manslauter, cocaine possession, and common assault.

Ouch. It just felt so cold and spiteful. The real dagger in there, the flashing tell that Andrew's claim of no ill will was just empty rhetoric, was the mention of those additional charges. I gave her a call as soon as I saw it.

Hey, Josh, how are you?

I'm all right. How are you feeling?

I mean, last night, I was obviously in complete shock, and I was numb, and I was Then I went from sad to angry to now I'm in fight mode. I'm the mother of your children, and you're communicating through a press release.

The release included one final kick in the teeth.

During the hotel development process and at a time where we were working together, I had gifted Jasmine 10% of the issued share capital of the holding company of the Belize Alaya Hotel. I intend to obtain an independent valuation for these shares and provide her with their fair value.

10%? As Jasmine tells it, she helped to build Alaya from the ground up, including signing for the initial loans to purchase the land. She was a director in the holding company. In her eyes, this was, at the very least, a joint venture, a business they had built together. Now, Jasmine's stake was just 10%, which Andrew was claiming he had gifted to her in his statement.

Even without that In my statement, my proof of ownership is stamped and sealed. It is proof that I owned 80.2%. How did it go down to 10% that Andrew claims? And how have I not been compensated for my shares?

It's a fair question. From Campside Media, this is White Devil, and I'm Josh Dean. Episode 8, Waterloo. Turks and Caicos, if you're not familiar, is another beautiful tropical lochau with great significance to the Ashcroft family. A small archipelago of 40 tiny islands known for spectacular beaches, and also for being a tax haven. Michael and Andrew Ashcroft are both so-called belongers, which provides many of the benefits of citizenship. Michael has numerous investments movements there, including British Caribbean Bank, which Andrew once ran, as you may recall from episode 4. As is the case in Belize, it's often hard to get to the bottom of what exactly Lord Ashcroft owns or how he owns something. And as I mentioned, it's just as hard to find people there who want to talk on the record about the man. You get a lot of, Oh, dear, I just couldn't, or, I'd love to, but it really wouldn't be wise. So you can understand why a call that came in to me unprompted seemed for a moment like a miracle. He's a liquidator and has been after Lord Ashcroft for about 10 years.

He knows where a lot of bodies are buried.

You have my attention. So I called this guy, an aspiring actor and screenwriter in LA, and he explained that if we were making a show about Belize and it involved Michael Ashcroft, we had to talk to this accountant friend of his who lives in a giant house on the most spectacular beach in the Caymans. His name is Chris Johnson. I found He took some clips of Chris online, and he appeared to be quite a character. An older guy with white hair and an affinity for white suits, plus matching hats. I reached out and Chris seemed colorful.

My business of an insolvency practitioner, it can be very rough. I've been threatened a couple of times. I had two murders in my office, and I put at least 10 people in jail. That's my track record, and that's what I do.

He also seemed like a guy who could help because he worked for more than seven years on a case in the Caymans and Turks that involved businesses in the Ashcroft orbit. But it didn't go well for Chris. Eventually, frustration got the best of him. He crossed some lines, and a judge in the British Virgin Islands removed him from the case, finding him not credible. So back to the drawing board. The best source I could find on the Ashcroft legacy in Turks is a 2017 BBC Panorama documentary titled Secrets of the Tori Billionaire. It follows a The BBC team's investigation into the bankruptcy and liquidation of a company called Johnston International, which was one of the largest construction companies in Turks during the boom period of the early 2000s. Here's Presenter Declan Lawn.

This is a story about a secretive billionaire who's given more than £10 million to the Conservatives Party. He's probably the biggest political donor in British history. But it's unclear where much of his money comes from because his business affairs are hidden behind a maze of offshore companies.

In simplest terms, the BBC Doc suggests that Michael Ashcroft was, despite multiple denials from his team of lawyers, in control of Johnston International, even if he did not technically own it. One fax obtained by the program sent by the former head of Johnston to Ashcroft literally says this.

After a trip to Belize, Alan Forrest wrote a fax to Lord Ashcroft about Johnston's parent company, Oxford Ventures.

He said, The perception in Belize is that you are still in full control of Oxford's assets, which you are, of course. And yet, Ashcroft's lawyers still denied it. Forrest did, too. And unfortunately, we can't check back to see if he still stands by that. He died suddenly in Thailand in August 2014. The BBC never did get to the bottom of how much Michael Ashcroft was or was not responsible for Johnston. But it did learn that he was in regular contact about company affairs with Alan Forrest, and even met with him in private.

On one of his trips to see Alan Forest, Lord Ashcroft stayed here at Ocean Club West, but he didn't use his real name for the reservation. He booked him as Mr. Webster.

Honestly, the sheer convolutedness of this backwater global shell company game is fascinating. In the Panorama episode, it's also helpful getting a look at how secret this peculiar man and his offshore dealings can be. Like, just check out this bit, which the presenter illustrates by planting various national flags as he walks around a maze.

So was Lord Ashcroft still in charge of Johnston as the employees claim? Well, we've been trying to find out, but that's not easy because Johnston is owned by a series of companies based in different tax havens. Now, this is complicated, but bear with me. Johnston International is based in the Turks and Caecos Islands. It was owned by a company based in the British Virgin Islands, which was owned by a company based in Belize, which was owned by another company, again in Belize, which was owned-You get the idea.

Secrets of the Tori Billionaire was actually the second major Panorama investigation into Michael Ashcroft and his confusing Caribbean ventures. The first one, titled Lord Ashcroft's Millions, aired in 2010. This was in the wake of the UK government's takeover of Turks, citing systemic corruption in the government that led the Prime Minister to resign and flee the country. In this time around, the BBC team traveled to both Turks and Belize, running into many of these same conundrums. Entities that Michael Ashcroft claimed emphatically to not control, despite many hints to the contrary. Both Panorama specials also feature clips from a cheesy promotional video put out by the then-new Leeward Resort, built on TERC land, apparently owned by the Ashcroft, or a corporate entity they're somehow connected to.

Here's Lord Ashcroft's son, Andrew, enjoying the launch party.

You can see Michael's yacht, the Lady M in one shot, and also Andrew, enthusiastically pouring from a comically large bottle of champagne in another. At the opening of a resort on the property called Nicki Beach. Nicki Beach is long gone now. It failed pretty quickly after that splashy opening, but Andrew was a regular during its brief run. I've heard from several former friends who implied he had a good time there. The British Caribbean Bank, Michael Ashcroft Bank, took control of Nicki Beach in September 2009 and put it into receiver ship when its owners defaulted on loans, then reopened it as Blue Haven, where Andrew lived for a time. I remembered that we had spoken to someone who knew both Andrew Ashcroft and Alan Forrest, Michael Bailey. You heard from Bailey back in episode four. He owned the Tradewind condos where Andrew lived at one point during his first spin on turks. Bailey was also fairly close to Alan Forrest when Johnston went bust and came under scrutiny. So I got in touch with him again. Bailey said he heard many curious things from Forrest, but that it would only be hearsay, and therefore, no use to me.

He did remember Andrew's arrival in Turks very well, though. Apologies for the crappy phone tape.

When he first came on the island, Alan Forrest introduced me to him. And I can't believe it because he looked much younger than he does now. And he'd had no prior experience.

Managing banks, he means. In this case, British Caribbean.

That's when Andrew took over the running of the bank, and the bank was in the same building as Johnston's.

That's true. Johnston's, the company that Michael Ashcroft definitely wasn't involved in, was headquartered in the same building as his bank. You'll see this in the BBC program, too.

I just couldn't believe that he was going to take that responsibility, nor could I believe when he actually did. I mean, he was totally, totally unsuitable. I wouldn't think, or maybe you. I mean, to take on that responsibility. So that whole thing came apart.

We mentioned in episode four that Andrew's tenure at the bank was not a smashing success. He subsequently left the job and TERX, and eventually landed in Belize. So if Andrew's return to TERX was an attempt to start over and build a new legacy, well, Bailey isn't optimistic of what the future holds, especially with his father now being well into his late '70s.

It will all fall apart as soon as he dies or retires because Andrew just doesn't have the brains for it.

There was one more thing I wanted to ask Bailey about, a post I had found on one of my many spelunking trips into the coverage of the Jasmine Harton case on Facebook in Belize. The post was dated June 4, 2021, less than a week after the shooting, when it was not apparent at all that Andrew was icing Jasmine out. Michael Bailey, on the other side of the world, didn't know her or anything about the story other than what he was reading on his computer. Yet, a week after the shooting, Bailey shared a daily mail post about the case and wrote, Lots more to this story than anyone yet knows. Speaks volumes when a husband leaves his wife hanging out to dry. I remember thinking when I saw it that this was wildly prescient. Maybe things were starting to seem fishy to a tiny group of people in Jasmine's closest proximity. But for a guy who never met her on the other side of the globe, I know him.

I know how they work. For me, it wasn't rocket science. I absolutely knew what he was doing. I was not at all surprised. This is his character.

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That's T-R-U-B-A-G-A. Com. Check out promo code white devil. For the better part of the past year, really For all the time since Henry Jamot's death, and through the saga that followed it, Jasmine Harden hadn't thought much about the financial implications of her split from Andrew. And I don't mean the alimony or child support, matters that would be worked out once a separation and custody arrangements were finalized. I'm talking about her stake in Alaia, the resort and the property it stood on. But Andrew's sudden move to TERX, his change of heart from that commitment to Belize, certainly put the matter of the shares back on my mind. Because as we heard back in episode 5, Alaia Belize had been only step one.

The plan was once we can prove to his father that Alaia was running smoothly, it was successful, then he was hoping his father would open the doors again for him to come and develop some of his father's property in Turks and Caicos.

That obviously was no longer happening. Or if it was, it wouldn't be a lie apart, too, with Jasmine Harton as a partner. Unlike the first time, when as she tells it, she was integral from day one, from the very origination of the idea.

So I was selling real estate in San Pedro.

The job she had before Andrew and continued to do after they were together.

Banyan Bay was being foreclosed by the bank, by Belize Bank, and I had a few interested purchasers. So I was aware that it was a really good deal.

Banyan Bay being the prime beachfront property that would become Alaya. It was a 42-unit condo A hotel with a pier, a restaurant, and a small spa that had gone into receivership. It was now controlled by Michael Ashcroft's Belize Bank.

At the time, I wasn't really thinking that I would be purchasing a hotel, but I had a lot of success very quickly. And And then I started thinking, Well, hey, maybe I should think about getting Banion Bay. And then I was talking to Andrew about it, and I said, Do you think your dad's bank would do a deal or internal mortgage?

Jasmine, as we said in episode 4, signed for the loans, along with a friend of Andrew's named Katherine Beraluk. And development began.

And so at that point, I owned 80.2% shares in the parent company, which was Misty Investment Horizons Limited. And Katherine, owned 19.8. And then Katherine was removed and replaced with a lombard charitable trust, which is Michael Ashcroft's trust. And so I maintained 80.2, and the trust had 19.8..

Misty Horizons subsequently purchased the Grand Colony Condo complex next door.

So ultimately, by purchasing and piecing together all these lots, we had over 1400 feet of beachfront. And with the beachfront land, plus the land across the street, it's about 19 acres.

Banyan Bay was torn down, and they started building Alaya in 2017. That's when Jasmine found herself wandering in that maze of companies we were talking about earlier. It was a fruit salad of corporate entities. Bougaineville, Kit Estates, Banyan Bay, Lynx Holdings, Clayfield.

And it was a maze. It was such a spider web. Some condos at Banyan Bay, we're owned under Kit Estates. Some were owned under Kit Estates, some were owned under Bougaineville, some were owned by Lynx. The property that we built Alia on was Lynx property. But ultimately, the parent company to all of those was Misty, and that is the company that I had 80.2% of.

Jasmine and Andrew, under Misty, then bought one more parcel on the north side, which was previously owned by Michael Ashcroft. She thinks he had planned to build a beach house there, but instead sold the land to Misty under yet another entity, Seagrass Holdings. Jasmine began to plan something called the Alaia Beach Club, which was to be a younger, hipper, more playful resort and club.

I already had that 40 % sold out by May of 2021 with presales.

The number is actually just under 30 %. 40 reservations out of 122 rooms, according to a spreadsheet from the sales team dated May 27th, 2021, one day before the accident.

And we had all of our plans approved. We had the franchise agreement with Marriott signed. And so the plan at that point was that was my project, and Andrew was going to focus on TERX.

As in, he'd to the turks and begin work on the second Alaia while she stayed behind to build the beach club and run the mothership.

I'd have my space from him, and I would stay with the children, and he would go back and forth. I wanted to have the space and the ability to do my own project. I built a lot of confidence after Alaia was completed. I'd never built a hotel before, and then I learned so much over the course of building it and the design and the engineering, the architecture. And so the Beach Club was my baby, and that was supposed to be breaking ground around September of 2021.

Instead, on May 28th, Henry Jamat was killed. Jasmine was arrested, then cast out. The partnership, the future plans, the money, the remaining shares, all of it just evaporated. Before things fell apart, Jasmine says that she and Andrew operated as business partners with some elements of their partnership based on, I guess, trust?

It was never really discussed about shares or him having any equity in it. We didn't really discuss that. We considered it a family business, and I stopped, obviously, working real estate. I was solely focused on building Alaya, and he always referred to it as our family business.

Documents show that sometime around the end of 2018, Jasmine's stake in Misty was reduced from 80.2 to 10%, with that 70.2% going to Andrew. Jasmine states emphatically that she never knowingly transferred any shares. But the timing, she says, is curious. This roughly corresponds with a period when things were not good between them.

In 2018, I had left Andrew and went to Canada with the kids. Then I came back December of 2018, and we were quite rocky after his his public intoxication on the 29th of January 2019. And somewhere between October of '18 to March of '19, my shares had been diluted.

She learned this by requesting documents from the Belize Companies Registry. Andrew was not yet a director of Misty at this point. Documents show that he joined the board on March 25th, 2019.

And so as someone who wasn't a director or a shareholder at the time, I don't know how he was able to do I don't recall ever signing a document that gave him 70.2% of my shares. I'm not sure if they used an electronic signature because, of course, the lawyer's office has all of my signatures electronically filed.

We asked Andrew via his attorney if an E-signature was ever used on share transfers. He didn't reply. Whatever happened here, it could at least explain where and how Andrew arrived at the 10% figure from his press release. Though not the gifting part. Jasmine also learned exactly when she'd been removed from Misty as a director.

I requested a company search for my companies that are registered in Belize under Misty. Misty is a Turks & Caicos company. Subsidiaries are BVI and Belize. I was able to do company searches on three of my companies. In those company searches, it says, it's an email from Andrew to the company's registry stating Jasmine Harton is no longer a director of said company as of June second, 2021.

June second, 2021 is five days after the accidental shooting of Henry Jamant.

I had just been transferred from San Pedro Police Station to Belize Central Prison on June first. So the day after I'm in prison, he wrote the Company Registry and removed me as director.

She did not voluntarily resign and was given no notice of a meeting. But something curious did happen a few days before that.

So on May 31st, the night that I was denied bail, Andrew sent a local girl that was friends with him to the police station. They took me out of my cell and put me into the male's bathroom in the front of the police station where came in with me. She pulled out an envelope, and it was Andrew requesting that I transfer my shares to him. And she told me that Andrew wanted me to sign that in case anything was to happen to me, in case things went south, to think about my children, to think about everything we've worked for, that Marriott might be pulling the franchise agreement because of this accident. He told her to tell me all kinds of things. So she was the messenger. You have to remember, I had just been denied bail. I've spent now three nights in a cell, sleeping on the floor. I'm bawling my eyes out because I'm still in shock of what happened. The whole thing was just disgusting. And he couldn't even bring me the papers himself. He sent me the book.

We also asked Andrew about this event through his lawyer and for copies of the form Jasmine was presented in that bathroom. He did not reply to either query. I also know the identity of the woman. She's a restauranteur in San Pedro. I reached out to her for comment, and she didn't reply.

What I was told is that nothing would happen to this form, and that he would just hold it in case of an emergency, in case he needed it. It also didn't have compensation or a witness or a date.

Jasmine says it appeared to be quickly drawn up. Slopy.

It was one paragraph. But also I was in extreme duress. I'm sitting on the toilet In a police station bathroom after being denied bail, that could not stand under the duress and stress of the situation. And under the false pretenses, he told me he wasn't doing anything with it, that he just wanted me to sign it, and he was going to hold it for safekeeping in case Marriott was going to pull out. And he said, Think about our kids. And so I signed it.

Alaia and Grant Colony are prime beachfront properties that are, it's fair to guess, worth many, many millions. The money that would be life-changing for Jasmine Harton, a woman who is struggling just to pay rent and her lawyers. Even 10% could be a small fortune. But it's not like she can just ask Andrew to honor his word in that statement, because as far as we can tell, Andrew is no longer in control of the resort or those shares. As of today, Alia is owned by Waterloo Investment Holdings, whose chairman Chairman, as you've heard, is Michael Ashcroft. The Alia property, along with the Radisson Fort George Hotel in Belize City, was acquired in 2022 as part of a group of unnamed properties for $50.045 million. From Michael Ashcroft. Alaya is now displayed proudly proudly among the hospitality investments on the Waterloo web page. I'd love to ask Michael or Andrew about this, about all of it. But the only reply I got on the matter of the shares from Andrew's lawyer was this, The characterization of events, as have been told to you by Ms. Harden, in relation to the financial dealings between Ms. Harden and our client in relation to Misty Horizons' Investments Limited, are inaccurate.

They do not reflect the correct position regarding the relevant corporate interests. Jasmine doesn't have the resources to hire the kinds of lawyer she needs to truly resolve this. So to get more information, she was just writing letters. Lots of letters. To Michael Ashcroft, to the various directors of Waterloo, including Andrew's sister, Sarah, to Elia's auditor, and to Stuart Howard, Waterloo's CEO, who, after ignoring numerous letters, finally did write back. This is an actor reading portions of that letter.

Dear Ms. Martin. This email contains rather more information than you requested in your email dated 10th of May, 2024. However, in the light of your incomplete recollection of events, certain facts need to be established. First, the matter of directorships of Ms. Dst Horizon Investments Limited.

You were appointed as- Howard states that it was, by a written resolution of members of the company that Jasmine was removed as director on June second, 2021, five days after the shooting. He also states that Andrew was appointed as director on March 25th, 2019, by a meeting of the board of directors, which you shared in the minutes of which you signed. While that timing lines up with corporate records dated years after this alleged meeting, according to Jasmine, that meeting did not happen. She even reviewed her emails from that day, and nothing in them suggested that such a meeting took place. Instead, her contemporaneous emails are about developing the properties, low water pressure at Banyan Bay, about purchase orders for the gift shop, about stocking juice bar, about a half marathon, about Alaia Beach Club architecture.

I can tell you I did not attend a meeting on the 25th of March, 2019, to appoint Andrew as a director. That's not true.

Jasmine is adament that her memory is correct. We also asked Howard for a copy of those signed minutes of the meeting you referenced, and he didn't respond. Speaking of conflicting stories, Howard also wrote this about the larger transfer.

On the 13th of February, 2019, in consideration of $70.20, 70.2 registered Misty shares were transferred by you to Andrew Ashcroft, leaving you with 10 shares. The share transfer was signed by you and was dated by you by hand.

As we said earlier, Jasmine swears this transfer did not happen. And Howard, when asked, ignored a request for that signed document. Perhaps the most interesting part of the letter was this.

On the 31st of May, 2021, a further 10 registered Misty Shareds were transferred by you to Andrew Ashcroft. The share transfer was signed by you. From that moment, you were no longer a member of the company.

May 31st, 2021, is the day that Jasmine was denied bail, when Andrew supposedly sent that woman to visit her with the envelope. According to Howard, this is the day when Jasmine willingly signed over her final 10% of Misty. So that's what transpired in the jailhouse bathroom?

She said that Andrew sent her to check on me, and she brought me a chicken sandwich. And then we went into the bathroom. She gave a cigarette and then pulled out the envelope. I was crying. I was like a mess. So I wasn't even really thinking. I just know that compensation needs to come to me for it to be legally binding as well. Unless my chicken sandwich she brought me was worth 1.7 million, I did not receive any compensation.

There's also this problem. Andrew seems to directly contradict this timeline online and series of events in his own press release, when he clearly states that Jasmine Harton still held that 10% as of June 13th, 2022, more than a year later. In Andrew's telling, Jasmine was gifted 10% of the share capital, During the hotel development process and at a time when we were working together, and that she would be paid a fair value for them. But according to Stuart Howard, Jasmine was divested twice voluntarily, and The final 10% was relinquished on May 31st, 2021, I guess to some random lady in a jailhouse bathroom. Howard also provides this additional information in his letter.

On 30th of March, 2022, Waterloo acquired Misty, which meant that Waterloo became responsible for the very substantial indebtedness of the Alaya Project. There was nothing illegal about the acquisition, as you suggest. At the time of the acquisition, you were not a member of Misty, and neither your consent for it nor your awareness of it were required. Misty has now been wound up, but at the time of its acquisition by Waterloo, it had negative equity of almost $20 million, rendering Misty shares worthless. Given what you have stated publicly, you will perhaps be disappointed to learn that there was no intrinsic value at all in Misty shares, irrespective of how many of those shares were held. Anyone closely associated with a liar would have known that the project was overwhelmingly debt-funded, backed only by $100 share capital.

This is something a friend who knows a lot about corporate finance suggested to me many moons ago when we were talking about Jasmine and her shares. He said that his prediction about the whole Alaia shares thing is that when the proof is finally put forth, if it's ever put forth, that paperwork will show that Jasmine Harton shares, whether it's 10% or 80%, will be underwater. Worth. And well, I guess he's a prophet. Before moving on, I'd like to take a minute to look at Howard's closing. It's a curious passage, summarizing a task it seems that someone else asked him to do.

I've been asked to establish what if any net value can be attributed to you beyond the value of Misty shares. My team has spoken to an extensive cross-section of the senior managers of all the various disciplines who made a lie possible from its inception to its opening. This exercise has been conducted with a view to gaining an understanding of the role you played and the overall contribution you made to the project. The results of that exercise have been illuminating. Most contributors have little or no understanding of what, if any, your role in the project was, and many admitted to having had no contact with you other than on social occasions unrelated to the business. Their comments do not support the assertion that you played a significant role. On the contrary, some respondents suggested that the project had facilitated a free ride for you, enabling you to charge thousands of dollars of personal expenditure to your company credit card.

To say the least, this is the complete opposite of everything I've seen and heard, from documents and emails, including to and from Andrew himself, from employees, and especially from Jasmine, as you heard in episode 4 of this podcast. Our investigation strongly suggests that Jasmine Horton was deeply involved, from the signing for the loans on the land, to the design of the bathrooms, to the selection of logos, to the plans and oversight of condo sales at Alaia Beach Club. She even signed the Marriott franchise agreement. Mr. Howard's statement then is quite inconsistent with these accounts.

Several individuals made the observation that repeated attempts were made to create an opportunity for you to make a contribution, but you equally repeatedly failed to live up to the title Lifestyle Director. As you know, other than pocket chains, you are neither an investor of time nor of money in a liar. A liar is now progressing in a very different way from that which had been projected at the time of that opening.

Here, at least, he's correct. Some current employees, she still hears from lament to Jasmine the changes that have occurred under new management. The only person from the early days that any of them see anymore, according to one message, is her ex-father-in-law, Michael Ashcroft. Stuart Howard concludes with this.

The shelving of the Alaia Beach Club and other schemes stemmed directly from an event which took place just a few weeks later, of which I do I need to remind you, but which, in the words of one of those to whom we have spoken, put a damper on everything. Please do not forget that.

Stuart Howard didn't reply lie to an email from me asking him to produce copies of the documents he cited and for further explanations. He was offered a chance to be interviewed, too, just as Michael and Andrew Ashcroff were. They all declined or did not reply. Jasmine does still raise these matters with Andrew directly, quite often by the sound of things. What's his take on it?

Andrew tells me it's a waste of time and to stop pursuing Alaia, that there's no money there, that I'm not going to get anything. He's like, Come on, look at my dad. My dad is a billionaire. You think that he's going to leave any loose ends? He's just told me I'm barking up the wrong tree and to give up.

White Devil will return just after this. The money thing was big and clearly complicated. It's likely to drag on for years and involve many lawyers. But honestly, it was more of a sideshow for the time being. A thing Jasmine could focus on more fully in some theoretical future when things were more normal. For the moment, she had her hands full with her various legal battles, which included the struggle to get her kids back. She was appealing the decision to give Andrew temporary full custody at the highest level in Belize's Supreme Court, while also filing separately for visitation, so she would at least be able to see the twins while the larger battle continued. The decision to take the kids out of Belize just felt wrong. She was sure a judge, a truly impartial one, would eventually make it right. And finally, she got some good news.

We had Supreme Court on Zoom yesterday, and I got a Canadian judge, thank God.

Just to explain, this had nothing to do with Jasmine's Canadian citizenship. As far as we know, her message to Justin Trudeau and the Toronto Sun had not reached him. Belize just doesn't have enough judges, so they sometimes bring them in from overseas, especially from the Commonwealth, to help out. But for Jasmine, this sure seemed like a positive. She was optimistic.

So once that matter is heard and approved, then there's an immediate stay of order, which means Andrew has to come back with the kids. And if he doesn't, we're invoking the Hague Convention for international child abduction.

If you win this appeal, this judge can order Andrew to come back to police, right?

With my kids, exactly, which is why they don't want me to make it to the appeal.

Of course, if Jasmine is in prison, it will be harder for her to win. Jasmine was pursuing the custody case through proper channels using the courts. But to get Andrew to appear in a Belizeian custody court, she needed to serve him with papers, which isn't easy when you're over a thousand miles away. A friend of hers heard that Andrew was staying at the Alexandra Resort, which is owned by Waterloo Investments. It's part of the Turks and Caicos collection. It's not like Andrew Andrew was in hiding. A Google alert in late August of 2022 pointed me to a press release announcing the first outpost of the very fancy New York City-based Corcoran Group Realty in Turks, an outpost with two founders, one of whom I recognized. Katherine Beraluk, that friend of Andrew's who'd signed for the Alaya land with Jasmine, before later relinquishing her shares. Here's a passage from that release.

The Affiliate's leadership team also include Andrew Ashcroft, a second-generation Belizean with 18 years experience in banking, hospitality, finance, and development throughout the Caribbean. Ashcroft developed the Alaia Belize Marriott Autograph Collection, a 20-acre master-planned hotel and condominium property which sold out 100 residences in just three years.

I subsequently found Andrew's bio on the Turks & Caicos Real Estate Association page, in which he puts a very different spin on the story of his time with British Caribbean Bank than the one we'd heard, claiming to have grown the bank's portfolio from $30 million to $400 million, putting it at the forefront of the hotel condo boom in Turks & Caicos. More surprising, and upsetting to Jasmine, I presume, is that he describes himself as a single father of two who had returned to TERC's, quote, After completing development of a liar to pursue the irresistible and rare combination of a timeless Caribbean lifestyle, exciting business opportunities, and the perfect island haven to raise a family.

He's just always wanted to be there. But to be that heartless, to know that I'm going through this, that I lost my friend in this tragedy, that you You've ripped my children from me. You've ripped me from my home to do everything he's done and then the icing on the cake to just take my children out of Belize knowing I don't have a passport right now to come see them. It's crazy.

Andrew wasn't willing to tell Jasmine much, if anything, about the new living situation. So Jasmine would probe, gently, on calls with the kids.

Charlie explained to me. He's like, Mom, you have to take a few planes. He's like, You're going to take one from Belize to Miami. Then you come to Turks and Caicos. Then you go down the road and you keep going, going, going. And then we're on the right with a one-story house with a pool.

That one-story house with a pool? Pretty sure we found it on Airbnb, where Andrew's page claims that he lives in Miami Beach, but has two listings in Turks and Caicos. One of the homes has a large number of reviews and seems to be rented often. The other house has just a few reviews, one of which is written by the twins' her nanny. Reviews claim that Andrew is a, quote, really nice host who sometimes invites guests to barbecues. When a lock broke, he came and fixed it. Jasmine did know that her twins had started in a new primary school.

Which is also owned by Michael Ashcroft, by the way. Of course it is.

Owned by isn't quite right. The school is a charitable trust administered by the Ashcroft School Trust and supported by the Michael Ashcroft Foundation. Anyway, the twins were now in first grade. Jasmine had missed an entire year of their childhood. Hadn't attended one school play, one soccer game. A year was 20 % of their young lives.

It's a lot, and I have to try not to think about it because that's the only thing that breaks me is I need to be so strong right now for this battle and thinking about missing my kids and everything I've missed out on and bringing them to their first day of school. First ballet class, first dance recital. I've missed all of that, and it will crush me if I sit and dwell on it.

Jasmine was stuck, unable to leave Belize or to pin Andrew down. In order to contest custody, to try to force him to bring the kids back to Belize, at least sometimes, she would have to find a way to serve in those papers.

Last time I tried, it took two weeks, and he was evading the person. He slammed the door in the person's face and then snuck out the back window of his office and jumped into a golf cart took off, and this person had to track him down and examine him in the golf cart.

And that was when Andrew was in Belize. Now, he was across the Caribbean Sea in Turks. That made her reconsider her strategy to serve papers on him.

I'm like, You have to be really stealth. You can't just go in and try to be aggressive serving him. You have to do it in a secret way. Pretend you're a waiter and bring a plate of food to his room. You have to be really sneaky because he avoids at all costs. But they didn't do that. They went to the front where the security security booth is and said, Hi, I'm here to serve Andrew Ashcroft.

This time, though, Andrew surprised everyone. He didn't run. He was polite.

Andrew said, I'm not available today, but I can meet him tomorrow at 11:00. I thought that was really weird. Andrew met with the process server. He said, I want a receipt. He said he wanted a receipt. So they drafted a receipt. They gave everything to him, and then he refused to sign the receipt. But they did serve him.

Was this a A new tactic or just a blunder? With all the weapons at the Ashcroft's disposal, it was hard to figure out what their next move might be.

I don't know what he's up to. I thought it was really strange.

Next time on White Devil, we go back to Belize, and things continue to unravel.

When I was told that the police wanted me dead, that's when I decided to build a bunker.

White Devil is a production of Campside Media in Association with Olive Bridge Entertainment. The show was written and reported by me, Josh Dean, with the series producer, Joe Barrett. The story editor and sound designer is Mark McAdam, who also provided original music. Additional sound design by Joe Barrett. Studio engineering by Ewen Lytrom-Ewen. Our closing theme is Under the Shade, I Flourish by Chris Hilton and New Manhattan, including Eli Carvahal, Ava Carvahal, and Louis Chernyovski. This episode was fact-checked by Sarah Ivrey. Additional research by Emma Simenoff and Reporting in Belize by Hippolito Navello. Artwork by Anthony Garace. The voice actors in this episode are Joseph Tipping, Laura Titter, and Jamie Russell. A special thanks to our operations team, Doug Slawin, Ashley Leslie Warren, Sabina Mara, Emma Simanaff, Destiny Dingle, and David Eichler. Campside Media's executive producers are Vanessa Gregoriades, Adam Hoff, Matt Sher, and me, Josh Dean. At Olive Bridge, the executive producer is Will Gloff. If you enjoyed our show, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. It really does help other people find the show. Here's a thought, maybe tell a friend to check out White Devil while you're at it.

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