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Ottawa — Brenda Martin's former boss says Mexican officials are using the jailed Canadian woman as collateral for his unpaid debt.
In an interview with The Canadian Press, Alyn Waage said Monday his lawyers struck a deal with Mexican officials the day after his arrest in 2001, agreeing to pay $500,000 for his freedom.
“They decided half-a-million dollars and we'll call it a day, thank you very much,” he said.
Mr. Waage, 61, masterminded an Internet-based fraud scheme that bilked 15,000 investors out of nearly $60-million (U.S.).
But he fled to Costa Rica when an appeals court released him on bail.
U.S. authorities later apprehended him and eventually extradited him to a low-security federal prison in Butner, N.C., where he's serving a 10-year sentence.
Mr. Waage (pronounced ‘wage') claims Mexican officials are now holding Ms. Martin, 51, and Rebecca Roth, an American and former employee also arrested for her alleged role in the scam, as “ransom” for his unpaid debt.
“The prosecutor and the federal judge there — they're involved in this — feel that they're owed half-a-million dollars that I was supposed to pay them before I got out of jail, which I didn't pay,” he said.
“Until they get that half-a-million dollars, I don't think they're going to let them go. They're holding them for ransom.”
Mr. Waage said he can't recall the names of the officials who allegedly tried to bribe him.
Liberal MP Dan McTeague, the party's consular affairs critic, says he knows of one federal prosecutor who he claims has stymied Ms. Martin's case.
“The impasse seems to stop with this particular prosecutor,” he said.
Mr. Waage said both Ms. Martin and Ms. Roth have written to him saying they'll be released once he pays the money.
“They've been told if I pay [the officials] the money, they can go.”
Ms. Martin worked as Mr. Waage's cook in Puerto Vallarta for 10 months until he fired her in early 2001.
Ms. Martin told The Canadian Press last week she was fired after calling Mr. Waage's mother “a very nasty name.”
“I just couldn't overlook it,” Mr. Waage said of the incident with his mother.
But he said he agreed to pay her a year's worth of severance — roughly $24,000 — because he felt bad about firing her.
“You have to understand that, at that time, money didn't matter a hell of a lot. It was $2,000, $24,000, $200,000 — I didn't give a shit,” Mr. Waage said.
“I was rolling in it. I had more money than I could spend.”
Ms. Martin invested $10,000 in Mr. Waage's Tri-West Investment Club. She has said she thought it was a good investment and didn't know it was a fraud.
Mr. Waage has backed her claim in a sworn affidavit. He says no one — not even his wife — knew of the scheme.
“How could [Ms. Martin] possibly [know about the scam]? None of my employees did. What, am I going to hire some cook off the street and tell her I'm controlling a multimillion-dollar scam? What, am I crazy? No, of course not,” he said.
“If anybody in the house knew it was a big scam going on, they'd have run like rabbits.”
Mexican authorities arrested Ms. Martin in February 2006 on allegations of money laundering and participating in a criminal conspiracy connected to Mr. Waage's scam.
She's been held for more than two years at the Puente Grande women's prison near Guadalajara awaiting her criminal trial.
The Mexican government said in a recent statement that Ms. Martin's “close relationship” with Mr. Waage “for a fair length of time ... leads to the supposition that she had some knowledge of the criminal activities in which her friend was engaged.”
A man who answered the telephone at the Mexican embassy in Ottawa said no one was available on account of the Easter Monday holiday.
Calls to the Canadian embassy in Mexico City were referred to Foreign Affairs.
Foreign Affairs declined to comment.
Ms. Martin's Toronto-based lawyer, Guillermo Cruz Rico, said he's not aware of the alleged bribe attempt. He also declined comment on Mr. Waage's allegation.
Mexico's justice system has long been criticized for human-rights abuses. Amnesty International released a report last year citing specific cases of torture and police intimidation, along with arrests without cause and unfair trials.
Foreign Affairs' travel advisory website urges Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution when visiting Mexico, citing “cases of legitimate police officers extorting money from tourists or arresting tourists for minor offences.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last week that, while he's “troubled” by Ms. Martin's plight, Mexico has its own justice system and Canada can't interfere with it.
“We have to remember, we are talking about another sovereign country and we are talking about a judicial process, and judicial process is, by definition, independent,” he said.
