Sheer and Associates News

Recent Travel Warnings and Alerts for the Caribbean, Central and South America

2010-04-17T09:36:00.003-04:00

Warnings
Travel Warnings are issued by the State Department to describe long-term, protracted conditions that make a country dangerous or unstable. A Warning is issued when the U.S. Government's ability to help American citizens abroad is limited due to the closure of embassies or consulates.

The State Department issued a travel warning for Mexico on April 12. The warning targeted the U.S. - Mexico border where most of the drug gang violence is plaguing Mexico is occurring.
On April 17, The State Department issued a travel warning for Haiti, saying that infrastructure in that country is still very unstable following the January 12 earthquake.
The State Department released a warning on March 5 stating that travelers should be concerned about increased narco-violence in Colombia.

Alerts
Travel Alerts are issued to warn Americans abroad about short term threats (coups, terrorist events, anniversaries, holidays or sporting events that might attract violence, etc.) There have been no recent State Department Alerts issued for the Caribbean, Central and South America recently.

Combatting Counterfeiting

2010-04-16T13:38:00.002-04:00

If you are interested in anti-counterfeiting efforts, please take a look at our sister company, Brand Sentry.

Puerto Rico

2010-04-16T13:35:00.001-04:00

Sheer and Associates has strong ties to Puerto Rico. Tom Sheer’s wife is Puerto Rican. So is Sean, Tom’s son and the Operations Director of Sheer and Associates. We’ve conducted a number of investigations there and we have a good relationship with two private investigators on the island, both of them former FBI agents. We have a working relationship with a northern Florida-based private investigator who can also work cases in Puerto Rico. She is a former Miami-Dade police officer and is an expert in investigating insurance fraud, conducting surveillance, and general investigations. She was raised in Puerto Rico and speaks fluent Spanish.

Puerto Rico was populated for centuries by aboriginal peoples, the island was claimed by the Spanish Crown in 1493 following Columbus’ second voyage to the Americas. In 1898, after 400 years of colonial rule that saw the indigenous population nearly exterminated and African slave labor introduced, Puerto Rico was ceded to the US as a result of the Spanish-American War. Puerto Ricans were granted US citizenship in 1917. Popularly-elected governors have served since 1948. In 1952, a constitution was enacted providing for internal self government. In plebiscites held in 1967, 1993, and 1998, voters chose not to alter the existing political status. In addiction to a governor, Puerto Rico has a bicameral legislature. The capital is San Juan. Puerto Ricans also elect, by popular vote, a resident commissioner to serve a four-year term as a nonvoting representative in the US House of Representatives. About four million people live on the island; another three-and-a-half million live on the mainland, mostly in the Tri-State Area in the northeast and in central Florida.

The CIA says Puerto Rico has one of the most dynamic economies in the Caribbean region. A diverse industrial sector has far surpassed agriculture as the primary locus of economic activity and income. Encouraged by duty-free access to the US and by tax incentives, US firms have invested heavily in Puerto Rico since the 1950s. US minimum wage laws apply. Sugar production has lost out to dairy production and other livestock products as the main source of income in the agricultural sector. Tourism has traditionally been an important source of income with estimated arrivals of more than 3.6 million tourists in 2008. Growth fell off in 2001-03, largely due to the slowdown in the US economy, recovered in 2004-05, but declined again in 2006-08.

Street crime is a significant problem in Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is easily reached from the mainland by many major east coast airports. It is also a popular cruse ship destination.

You can find out more about Puerto Rico on the CIA Factbook website... the Puerto Rican Government site... and the official Puerto Rican tourism site.

Judith Torrea's Ciudad Juárez Blog

2010-04-15T05:47:00.001-04:00

If you read Spanish, you should check out freelance reporter Judith Torrea's blog about Ciudad Juárez. It's called Ciudad Juárez: En la sombra de narcotráfico, (Juarez: In the Shadow of the Narcotics Trade) and it's pretty compelling reading.

Miami Herald's Coverage of the Americas / April 15

2010-04-15T05:25:00.001-04:00

Here's this week's regional news update from the Miami Herald Americas section:

A Chilean businessman dies in Cuba.
Mexico's Zetas drug gang is now in El Salvador.
The opposition in Nicaragua slams the ruling party over Supreme Court term extensions.
Nine die in drug gang shootings in Honduras.
Avatar director James Cameron helps delay construction of dam that threatens the Amazon jungle in Brazil.

Arik Arad on Airport Security

2010-04-14T06:21:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting opinion piece on airport security by Arik Arad, a colleague of Sheer and Associates' founder, Tom Sheer.

Patrick Smith's Ask the Pilot

2010-04-14T06:18:00.000-04:00

Please check out Patrick Smith's Ask the Pilot column on Salon. (Salon is an online newsmagazine published in San Francisco.) Smith, a pilot, is a good writer, with very interesting insights into the airline industry. He's very unapologetic, passionate about his career, and above all, smart. Smith is a keen critic of how airport security is managed in the United States and has a number of ideas of how to make it better. His column used to appear every other week, now it is published in blog format, with shorter more frequent entries.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice Center on Terrorism

2010-04-14T06:11:00.000-04:00

Please visit the Center on Terrorism website. It's an interesting program; they offer seminars on various topics at least one Friday each month. Here's a description of the center from its site:
"John Jay College of Criminal Justice lost 67 students and alumni in the World Trade Center disaster. That loss, and the increased interest in terrorism on the part of concerned citizens, prompted John Jay College to create the Center on Terrorism in late 2001. The goals of the Center are to study terrorism conceptually in ways that are familiar and appropriate for a university and to identify the practical applications of that knowledge in the search for alternative forms of human security. Such a blend of scholarship and commitment is particularly relevant for John Jay College, the leading institution in the country in the field of criminal justice and public safety, and one of the few institutions to offer M.A. students a certificate in the critical study of terrorism."

Schneier on Security

2010-04-13T12:33:00.001-04:00

For interesting reading on security issues, visit Bruce Schneier's website, Schneier on Security. He describes himself as an "internationally renowned security technologist and author." The Economist says he is a "security guru," known as a "refreshingly candid and lucid security critic and commentator." He is currently leading a discussion on terrorist attacks and risk on his blog.

The Dominican Republic

2010-04-12T08:20:00.002-04:00

One of the things Sheer and Associates is going to use this blog for is to take a look at the some of the areas of the world where we offer services.

We’re going to start with the Dominican Republic. We’ve done a fair amount of work there over the last few years, most of it due diligence for Las Vegas-based gaming concerns that want to do business there. Sheer and Associates has an investigator based in the capital, Santo Domingo. Thomas Sheer is well acquainted with the country, having spearheaded a number of charitable projects there during his years with the Knights of Malta.

The Dominican Republic (DR) covers the eastern two-thirds of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. It shares the island with Haiti; Hispaniola lies roughly 70 miles west of Puerto Rico. The Dominican Republic is the second-largest Caribbean country after Cuba by population and area. Santo Domingo is located on the south coast of the island. The DR is a popular tourist destination and facilities there vary according to price and location. Spanish is the official language. Though English is widely spoken in major cities and tourist areas, it is much less common outside these areas. There is a large Dominican population in the United States; in the last census 1.6 million people identified themselves as Dominican. Most immigrants from the DR to the US settle in the Northeast, with half of those living in New York City.

The State Department has issued no travel warnings for the Dominican Republic. Click: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1103.html for the latest on Department Travel Warnings.

The State Department does however warn about street crime there, saying it is especially a problem for tourists. For more on crime in the DR click: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1103.html#crime . The State Department also cautions visitors to the Dominican Republic against overland travel to neighboring Haiti.

For more information on the Dominican Republic, please visit the US Embassy website: http://santodomingo.usembassy.gov/. For an interesting look at the inner workings of the embassy read the State Department’s Inspector General’s report: http://oig.state.gov/lbry/reporthighlights/54105.htm. For tourism information visit the official Dominican tourism website: http://www.godominicanrepublic.com/.

The Bahamas

2010-04-09T09:12:00.000-04:00

Sheer and Associates has been doing a considerable amount of work in The Bahamas in 2009. Since the beginning of the year we’ve worked on a number of projects there with Senior Consultant Jerry Forrester. Jerry, a former FBI Special Agent, served for more than twenty years as Supervisor of the Bureau's Caribbean Liaison Office. Since retiring from the FBI, he has spent more than a decade in private security and risk management, operating out of The Bahamas and Miami. Jerry has developed a unique understanding of how different Caribbean governments operate, especially concerning judiciaries and law enforcement. We look forward to doing more work with Jerry in the region. Please contact us if you have any investigative, security or government relations consulting needs in The Bahamas or the Caribbean Basin at large.

According to the State Department: “The Bahamas is a developed, English-speaking Caribbean nation composed of hundreds of islands covering a territory approximately the size of California. Tourism and financial services comprise the two largest sectors of the economy. Independent from the United Kingdom since 1973, The Bahamas is a Commonwealth nation with more than a century-old democratic tradition. The capital, Nassau, is located on New Providence Island.”

The Bahamas is very close, geographically, to the US. The distance from Fort Lauderdale, FL to Nassau is a little more than 180 miles. However there are many islands that lie much closer to the US. For example, the Bahamian island of Bimini is only 61 miles from Fort Lauderdale.

The State Department has issued no recent travel advisories or travel warnings for The Bahamas. Though the department does caution visitors about the nation’s high crime rate. Jerry Forrester agrees with the State Department’s assessment, saying that street crime in The Bahamas is at an all time high.

For more information about The Bahamas visit the US Embassy website. The State Department Inspector General conducted a limited scope audit of the Embassy in 2007 and published its report in 2008.

Finally, The Bahamas’ tourism site also has a good deal of useful information for anyone planning on visiting.

Miami Herald Americas Coverage / April 8

2010-04-08T13:41:00.000-04:00

Here's the latest from the Miami Herald's America's page.

Landslides in Rio de Janeiro. Two hundred feared dead.
Rain plagues Haitian camps.
Costa Rican president calls for a end to celibacy vows for priests.
Asylum approvals up for Mexicans in wake of drug-related violence.

About Online Privacy from the NY Times

2010-03-17T06:02:00.002-04:00

How Privacy Vanishes Online

By STEVE LOHR

If a stranger came up to you on the street, would you give him your name, Social Security number and e-mail address?

Probably not.

Yet people often dole out all kinds of personal information on the Internet that allows such identifying data to be deduced. Services like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr are oceans of personal minutiae — birthday greetings sent and received, school and work gossip, photos of family vacations, and movies watched.

Computer scientists and policy experts say that such seemingly innocuous bits of self-revelation can increasingly be collected and reassembled by computers to help create a picture of a person’s identity, sometimes down to the Social Security number.

“Technology has rendered the conventional definition of personally identifiable information obsolete,” said Maneesha Mithal, associate director of the Federal Trade Commission’s privacy division. “You can find out who an individual is without it.”

In a class project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that received some attention last year, Carter Jernigan and Behram Mistree analyzed more than 4,000 Facebook profiles of students, including links to friends who said they were gay. The pair was able to predict, with 78 percent accuracy, whether a profile belonged to a gay male.

So far, this type of powerful data mining, which relies on sophisticated statistical correlations, is mostly in the realm of university researchers, not identity thieves and marketers.

But the F.T.C. is worried that rules to protect privacy have not kept up with technology. The agency is convening on Wednesday the third of three workshops on the issue.

Its concerns are hardly far-fetched. Last fall, Netflix awarded $1 million to a team of statisticians and computer scientists who won a three-year contest to analyze the movie rental history of 500,000 subscribers and improve the predictive accuracy of Netflix’s recommendation software by at least 10 percent.

On Friday, Netflix said that it was shelving plans for a second contest — bowing to privacy concerns raised by the F.T.C. and a private litigant. In 2008, a pair of researchers at the University of Texas showed that the customer data released for that first contest, despite being stripped of names and other direct identifying information, could often be “de-anonymized” by statistically analyzing an individual’s distinctive pattern of movie ratings and recommendations.

In social networks, people can increase their defenses against identification by adopting tight privacy controls on information in personal profiles. Yet an individual’s actions, researchers say, are rarely enough to protect privacy in the interconnected world of the Internet.

You may not disclose personal information, but your online friends and colleagues may do it for you, referring to your school or employer, gender, location and interests. Patterns of social communication, researchers say, are revealing.

“Personal privacy is no longer an individual thing,” said Harold Abelson, the computer science professor at M.I.T. “In today’s online world, what your mother told you is true, only more so: people really can judge you by your friends.”

Collected together, the pool of information about each individual can form a distinctive “social signature,” researchers say.

The power of computers to identify people from social patterns alone was demonstrated last year in a study by the same pair of researchers that cracked Netflix’s anonymous database: Vitaly Shmatikov, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Texas, and Arvind Narayanan, now a researcher atStanford University.

By examining correlations between various online accounts, the scientists showed that they could identify more than 30 percent of the users of both Twitter, the microblogging service, and Flickr, an online photo-sharing service, even though the accounts had been stripped of identifying information like account names and e-mail addresses.

“When you link these large data sets together, a small slice of our behavior and the structure of our social networks can be identifying,” Mr. Shmatikov said.

Even more unnerving to privacy advocates is the work of two researchers from Carnegie Mellon University. In a paper published last year, Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross reported that they could accurately predict the full, nine-digit Social Security numbers for 8.5 percent of the people born in the United States between 1989 and 2003 — nearly five million individuals.

Social Security numbers are prized by identity thieves because they are used both as identifiers and to authenticate banking, credit card and other transactions.

The Carnegie Mellon researchers used publicly available information from many sources, including profiles on social networks, to narrow their search for two pieces of data crucial to identifying people — birthdates and city or state of birth.

That helped them figure out the first three digits of each Social Security number, which the government had assigned by location. The remaining six digits had been assigned through methods the government didn’t disclose, although they were related to when the person applied for the number. The researchers used projections about those applications as well as other public data, like the Social Security numbers of dead people, and then ran repeated cycles of statistical correlation and inference to partly re-engineer the government’s number-assignment system.

To be sure, the work by Mr. Acquisti and Mr. Gross suggests a potential, not actual, risk. But unpublished research by them explores how criminals could use similar techniques for large-scale identity-theft schemes.

More generally, privacy advocates worry that the new frontiers of data collection, brokering and mining, are largely unregulated. They fear “online redlining,” where products and services are offered to some consumers and not others based on statistical inferences and predictions about individuals and their behavior.

The F.T.C. and Congress are weighing steps like tighter industry requirements and the creation of a “do not track” list, similar to the federal “do not call” list, to stop online monitoring.

But Jon Kleinberg, a professor of computer science at Cornell University who studies social networks, is skeptical that rules will have much impact. His advice: “When you’re doing stuff online, you should behave as if you’re doing it in public — because increasingly, it is.”

Miami Herald's Coverage of the Americas March 14, 2010

2010-03-14T21:40:00.000-04:00

Here're the latest headlines from the Miami Herald about the Americas:

3 with ties to US consulate killed in Mexican city
- Updated 23 minutes ago
UN chief sees dangers up-close in Haiti quake camp
- 7:54 PM ET
American, 22, completes solo row across Atlantic
- 7:19 PM ET
Bolivia drops bid to host Miss Universe contest
Venezuelan Web site rejects Chavez's allegations
- 4:21 PM ET

Political News about the Americas from The Economist February 26 Issue

2010-02-26T07:13:00.000-05:00

Here's the latest from The Economist about politics in the Americas. To see these and more requires a subscription to the magazine.

Meeting in the Mexican resort of Playa del Carmen, the leaders of 32 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean agreed to set up a new regional body. When it is created, either next year or in 2012, it will be a rival to the Organisation of American States, in which the United States and Canada, but not Cuba, take part. The leaders also expressed their support for Argentina’s claim to sovereignty over the Falkland (or Malvinas) Islands, which has been reignited by the arrival of an oil exploration rig in the islands.

In Cuba, Orlando Zapata, a political prisoner, died in hospital after a lengthy hunger strike in protest at poor prison conditions. Mr Zapata was arrested in 2003, during a crackdown against democracy activists on the island. Cuba’s president, Raúl Castro, said he regretted the death but denied that prisoners suffered torture.

Brazil’s governing Workers’ Party endorsed Dilma Rousseff as its candidate in October’s presidential election. Ms Rousseff is President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s chief of staff and was hand-picked by him as his successor. She has pledged to continue Lula’s pragmatic economic policy, but at the party convention Lula said that she should not be afraid to extend the state’s remit in the economy.

Miami Herald's Coverage of the Americas February 25, 2010

2010-02-25T14:02:00.001-05:00

Here are links to the latest news about the Americas from the Miami Herald.

The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba

2010-02-14T11:40:00.000-05:00

Sheer and Associates has performed background checks in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba for gaming industry suppliers seeking to do business there. The Netherlands Antilles is a federation of five islands within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Curaçao and Bonaire are in the southern reaches of the Antilles chain of islands; Sint Maarten, Saba, and Sint Eustatius are in the northern part of the Antilles. Aruba was part of this federation until 1986 when it gained status apart within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Sint Maarten shares its island with the French Overseas Collectivity of Saint Martin. The closest Netherlands Antilles island to the United States is Sint Maarten; it is about 186 miles from Puerto Rico.

Here’s how the US State Department describes the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba:

Netherlands Antilles

Area: 960 sq. km. (597 sq. mi.); more than five times the size of Washington, DC; five islands divided geographically into the Windward Islands (northern) group (Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten) and the Leeward Islands (southern) group (Bonaire and Curaçao.)
Cities: Capital--Willemstad (metropolitan).  
Islands: Curaçao (pop. 137,094) Sint Maarten (38,959), Bonaire (11,537), Sint Eustatius (2,699), Saba (1,491).  
Terrain: Generally hilly, volcanic interiors. 
Climate: Tropical; ameliorated by northeast trade winds.

Aruba

Area: 180 sq. km. (112 sq. mi.).
Cities: Capital--Oranjestad.
Terrain: Flat with a few hills; scant vegetation.
Climate: Subtropical.

This is the State Department’s description of the islands’ political structure:

Netherlands Antilles

Since 1945, the federation of the Netherlands Antilles (Curacao, Bonaire, Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten), which is a constituent part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, has been semi-autonomous in most internal affairs. The Kingdom retains authority over foreign affairs, defense, final judicial review, and "Kingdom matters" including human rights and good governance. Current political relations between the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba stem from 1954 and are based on the Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a voluntary arrangement between the Netherlands, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. At the time, the Charter represented an end to colonial relations and the acceptance of a new legal system in which each nation would look after their own interests independently, look after their common interests on the basis of equality and provide each other with mutual assistance. In 1975, Suriname left the Kingdom's political alliance. Since 1986, Aruba has had separate status within the Kingdom and is no longer part of the Netherlands Antilles. The Netherlands Antilles enjoys semi-autonomy on most internal matters and defers to the Kingdom of the Netherlands in matters of defense, foreign policy, final judicial review, human rights, and good governance.   The Antilles is governed by a popularly elected unicameral "Staten" (parliament) of 22 members. It chooses a prime minister (called minister president) and a Council of Ministers, consisting of six to eight other ministers. A governor, who serves a 6-year term, represents the monarch of the Netherlands. Local government is assigned authority independently on each island. Under the direction of a kingdom-appointed island governor, these local governments have a "Bestuurscollege" (administrative body) made up of commissioners who head the separate governmental departments.  Voters in the Netherlands Antilles have opted to dismantle the Netherlands Antilles and create new structures between the various islands and the Kingdom. St. Maarten and Curacao have opted for an autonomous country status within the Kingdom similar to Aruba's status. Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Bonaire have opted for closer ties to the Netherlands. The target date for implementing these changes is 2010-2011, but it is unclear if the target will be met.

Aruba

Part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Aruba has semi-autonomy on most internal affairs with the exception of defense, foreign affairs, final judicial review, and "Kingdom matters" including human rights and good governance. The constitution was enacted in January 1986. Executive power rests with a governor, while a prime minister heads an eight-member Cabinet. The governor is appointed for a 6-year term by the monarch and the prime minister and deputy prime minister are elected by the legislature, or Staten, for 4-year terms. The Staten is made up of 21 members elected by direct, popular vote to serve 4-year terms. Aruba's judicial system, mainly derived from the Dutch system, operates independently of the legislature and the executive. Jurisdiction, including appeal, lies with the Common Court of Justice of Aruba and the Kingdom-level Supreme Court of Justice in the Netherlands.

The political structures of the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba present certain challenges for Americans seeking to do business there. Sheer and Associates’ senior consultants for the Caribbean have years of experience there and are well situated to help our clients navigate the channels of government regulations there.

The Principal US officials in the federation are Consul General Timothy Dunn and Vice Consul James Hogan. The US Consulate for Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles is located at J.B. Gorsiraweg #1, Willemstad, Curaçao; tel. 599-9-461-3066, fax: 599-9-461-6489. It is open Monday-Friday, 8:00 am-5:00 pm. The email address is: acscuracao@state.gov 

The State Department has issued no Travel Advisories or Warnings for Aruba or the Netherlands Antilles, but does warn about street crime, saying it could be a cause for concern for tourists.

For more on Aruba check http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/22491.htm and for the Netherlands Antilles check http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/22528.htm.

Political News about the Americas from The Economist February 13 Issue

2010-02-13T02:15:00.001-05:00

Below you will find the Economist's digest items about the Americas from their February 13, 2010 edition. Please note that a subscription is needed to access their website.

Haiti raised the estimate of the death toll from the recent earthquake to 230,000. Nearly a month later, an emaciated man was pulled alive from beneath the rubble. Aid workers worried about the approaching rainy season.
Laura Chinchilla became the fifth woman to be elected to the presidency in Latin America, winning Costa Rica’s election with 47% of the vote. She is a protégée of Óscar Arias, the outgoing centrist president.
Faced with a power shortage caused partly by drought, Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, declared an “electricity emergency.” Customers who do not cut their usage will face steep increases in their bills.
Brazilian health officials prepared to hand out 55 million condoms in the run-up to Carnival, as part of an AIDS-awareness campaign.

In the magazine, you will also find in depth articles about Chavez recruiting Cuban aides to shore up his regime, Brazil’s recovering economy, and the floods that struck the ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru.

Fraud Investigations by Sheer and Associates

2010-02-12T10:28:00.001-05:00

Sheer and Associates is pleased to welcome Carlis “Chic” Sabinson to its network of affiliated, independent consultants. Like most of our associates, Chic is a former FBI Agent. He has extensive experience in investigating financial crimes, money laundering, fraud and conducting complex due diligence inquiries. Here is an excerpt from his resume describing his experience in the FBI:

“Throughout a 26 year career, assumed responsibility at portions of this time for national and international fraud program effecting the Southern District of Florida, conducting internal audits and inspections, national responsibility for the Civil Rights Program globally, liaison functions with the White House, Supreme Court and United States Department of Justice, governmental white collar crime frauds within the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and general investigative responsibility for federal crimes committed in the Boston, Massachusetts and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania territories.”

After the Bureau he worked for many years performing investigations for some of Florida’s largest law firms. He has deep contacts throughout the state, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

We are currently working on two projects with Chic. If you need help with any type of fraud investigation or financial crimes please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at Sheer and Associates.

Miami Herald's Coverage of the Americas February 11, 2010

2010-02-11T22:59:00.001-05:00

From time to time, Sheer and Associates will link to newspapers and magazines that we think have good coverage of OUR coverage areas.
Go to the Miami Herald's Americas section to find out the latest on Haiti, the new president of Costa Rica, and a corruption probe in Brazil.

The Bahamas

2010-02-01T08:02:00.001-05:00

Sheer and Associates did a considerable amount of work in The Bahamas in 2009. Throughout the year we worked on a number of projects there with Senior Consultant Jerry Forrester. Jerry, a former FBI Special Agent, served for more than twenty years as Supervisor of the Bureau's Caribbean Liaison Office. Since retiring from the FBI, he has spent more than a decade in private security and risk management, operating out of The Bahamas and Miami. Jerry has developed a unique understanding of how different Caribbean governments operate, especially concerning judiciaries and law enforcement. We look forward to doing more work with Jerry in the region. Please contact us if you have any investigative, security or government relations consulting needs in The Bahamas or the Caribbean Basin at large.

The Bahamas is geographically very close to the US. The distance from Fort Lauderdale, FL to Nassau is a little more than 180 miles. However there are many islands that lie much closer to the US. For example, the Bahamian island of Bimini is only 61 miles from Fort Lauderdale.

For more information about The Bahamas visit the US Embassy website. The State Department Inspector General conducted a limited scope audit of the Embassy in 2007 and published its report in 2008.

Finally, The Bahamas’ tourism site also has a good deal of useful information for anyone planning on visiting.

Miami Herald's Coverage of the Americas January 30, 2010

2010-01-30T06:19:00.000-05:00

Check out the Miami Herald for the latest about the Americas. Some of the stories you'll find:

A group from Utah was inspired to bring more than 100 Haitian orphans back to the U.S. where potential adoptive parents were lined up
A group of Puerto Rican doctors who traveled to Haiti in the wake of the nation's devastating earthquake to provide aid are under fire for posting tasteless photographs on Facebook
The ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru are evacuated by helicopter after heavy rains damage train tracks.

News about the Americas from The Economist January 30 Issue

2010-01-29T09:12:00.003-05:00

Below you will find the Economist's digest items about the Americas from their January 30, 2010 edition. Please note that a subscription is needed to access their website.

Two weeks after an earthquake hit Haiti, followed by massive aftershocks and killing up to 300,000 people, international help began to reach substantial numbers of survivors. UN peacekeepers fired tear-gas at a crowd who mobbed aid workers distributing food supplies.
Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed as president of Honduras in a coup and has spent months holed up in the Brazilian embassy, went into exile in the Dominican Republic. This was part of a reconciliation plan agreed by the newly elected president, Porfirio Lobo. Honduras’s Supreme Court and Congress absolved the military officers who removed Mr Zelaya from power of any wrongdoing.
Venezuela’s vice-president and defence minister, Ramón Carrizález, resigned, denying rumours of a split with President Hugo Chávez. Meanwhile, the government ordered cable-television providers to stop carrying a pro-opposition channel, RCTV. There were big protests over this and over electricity blackouts, water shortages and rising crime.
The United States asked Guatemala to extradite Alfonso Portillo—an ex-president who had previously been extradited to Guatemala from exile in Mexico—on money-laundering charges.
Germany issued an arrest warrant for Jorge Rafael Videla, a former dictator of Argentina currently held in custody there, on charges of murdering a German man. And Brazil extradited a former Uruguayan military officer to Argentina over alleged abuses against dissidents in Argentina’s “dirty war” during the 1976-83 dictatorship.

You will also find in depth articles about Haitian leaders wonder how to rebuild a country in ruins; Hugo Chávez worrying ever less about maintaining a semblance of democracy; and an examination about why economic liberalism (what we would call conservative economic policies in the United States) is taboo in socially liberal Brazil.

Miami Herald's Coverage of the Americas 1/14/10

2010-01-14T19:07:00.000-05:00

Check out this week's Miami Herald Americas section. It has the latest about the Caribbean, Central and South America.

Here are some highlights:

Haiti earthquake had been predicted for years

The earthquake in Haiti surprised South Floridians who didn't expect earthquakes in the Caribbean. But geologists had been sounding the alarm for some time. - Updated 2 minutes ago

U.S. captive was aiding Jews
The American contractor arrested in Cuba on spying charges was helping Jewish groups, sources said.

U.N. peacekeepers among the dead, missing
United Nations officials announced that more than a dozen peacekeepers were killed in the earthquake and that over 100 remain missing. - 2:33 PM ET

Changes in Venezuela's currency to impact U.S.

As Venezuela significantly devalued its currency , experts agree that the U.S. will likely suffer from a loss of exports with the country.
- Venezuela shutters stores in price-hike crackdown
- Sector Snap: Venezuela weighs on consumer cos.

Opinion piece by Arik Arad on Airport Security

2010-01-12T22:05:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting piece by a colleague of Tom Sheer's about airport security.

Sheer and Associates News is on vacation until January 7

2009-12-27T09:13:00.001-05:00

Americas Headlines: Miami Herald December 20

2009-12-20T08:15:00.000-05:00

In Cuba, bringing a message or help can lead to jail

People who travel to Cuba under U.S.-funded programs to promote democracy risk landing in jail.

 Haiti turning garbage into energy 

Ginette Sejour will tell you scouring through other people's garbage is a dirty, smelly way to make a living.  But six days a week, this mother of seven and dozens of others trek through a slum once controlled by gangs, and arrive at a garbage processing plant where they spend the day sorting glass from metal, and plastic from paper.

 Sweeping political reform proposed in Mexico 

A longtime ban on the reelection of public officials would be relaxed under a new plan by Mexican leader Felipe Calderón.

LATEST NEWS

Mexico catches cartel suspect linked to 109 deaths  

Bodies of 8 men found in burned truck in Mexico  

Bahamian investigators search for jet wreckage  

Brazil toddler stable after needles removed

News about the Americas from The Economist Dec 17 Issue

2009-12-19T10:01:00.000-05:00

Here are links to News about the Americas from the most recent issue of The Economist. (Subscription required.) The article about mobile phones and the roles they play in helping deter kidnappings. Here is an excerpt followed by links to a story about the Chilean elections and the criminal justice system in Canada.

Colombia suffered a surge in kidnappings, peaking first in the early 1990s and then at a higher level at the end of the decade. Illegal armed groups—left-wing guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries—were responsible for most of them. But in recent years the number of kidnaps has fallen dramatically (see chart). The obvious explanation is a big security build-up under Álvaro Uribe, who was elected president in 2002. Over the next five years the security forces expanded from 307,000 members to 405,000, and police were deployed in 160 municipalities that lacked them.

But the fall in kidnappings began two years before Mr Uribe took office. Additional factors seem to be at work. Messrs Montenegro and Pedraza argue that the huge rise in kidnappings triggered its own response, with people seeking to protect themselves and demanding that the government do the same.

They find that data for different Colombian regions reveal an intriguing statistical correlation between mobile-phone coverage and falling kidnaps. For a given rise in police numbers, kidnappings fell in line with the expansion of mobile coverage in each area. Mobiles enable kidnap victims and witnesses to inform the police swiftly. Since speed is of the essence in foiling kidnaps, this made police more effective and kidnapping riskier for its perpetrators.

Chile's presidential election

Piñera flies the flag

Sebastián Piñera, an airline tycoon, is well placed to break his country's political mouldDec 17th 2009

Canada's criminal-justice policy

Prisoners of politics

Less crime, more punishmentDec 17th 2009

Security in Colombia

Calling freedom

How mobile phones may help to deter kidnapsDec 17th 2009

Brand Sentry: Anti-Counterfeiting

2009-12-15T07:14:00.000-05:00

Sheer and Associates has a sister company, Brand Sentry, dedicated to anti-counterfeiting and intellectual property protection. To get a full description of the company and its capabilities, visit the Brand Sentry website. The following is a quick overview.

To protect your brand against counterfeiters, you need to fight the battle on many fronts. Today, more and more companies are turning to technology to help their anti-counterfeiting efforts, but technology alone is only part of the solution. Product verification is essential, but unless you employ a sustained program of enforcement throughout the supply chain and in the marketplace, your efforts will fall short.

We incorporate innovative technology in our custom solutions. While virtually every other anti-counterfeiting technology can be reproduced and is thereby vulnerable itself to counterfeiting, Brand Sentry uses innovative PUF (Physical Unclonable Function) Technology that cannot be copied or duplicated. Tiny chips, each more unique even than an individual strand of DNA, can be easily read at the item level by Brand Sentry Readers and securely & immediately authenticated.

Our investigators, led by Sheer and Associates Founder and President Thomas Sheer are veteran FBI, DEA, and Customs agents with unmatched experience in anti-counterfeiting, criminal investigations, forensics, and crime scene analysis. All of Brand Sentry's operatives have extensive experience managing large-scale assignments.

Programs are custom designed by Brand Sentry to meet the unique needs and challenges facing today's manufacturers and merchants. We can work independently or as an extension of your security team.

The Netherlands Antilles and Aruba

2009-12-14T07:09:00.000-05:00

Sheer and Associates has performed background checks in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba for gaming industry suppliers seeking to do business there.

The Netherlands Antilles is a federation of five islands within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Curaçao and Bonaire are in the southern reaches of the Antilles chain of islands; Sint Maarten, Saba, and Sint Eustatius are in the northern part of the Antilles. Aruba was part of this federation until 1986 when it gained status apart within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Sint Maarten shares its island with the French Overseas Collectivity of Saint Martin. The closest Netherlands Antilles island to the United States is Sint Maarten; it is about 186 miles from Puerto Rico.

Here’s how the US State Department describes the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba:

Netherlands Antilles

Area: 960 sq. km. (597 sq. mi.); more than five times the size of Washington, DC; five islands divided geographically into the Windward Islands (northern) group (Saba, Sint Eustatius, and Sint Maarten) and the Leeward Islands (southern) group (Bonaire and Curaçao). 

Cities: Capital--Willemstad (metropolitan).  

Islands: Curaçao (pop. 137,094) Sint Maarten (38,959), Bonaire (11,537), Sint Eustatius (2,699), Saba (1,491).  

Terrain: Generally hilly, volcanic interiors. 

Climate: Tropical; ameliorated by northeast trade winds.

Aruba

Area: 180 sq. km. (112 sq. mi.).

Cities: Capital--Oranjestad.

Terrain: Flat with a few hills; scant vegetation.

Climate: Subtropical.

This is the State Department’s description of the islands’ political structure:

Netherlands Antilles

Aruba

The State Department has issued no Travel Advisories or Warnings for Aruba or the Netherlands Antilles, but does warn about street crime, saying it could be a cause for concern for tourists.

For more on Aruba check http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/22491.htm and for the Netherlands Antilles check http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/22528.htm.

Americas Headlines: Miami Herald December 13

2009-12-13T07:17:00.000-05:00

These are the headlines from the Miami Herald's Americas section.

American Subcontractor's Arrest in Cuba Confirmed

Manuel Zelaya supporters say there's no justice for the dead

Clinton asked to rally allies around Honduras vote

Zelaya will leave Brazil Embassy by January 27

News about the Americas from The Economist Dec 12 Issue

2009-12-13T07:06:00.000-05:00

Here are this week's political news blurbs about the America's from The Economist. (Website requires subscription.) In this week's issue you will also find stories about Paraguay's president, a very interesting poll on how Latin Americans view government, and a story about Amerindians in Canada.

Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, appeared to win a second term by a landslide, with exit polls giving him 61% of the vote and his Movement to Socialism party a two-thirds majority in Congress. The result will allow him to implement a new constitution granting new rights to indigenous peoples and to strengthen state control over the economy. See article

Venezuela’s government closed seven small banks and accused several of their owners of fraud. Some of those involved had close ties to leading figures in President Hugo Chávez’s regime. See article

Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón, designated his finance minister, Agustín Carstens, as the next governor of the Bank of Mexico, the central bank. Ernesto Cordero, the social-development minister and a former aide to Mr Carstens, will be the new finance minister.

A court in Chile charged three people connected to the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet with poisoning Eduardo Frei Montalva, a former president, in 1982. Frei led the moderate opposition to the dictatorship. His son, the presidential candidate of the ruling Concertación coalition, faces a difficult election on December 13th.

News about the Americas from Sunday, December 6 Miami Herald

2009-12-06T09:25:00.000-05:00

HAITI Hoteliers leading investment charge in `Haiti of tomorrow'

Led by hoteliers, Haiti's private sector is fueling a wave of investment in a country long saddled with a bad rap for business.

CUBA Claim of Cuban racism rejected Afro-Cubans responded to a letter from prominent African-Americans calling for an end to racism in Cuba.   

HONDURAS U.S. 'disappointed' by vote against Zelaya U.S. officials said they were 'disappointed' with the Honduran congress' vote against returning former President Manuel Zelaya to office.   

LATEST NEWS

Morales highly favored for re-election in Bolivia

Brazil signals recognition of Honduran election  

Guatemala army officer convicted in civil war case  

Rehab center forced Mexicans into slave labor  

Shootouts in northern Mexico kill 13 after raid

News about the Americas from this week's Economist

2009-12-05T09:54:00.000-05:00

Split decision

Porfirio Lobo of the opposition centre-right National Party won Honduras’scontroversial presidential election with 55% of the vote on a turnout of around 60%. The United States and four Latin American countries said they would recognise the result. Brazil and others said they would not because it legitimised a June coup which ousted Manuel Zelaya from the presidency. See article

In Uruguay’s presidential election, José Mujica, a former guerrilla of the centre-left Broad Front, defeated Luis Alberto Lacalle of the conservative National Party by 53% to 43%. Mr Mujica indicated that he would follow the generally moderate policies adopted by the outgoing Broad Front president, Tabaré Vázquez.

For more, visit The Economist. Subscription required.

Airport Security

2009-12-04T10:07:00.000-05:00

Patrick Smith, a pilot who writes about airline and airport issues on Salon, reports on what appears to be some good news:

Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent, has been appointed by President Obama to lead the Transportation Security Administration. He replaces Kip Hawley, whose tenure fostered and entrenched some of the agency's worst policies. Southers' appointment has been welcomed by both industry and passenger groups, and he is widely seen as a likely advocate for sensible reform. TSA's screening rules are such a basket case of waste and folly that it's tough to be optimistic, but let's hope those observers are right.

Sheer and Associates founder and president, Tom Sheer, a former Assistant Director of the FBI himself, agrees with Smith's assessment and says that this appointment is a great step in the right direction. (Here's more on Southers.)

We at Sheer and Associates frequently fly back and forth between our two offices in Palm Beach, Florida and New York City and to various islands in the Caribbean, and, we are always surprised at what people are willing to put up with when going through security check points. Airport security is definitely in need of reform. It's not the fault of the TSA employees. As Smith writes, the problems stem from direction at the top. Many of the security reforms instituted since 9/11 are wasteful and ineffective. For example, some experts say the restrictions on carry-on liquids are basically useless, observing that the type of explosive that the would-be bombers in Britain plotted to make, need to be made in very stable, controlled conditions, conditions not to be found in an airliner's rest room. Many countries around the world see no need to restrict liquids and European countries are already planning on lifting the restrictions. Check Patrick Smith's website and security expert Bruce Schneier's website for more on airport security measures.

Sheer and Associates' Operations Director, Sean Sheer, recently received his Masters Degree in Protection Management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. One of the topics he studied there was airport security. He says security at Ben Gurion airport in Israel is often cited as a model for the US to follow. We here at Sheer and Associates are not entirely sure that all of the protocols followed there would necessarily work in the US, but it is definitely worth learning more about what they do in Israel. Here's a traveler's take on his experience at Ben Gurion, here's an article from the Boston Globe about what the US can learn from Israeli efforts, and here's an article about behavior pattern recognition (not to be confused with racial profiling), a technique that is central to Ben Gurion airport's security measures.

Regional News Digests from this week's Economist magazine

2009-12-01T10:27:00.000-05:00

Below you’ll find news digests about the Americas from this week’s The Economist (online access requires a subscription.) Also in this edition: longer articles about Ahmadinejad’s visit to South America and Venezuela’s attempts to mass produce cars.

“President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran visited South America. In Brazil he was hugged by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who called on Western nations to drop their threats of punishment over Iran’s nuclear programme but urged Iran to negotiate a ‘just and balanced’ solution that met the West’s concerns. In both Brazil and Venezuela, where he met Hugo Chávez, there were protests against his visit. See article

Canada’s government rejected allegations by one of its diplomats that detainees handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian forces in 2006-07 were probably all tortured, and that the government may have tried to cover this up. See article

Argentina’s Congress passed a law approving the forced extraction of DNA from people suspected of having been stolen as babies from female prisoners of the 1976-83 military dictatorship, and given to army and police families.

Police in Peru claimed, to some scepticism, to have arrested members of a gang that murdered dozens of people to drain their body fat and sell it for use in cosmetics.”

The Bahamas

2009-11-30T10:38:00.000-05:00

For more information about The Bahamas visit the US Embassy website. The State Department Inspector General conducted a limited scope audit of the Embassy in 2007 and published its report in 2008.

Finally, The Bahamas’ tourism site also has a good deal of useful information for anyone planning on visiting.

Miami Herald's Coverage of the Americas

2009-11-29T07:34:00.000-05:00

The Miami Herald, not surprisingly, has good coverage of the Americas, although it’s a little heavy, understandably, on Cuba and Haiti. This Sunday most of the news however is about Honduras and its elections. Here are some highlights of what you’ll find in the Herald's Americas section on November 29:

Political Coverage in The Economist

2009-11-23T20:28:00.000-05:00

One thing we're struck by here at Sheer and Associates is how difficult it is to find good coverage of politics in the Americas here in the US. The Economist does a very good job of keeping us up-to-date on what's going on in the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America. Each week, we'll post their political news digests. The Economist's website, www.economist.com, is accessible by subscription only.

Here are the items from the November 21st edition:

Repositioning

The two sides in the political stand-off in Honduras moved further apart. Manuel Zelaya, the ousted president, said he would not accept any deal to restore him to office if this happened after an election due on November 29th. But the head of the country’s Congress said it would not vote on whether or not to reinstate Mr Zelaya until December.

Peru’s president, Alan García, cancelled a meeting with his Chilean counterpart, Michelle Bachelet, after his government said it had arrested one of its own air force subalterns on suspicion of spying for Chile. The two countries are at odds over their maritime boundary.

Brazil’s Supreme Court found that Cesare Battisti, a former member of a far-left group, could be extradited to Italy where he was convicted of murder. But the court said the final decision lay with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who last year granted him refugee status.

The Dominican Republic

2009-11-20T11:01:00.005-05:00

One of the things Sheer and Associates is going to use this blog for is to take a look at the some of the areas of the world where we offer services.

The State Department has issued no travel warnings for the Dominican Republic. Click: http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis/cis_1103.html for the latest on Department Travel Warnings.