has recently been "exposed'' by the American television programme CBS News' 48 Hours.

According to the maverick monthly publication Inside Bermuda said that Global Prosperity Group, now the Institute of Global Prosperity, said Bermudians had paid $18,750 to attend a seminar in the Fairmont Southampton Princess.

The article said: "Global Prosperity is well-known for selling worthless audio cassettes that promise to instruct people on how to become wealthy and for holding offshore seminars at which speakers try to part the naive from their money.

"One such event was held at the Southampton Princess Hotel in Bermuda in December, 1998 for which attendees, including about 25 Bermudians, paid $18,750 each for the privilege of attending.'' Inside Bermuda's editor and former journalist in Bermuda, David Marchant, was interviewed for the programme about the alleged scam.

Also featured in the 48 Hours programme was footage from hidden cameras of speakers in Cancun, Mexico "plying their get-rich-quick schemes to gullible attendees,'' the article said.

It also highlighted the case of an American who killed himself and left a suicide note blaming many of his problems on his involvement with Global Prosperity.

When a journalist from the programme confronted the principals of Global Prosperity at the Cancun conference, she was physically removed from the premises.

The monthly newsletter Offshore Alert, a sister publication, has frequently covered Global Prosperity seminars in Bermuda, Bahamas and other off-shore centres.

The article states: "These include the Bahamas-based Hawthorne-Sterling group of mutual funds, which was put into receivership last year and raised approximately 75 percent of its $13.2 million of funds from Global Prosperity conference, according to the group's principal, Ian Renert.'' The programme called "Cybercrime'' was shown on the evening of January 25, with a section called Prosperity at a Price on Global Prosperity Group.

The article printed this week, says that Global Property, which has a Web site at www.sucesslinks.com, is headed by Americans Lorenzo La Manita, Dave Struckman and Dan Andersen.

It goes on to say that La Manita was discharged from bankruptcy in Oakland, California in 1996 with no assets available to his creditors, and says Andersen is a former Massachusetts construction worker.

Offshore Alert has claimed in previous issues that the fund group was unlicensed in the Bahamas, unaudited and involved as an insider in over-the-counter stocks that the letter says are apparently used in stock manipulation scams.

In a long list of wrong-doings attributed to Global Prosperity, Inside Bermuda says Renert, the principal of Hawthorne-Sterling had admitted using investor funds to buy the house he lives in Florida.