The trail of the three directors of Bermuda companies - now accused in the US of multi-million dollar securities fraud - stretches across the North American continent and beyond: Bermuda, Toronto, New Brunswick, Vancouver, California, Florida, the British Virgin Islands, Bahamas ...

Along the way the men accused - Paul Lemmon, Mark Valentine and Andrew Proctor - were affiliated with numerous companies and ventures.

The three men were indicted last week, by the US district attorney in the Southern district of Florida, as part of a massive sting operation by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Royal Canada Mounted Police (RCMP) that saw the issuing of 23 indictments against 58 individuals.

In an interview with in 1995, Mr. Lemmon, who was then an officer with the Bank of Butterfield, spoke of a mutual fund conference he had attended in California: "We succeeded in promoting Bermuda as a jurisdiction to incorporate an offshore fund...We've been quite a hit. We opted to wear our Bermuda shorts to the breakfast. It was a tremendous idea..." Mr. Lemmon said.

Now that signature style of clothing - the Bermuda short - may have taken on new meaning for Mr. Lemmon. He is currently being held in a Palm Beach, Florida jail after his arrest in an undercover investigation code-named Operation 'Bermuda Short'

Mr. Lemmon came to Bermuda when he joined Bank of Butterfield subsidiary Butterfield Corporate Services in March, 1993. In charge of business development for the subsidiary, Mr. Lemmon reportedly left the company in April, 1996.

The bank yesterday confirmed Mr. Lemmon's period of employment with the bank but did not speak to the conditions under which Mr. Lemmon left his employment with the bank.

A senior employee at Butterfield, who asked not to be named, said however that he remembered Mr. Lemmon as being "a nice man who left the bank because he had a chance at running his own operation." He added that the sentiment surrounding Mr. Lemmon's departure was "what a pity, we'll have to find a replacement for him".

According to reports in at that time, Mr. Lemmon left the Bank to set up a Bermuda-based company Forum Financial Services Ltd. with Edith Conyers.

In the report, Mr. Lemmon was named as managing director of the firm, but Forum head Edith Conyers said yesterday that the company, which set up in 1997, had employed Mr. Lemmon as a consultant during the set-up period only and that he had ended his association with Forum in October, 1998.

Another senior employee at Forum when asked under what conditions Mr. Lemmon had left, responded: "We were obviously going in different directions".

In the mid to late 1990s, Mr. Lemmon was also setting up another company - Voyager. Although it is not clear when the company opened its doors for business, Voyager Financial Services registered as a company in July 1997. And in November, 1998 the company signed on as the first listing sponsor of the Bermuda Stock Exchange (BSX).

The Voyager web site this week cited Mr. Lemmon as being the "current" founder and managing director of the company, which it said was a Bermuda based diversified investment group with subsidiary operations in the Bahamas and British Virgin Islands". Voyager provides services that include: brokerage, investment banking, trustee services, offshore company set up and administration services, and venture capital, according to its web site.

In addition, the site named Mr. Lemmon as managing director of Optima International Trust Company Ltd., a licensed British Virgin Islands trust company, providing trust services, security clearing services, and offering Investment and Insurance products.

It is not clear if Optima is still operating as telephone calls to the company in BVI revealed the phone line has been cut off and questions to Sue Elliot, the Business Development Manager for both Optima and Voyager, were responded to with a "no comment".

The Voyager web site also listed Mr. Lemmon as being the former managing Director of WorldInvest (Bermuda) Ltd., an offshore subsidiary of WorldInvest Management Ltd., a UK based investment manager with in excess of US $2 Billion under management.

According to Bermuda legal records, WorldInvest (Bermuda) was set up as an exempt company in July, 1996. Less than two years later, in June, 1998, it was in liquidation with the appointed liquidator named as a Jennifer Fraser.

In 2001, Mr. Lemmon was reportedly appointed as president of a Los Angeles-based company e-financialdepot.com.

The company had also signed a letter of intent to acquire Voyager Financial Services but it is not clear whether e-financialdepot.com ever took over Voyager Financial Services.

The Voyager site also cited Mr. Lemmon as "formerly an executive of Butterfield Corporate Services" although a bank employee, who spoke with under the condition that he not be named, said Mr. Lemmon was never appointed as a bank executive, but was employed in the more junior position of officer. The bank's 1995 annual report lists Mr. Lemmon as an officer (business development) for Butterfield Corporate Services.

The Voyager web site indicated that Mr. Lemmon's roots, before Bermuda, were in Canada and he is understood to be a Canadian national.

Prior to coming to Bermuda, Mr. Lemmon was reportedly the president of Yorkhill Financial Services, Inc., which according to the Voyager web site was an investment and merchant banking company which managed a number of direct investment portfolios.

A Canadian news report cited Yorkhill Financial Services as being a small operation "in the financial outpost of New Brunswick".

Additional biographical information, from the Voyager web site, indicated that Mr. Lemmon was educated at Mount Allison University, Canada and Universit? de Strasbourg, France. Although the site did not say whether or not Mr. Lemmon had obtained any undergraduate or post graduate degrees, it said he holds a designation as a Certified Investment Manager and is a Fellow to the Canadian Securities Institute.

Voyager has not been a listing member of the BSX since last year which understands may have been based on the company not being able to obtain a license under the Investment Business Act.

Munro Sutherland, the Bermuda Monetary Authority's Superintendent of Banking, Trust, and Investment, said on Friday that the Voyager Group had never been licensed under the Investment Business Act, instead operating as an "exempt" undertaking, under a special clause in the Investment Business Act, and catering to what Mr. Sutherland called "sophisticated, non-retail customers".

A visit to the Voyager office on Friday by at 129 Front Street found the company was open for business. made attempts to contact Mr. Lemmon in June of this year, when staff at Voyager said he was in Canada. Although Voyager staff assured the paper that Mr. Lemmon had received telephone messages, no calls were returned.

Mr. Lemmon is now being held in a Florida jail, pending a court decision. He is named along with others in three of the 23 indictments.

The US Attorney's office in the Southern District of Florida yesterday could not say when Mr. Lemmon's next court hearing would take place.

Mr. Proctor was named in two of the 23 indictments unsealed last week in the FBI sting operation.

He was arrested in the central district of Los Angeles, but was let go on a $50,000 personal surety bond with 20 percent in cash. He is wearing an electronic monitor, according to US court officials.

Otherwise little is known about Mr. Proctor, with the exception of brief biographical information on the Voyager web site, which states that Mr. Proctor has an economy degree from the University of Southern California, an M.A. from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate Management Center at the Claremont Graduate School, and an M.B.A. from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA.

In addition, the site stated this week: "Mr. Proctor's corporate affiliations include serving as Chief Executive Officer of Jess Kent & Company, Incorporated, a merchant banking group specialising in the analysis and restructuring of middle market companies. He has managed Jess Kent & Company since 1990. His prior service included acting as the Managing Principal of Jess Kent Capital Markets, Inc., an SEC registered broker/dealer and member firm of the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc., Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Property Secured Investments, Inc., an emerging Real Estate Investment Trust and as a Director of The CDM Company, Inc. From 1986 to 1990, Mr. Proctor was a Vice President of Dominick & Dominick, Incorporated, a New York Stock Exchange member firm, where he was responsible for managing the western US and Pacific Rim corporate finance group. Previously, he managed an institutional investment portfolio on the commercial credits desk of Lehman Brothers, Kuhn Loeb after beginning his investment-banking career in 1979."

Mr. Valentine is a Canadian resident and until earlier this summer was the high-flying financier behind well-known Bay Street brokerage Thomson Kernaghan.

He was arrested last week in Frankfurt, Germany and is awaiting extradition to the United States. It is not known why Mr. Valentine was in Germany but there has been some speculation that he may have been lured to Germany as part of the FBI's sting operation and in order to facilitate extradition to the US.

Although a resident of Canada, Mr. Valentine is reportedly behind numerous offshore companies - including a number in Bermuda - with ties to Paul Lemmon.

Details of some of Mr. Valentine's ties to offshore Bermuda companies were revealed earlier this year in an investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) in June, 2002 which suspended Mr. Valentine from trading and banned him from the Thomson Kernaghan premises.

In addition to being chairman and the largest shareholder of Thomson Kernaghan, Mr. Valentine was also president and CEO of VMH Management which managed Canadian Advantage Ltd, with a corresponding offshore account - Advantage (Bermuda) Fund Ltd., a mutual fund company.

Mr. Valentine was also named, in OSC documents, as a registered representative for Hammock Group Ltd., an offshore company based, but not registered, in Bermuda.

Thomson Kernaghan's own investigation, from May of this year, found that certain transactions performed by Mr. Valentine had been "questionable". One of these as a March, 2002 payment of $1.3 million to Hammock for a defunct debenture of an inactive minerals company, with a debenture that had expired two years before.

Mr. Valentine was also named as a registered representative of other offshore accounts including Ashland Resources, which was said to be in Bermuda.

Mr. Lemmon was named as the trading authority for Ashland Resources, as well as being charged with trading authority for the Hammock Account. Filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission named Mr. Valentine as the controlling shareholder of Hammock.

VC Advantage (Bermuda) Ltd. was listed as registered companies, according to the Bermuda Registrar of Companies on Friday.

Hammock is reportedly registered in BVI but listed 129 Front Street - the Voyager offices - as its address, with one Canadian report citing the firm as doing business from the "aptly named Front Street".

Although the Bermuda Monetary Authority indicated on Friday that it had not been involved in the FBI probe that resulted in the arrests of Mr. Valentine, Mr. Lemmon or Mr. Proctor, it said it had been "in touch" with the OSC as that investigation had involved Bermuda funds.