Retired global track and field icon Usain Bolt says he remains depressed and frustrated by the lack of credible information pertaining to the theft of his retirement funds by an investment agency in Jamaica and wants to know exactly who the culprits are.
Through his attorney Linton Gordon, the 37-year old eight-time Olympic champion, is desperate for answers regarding the disappearance of $12.7 in retirement funds Bolt had given the disgraced Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL) to secure and invest on his behalf as he had glided into retirement after the 2017 World Championships.
Gordon said that Bolt is still upset even though the SSL and the Financial Services Commission (FSC) have announced plans to shortly reimburse him and more than 200 others whose funds were misappropriated by SSL staff and unknown persons. So far authorities have charged only one person with 21 counts of theft and fraud, while a massive investigation which has turned up little so far continues. The two agencies have said that they have raised $30 million from the sale of an international investment portfolio and are set to make a payout to the aggrieved victims.
“Dr. Nigel Clarke (finance minister) announced that investigators were coming from Canada, England from Timbuktu and from the United States. We haven’t had one iota of information regarding the outcome of those investigations. So, we don’t know who took the money, who we can turn to, because everything is now under cover,” Gordon told the Gleaner newspaper this week. Bolt “is shocked and disappointed over the lack of transparency. What we want to know is, who took the money …? He’s very frustrated and disappointed. He’s simply shocked and disappointed to know a country he has put on the map and he put his money in an institution here, that he has lost it or he can’t get it back,” Gordon said.
For his part, Bolt has been periodically taking to social media to vent feelings about the saga, noting that “time is longer than rope. They banking on the country youth love for his country but ask yourself, do they love their country or themselves,” he said.
His company has already sued agencies and individuals linked to his unfortunate problems. Bolt had started to deposit money in the SSL around 2012 when he was at the peak of his career.
