I deleted a few names out of the email copy posted here, of people that didn’t want mentioned on the site.

title:Please help me!! Please please please! Call me!
to: panama-acs@state.gov
Please help me! I answer my phone 24 hours a day. My only home has been taken, my clothes have been taken, everything has been taken. I only have what I could carry in my luggage on an airplane. I have never heard of anything like this before in my entire life. I have never heard of someone who has had everything they own in the world stolen, yet no arrests have been made, judges have been paid off, witnesses have been attempted to be tampered with, and otheres have been approached to take pay offs also. Every day the criminals move my life’s savings, everything I own in the world further and further from my grasp. Enjoying the fruits of their crime, flaunting the carcass of my finanical means about panama as a trophy. Please read this. Please call me.

Did you hear about the home invasion robbery in the Bellagio tower?

That apartment was mine. That day I answered the phone only to hear my fiancé crying wildly into the phone. Gasping, trying to find the words to tell me how 10 men had come into our home while she was sleeping; tied everyone up, put a gun to her head, and threatened to rape and kill her if she didn’t open my safes. As terrifying as the home invasion was, the events to leading up to it and following it had terrifying qualities of their own.

I’m Richard James Schueler. I love Panama, I love the people of Panama, I love the country so much, I moved my entire life to Panama. In the last 4 months everything I couldn’t bring on my flight out of Panama was stolen from me from the people I trusted most! My only home in the world, my clothes, my business, my cars, my money, my bank accounts, all gone. I can’t even enter Panama, or they will kill me. It’s sad that so many horrible things have happened that this story is only a partial account of them.

My home Bellagio 17-A
My office: BBVA 22nd floor
Marina Terrace: 19a, 19-20b, 19c
Arts Tower: 50A, 50C
Pacific Tower: 15A
Naos Harbor Island: Cabana C9, Torre Island I1D
1/3 of the Ritz Tower project
Winterbury Mgmt. call center & $400,000.00
$250,000.00 in stereo equipment
BMW m3 convertible, Lexus Lx470, gs400
ALL the contents of my home, my entire life.
My freedom, my livelihood, my health
This doesn’t include the money that was extorted from me by Gustavo Troncoso Luna and GUSTAVO ADOLFO PÉREZ.

History
My fiancée and I moved to Panama in Oct. of 2004. I helped start a business which grew to employ over 100 good Panamanian people. Gustavo Troncoso Luna, who had done the security tinting on my cars told me he had great connections with attorneys in Panama that would create companies for me at a good price. He introduced me to the ex chief of police, Gustavo Adolfo Perez. I hired Perez to manage the finances of a call center I started, Winterbury Management in the 9th floor of the Gusromares bldg. I paid Gustavo Troncoso Luna and Gustavo Adolfo Perez to create 25 companies for me. 10 of these companies were bought from firms Patten Moreno& Asvat, 10 from Arias & Arias, and 5 from Morgan & Morgan. All of the bearer shares and other documents you get with a company in Panama were given to me. I kept them in my safe at my apartment. I was advised to divide my life savings and businesses into those companies.

The Extortion
In December 2006 Gustavo Troncoso, Gustavo Perez and others conspired to scare me out of Panama and steal everything I ever owned. Suspiciously, a police officer who left no card or telephone number stopped one of my friends in the basement of the Gusromares building on his way to my call center there to scare them. He told them that one of my friends was being investigated for money laundering and that that he should cooperate and they’d be in touch with him. I hear about this “meeting” from Gustavo Troncoso Luna before I hear about it from my friend. He gives me a good excuse as to how he found out about it. He explains to me that in Panama things like this happen all the time and that people get setup to take the fall for other people’s crimes. Basically whoever pays off the investigators goes free, and whoever doesn’t gets the other peoples crimes pinned to them. He tells me it’s no longer safe for me in Panama and the only place he could protect me is in Colombia. He said that his connections could make this problem go away. I think to myself that it must be true, because why would Gustavo Troncoso lie to me? If only I knew then what I know now about Troncoso’s motives.

Fear in Colombia
Gustavo Troncoso, my fiancée and I flew to Medellin together. Troncoso had me hire a relative of his, Gabriel Felipe Acosta Luna and his fiancée Paola Lopez, to take care of us there and make sure we were “safe”. We waited in Medellin, hoping that Troncoso and Perez would make this unjust prosecution go away, so we could return to our lives in Panama.

The story I was hearing from Panama didn’t make any sense to me. Why would someone try and setup a friend of mine, who was only operating a call center? No one was giving me any evidence to support that there really was any investigation going on, let alone one where a call center business with many employees was accused of laundering money. Gustavo’s brainwashing scheme worked well, and I was truly convinced by him that something like that really could happen in Panama. Gustavo Troncoso had been given over $100,000 to make the illegal setup problem go away and told me that there was little time left, and that I would have to come up with lots MORE money very quickly. His brain washing finally couldn’t override my suspicion.

I told him that I would only believe it if he gave me real hard evidence. He told me to call the ex chief of police, Gustavo Adolfo Perez, who was working for me at my call center in the Gusromares building and confirm it. He told me it was true, and that he had met with the people that could fix it, and those people originally asked for $300,000.00, but he got the price down to $100,000.00. He told me that he’d given the check for $100,000.00 to Gustavo Troncoso to be cashed, and that this would be a good way to make everything go away. I figured there was no way my employee Gustavo Adolfo Perez and friend Gustavo Troncoso would conspire together all these lies just to rob me of some money.

January 11th, my fiancé opened up the door for Paolo and Gabriel the people taking care of us there. Surprisingly they were followed by 2 visibly armed Colombians pistols in front of their pants, 1 Colombian I’d seen Gustavo Troncoso with once before, who look like there was a bulge in his coat from a shoulder holster, their boss I believe. These armed men were uninvited. My girlfriend was escorted downstairs by Paolo and I stayed sitting on the couch. In that moment I knew that I’d made a huge mistake. Gustavo Troncoso was not my friend, nor trying to help me. He was my enemy and there to finish the job. I told Troncoso I wasn’t expecting him, and asked him if he had any good news for me. I knew he wouldn’t because he had that teary look in his eyes, like he was about to do something he didn’t want to do.

I’ve never been amongst a group of people that all looked like that. I don’t know what Troncoso told these people before they came to my apartment but I know it truly bothered them, because they all looked at me the way I imagine a group of people look at you before they’re set to stone you to death. He told me that he’d heard something very bad, and that he no longer trusted me. I asked him if he could ask all the guys with guns to go to another room while we spoke, or if we could change rooms. He said no, we’d stay right there. He explained to me that if I did anything stupid, he could just kill me right then and my family a week later. I said everything I could think of to say, to save my and my fiancé’s life that day.

I tried to change his focus to the good times we’d had, and how everything was going to be ok…Whatever I think of to get the crazed look out of his eyes. I saved our lives that day. Troncoso, instead of giving the order to execute us on spot, or have us beaten and drug downstairs for disposal, Troncoso and his gang were gone within 10 minutes. As soon as the door closed I franticly went downstairs to see if Angie was ok, and asked her what happened. I found out that while Gustavo was threatening me, his henchmen were ransacking the house. They took the chips out of our cell phones, and the rental agreement for the apartment with Paolo’s and Gabriel’s signatures on it. Why was he concerned with getting rid of that evidence? Was he going to return later that night to finish what he started?

Escape
I was very excited to still be alive. I told Angie that I had made a horrible mistake trusting Troncoso and that we needed to leave that apartment within the next 15 minutes. We packed and left as quickly as possible. I never knew the pain of betrayal to this degree. I can only imagine how Jesus felt when Judas betrayed him. The dream that Troncoso was one of my most trusted friends in Panama quickly changed to the reality that he had just threatened my life and the lives of my loved ones and family. We caught the first flight out of Medellin.

The object of the conspiracy
While Gustavo Troncoso had me threatened into his “protection” in Colombia, he and Gustavo Adolfo Perez were busy stealing all they could from me in Panama. Troncoso not only received the vast sums of money directly from the extortion, he had fake shareholder meetings without any shareholders or shares present. He changed the names of the companies that owned my home, office, and the Arts Tower 50A & 50C. Apparently he then issued new shares while the originals were still in my possession. He convinced me to make him signer on one of my company’s bank accounts which he then emptied. I don’t know whether Perez and Troncoso split the money they extorted from me directly down the middle, or if they had a different percentage agreed between them.

Early January I hired attorney Gabriel Lawson. He told me that I had been the victim of an elaborate scheme and that if an amicable agreement could be reached it would be much cheaper and less painful. Fearing that his scheme had been discovered, Gustavo Troncoso offered to give me back the properties which he had fraudulently and with malice stolen from me, if I would sign a “finiquito” agreement. I guess Troncoso wanted to trade my properties he stole from me for a document that would let him get away with keeping all the money he stole. I let Gabriel negotiate with him while I looked for an attorney that wanted more than a “settlement.” I wanted everything that was mine back, and I wanted Gustavo Troncoso, Gustavo Perez, and their co-conspirators to go to prison for all the crimes they had committed.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire: Alfredo Vallarino the Criminal in attorney’s clothing
I thought I had some assets safe. I’d separated my assets into so many different companies. Troncoso couldn’t attack my 1/3 share of the Ritz tower under Internet Technology Systems. I removed him from signing on Services Customer Support as soon as I saw him empty the account; he couldn’t empty the money that became available in it. Though he fraudulently created new shares, he didn’t have access to my office in the BBVA, he didn’t have access to my home at the Bellagio. I had the original bearer shares for EVERYTHING. I thought I was in great shape to recover everything and find justice in Panama. I was very wrong. Alfredo Vallarino destroyed all of that.

On a recommendation I hired Alfredo Vallarino Aleman and associates. He talked the big game and how he would be able to recover everything quickly, and see these criminals put in jail. I paid him a $16,000 retainer and had my personal assistant Antonio Henry bring him whatever documents he needed from my safe for copies, and then returned.

Things were going to slow for my fiancé’s taste. She flew into panama February 1st to help get things moving faster. Tony said that he would make sure to start sleeping the Bellagio for extra protection on top of the full time armed security guard service I hired for just inside my apartment there. I was concerned Troncoso and his conspirators might try to hurt her. February 7th, while Tony is mysteriously absent, my home is invaded. Having no safe place left in Panama, I decide the safest place for my bearer shares including all the shares of the companies Troncoso didn’t attack, is in a safe deposit box with Alfredo Vallarino.

Vallarino conspires with Antonio Henry and sells my house to himself, stops taking my phone calls, empties my house, puts it up for sale, and finishes killing me financially in ways Troncoso couldn’t. Vallarino gives my bearer shares for Services Customers Support to Troncoso, which Troncoso uses to take over my bank account. Vallarino gives him the shares for Internet Technology systems which owns my 1/3 share of the Ritz Tower. Troncoso puts it up for sale. He visits all my preconstruction real estate contracts to try and cash them out.

Justice or lack there of
I now have criminal and civil actions against Gustavo Troncoso Luna, Gustavo Troncoso Perez, Gustavo Troncoso Ferrari, Alfredo Vallarino Aleman, Antonio Henry and others. Everything that I own in this world except for the 2 suitcases I left Panama with has been stolen from me. NOTHING has been given back. No one has been arrested. No one has been interrogated. Every day these thieves liquidate more of my possessions. Every day these thieves move what is mine further and further from my grasp. Every day they use more and more of my money against me! Their lies get larger and bolder as they break more and more laws to avoid paying to price for the laws they broke only months ago.

The conspirators have forged documents, such as Gustavo Troncoso having 2 passports with my picture in them, but not my name, 1 from the UK and 1 from Colombia. Gustavo Perez has photocopies of these documents. They’ve forged my signature on at least 1 document and submitted it to the fiscal. They’ve committed gross and numerous acts of perjury in the sworn statements they have submitted to the fiscal. They’ve forged or paid off notaries to back date notarizations. Every day these criminals, unhindered, commit more heinous crimes against the Justice system of Panama. They lurk, waiting for their next victim.

Sometimes it’s impossible to resist the urge to cry. It’s hard to imagine the pain that comes from being betrayed by people you trust, over, and over and over again. To go from a man of means, to a beggar, living in other peoples’ homes, borrowing from any friends that will lend, all the while focused on what you didn’t get done that day. What you could have done different that would have avoided all this. Maybe I should have let them kill me in Colombia.

I know that stories of corrupt lawyers, criminals, and government corruption hurt foreign investment into Panama. I hope that someone takes the opportunity to make my case an example for how investors both foreign and natural are protected by the law from heinous criminals such as these. I can only hope that someone out there can help, that the people who these criminals approach to bribe, will decline, and that anyone else who’s been swindled or destroyed as I have by these criminals will contact me.

At your mercy,
Richard James Schuler
James@RichardJSchueler.com, +1-954-603-7668 (let it ring 25 times, literally)

P.S. They’ve recently paid off their first judge, and I’ve been declared not a victim, and no longer have any rights as a victim. I was warned about the payoff a week before the ruling.

P.P.S. I have so much evidence of what has happened it’s absurd. Audio tapes, video tapes, eye witnesses, pictures, receipts, invoices. I have the ex-chief of police on tape extorting me for $100,000.00 I have Gustavo Troncoso on tape threatening my life. I have antonio henry on tape. My life has been threatened, in person, over the telephone, and in email. Here is a short list of the people who have also been threatened by the conspiracy consisting of Alfredo Vallarino, Gustavo Troncoso, Gustavo Perez and others.
1. My father
2. My fiancée’s mother
3. Brett Mikkelson’s (my private investigator) wife’s parents
4. Several other good people.