The operators of another group that once set up an offshore banking operation in Grenada have found themselves in trouble.

British police have laid criminal charges against five persons linked to Imperial Consolidated Group that was allowed into the country to do business by Keith Mitchell¹s ruling New National Party (NNP) administration.

The following story about the group¹s ordeal was published in the latest issue of Offshore Alert, the Miami-based publication of David Marchant:

Five former insiders in the Imperial Consolidated Group were each charged on June 15 with conspiracy to defraud in the United Kingdom.

The defendants are Jared Bentley Brook, 36, of Manchester, England; Lincoln Julian Fraser, 35, of Brookenby, Lincolnshire, England; his brother, Nicholas Grant Fraser, 33, of Kirton Lindsey, Lincolnshire, England; William Godley, 58, of Almancil, Portugal; and Robert Statham Raven, 46, of Usk, Gwent, Wales.

They all made an initial appearance at Lincoln District Magistrates Court today and have been bailed to appear at Lincoln Crown Court on June 21, 2006, according to a news release by the Serious Fraud Office.

Brook, Lincoln and Nicholas Fraser and Godley are all currently "being held on remand until their financial bail conditions have been met", stated the SFO.

Those conditions are that they:

* Provide a surety each of £100,000, with Brooks and the Frasers also having to provide "a security each of £50,000".

The security condition does not apply to Godley;

* Reside at their respective home addresses, except for Godley, who can live at the home of a family member, and they report to a local police station on Mondays and Wednesdays;

*Surrender their passports to the SFO and do not "apply for international travel documents" or "travel outside England and Wales"; and

* Do not contact "former ICG employees, professional advisors to ICG, clients of ICG or persons who introduced work to ICG".

Robert Raven has not been remanded in custody but is required to reside at his home address and surrender his passport to Usk police station", according to the SFO.

"He is permitted to travel to mainland Spain whereupon he must apply to the police for his passport 24 hours ahead of travel and surrender it within 24 hours of his return.

No financial conditions apply to him but he too is not to make contact with the categories of persons mentioned above". The charges came nearly four years after the SFO opened its investigation into Imperial Consolidated in September, 2002, three months after the collapse of the group, which was headquartered in England, with operations in several countries, including Grenada, where it had an offshore bank and mutual funds; the British Virgin Islands, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Spain.

In its news release, the SFO stated that Imperial Consolidated¹s U.K. operation had "a shortfall of over £100 million". ICG offered investment opportunities to investors all over the world and purported to place a large proportion of the invested funds into its own UK based consumer credit and commercial loans businesses", stated the SFO.

"The Group evolved during the mid to late 1990s, with its head office in former RAF buildings at Binbrook airfield, Lincolnshire. It attracted private investment largely offshore through a network of highly paid introducers and through its own offices across a number of foreign jurisdictions.

The UK investment companies went into administration on 10 June 2002 as part of the worldwide collapse of the Group. The Administrators Creditors Report of March 2006 for one of the Group¹s core UK companies estimated a shortfall of over £100 million and a dividend payment to unsecured creditors around 1 penny in the pound.

This loss is additional to further sizeable losses made by other component parts of ICG. The defendants were all key players in running the group and were directors of various ICG companies throughout its period of its operation.

OffshoreAlert first began exposing Imperial Consolidated in November, 1999. In an attempt to prevent OffshoreAlert from further reporting about its fraudulent practices, Imperial applied for an injunction against OffshoreAlert¹s publisher and sued for libel at the Circuit Court for the 11th Judicial Circuit, Miami-Dade County, Florida on February 20, 2001.

The injunction application failed and the libel action was dismissed on October 11, 2001.