From Caribbean News Now

BASSETERRE, St Kitts — On Sunday, a news story was published on a Caribbean website called MNI Alive, and later picked up by other regional media, including NewsAmericaNow and Jamaica Inquirer, reporting that Mohammed Asaria, the founder of regional developer Range Developments, had been detained in China.

According to a press release by Range on Monday, there is no truth whatsoever in the allegations and that the purpose of these articles is solely to damage Asaria’s and Range’s reputation among investors. The company’s attorneys are reportedly insisting on an immediate retraction and the highest possible damages.

“I wouldn’t like to speculate who is making these ridiculous allegations or what their purpose is,” Asaria said, speaking from Geneva, Switzerland, where he is due to present at the Investment Migration Forum. “They have no foundation whatsoever. Our focus is on the completion of the Cabrits Resort Kempinski, Dominica, and the Six Senses St Kitts, which is proceeding at pace and as planned.”

In November last year, Range completed and opened the award-winning Park Hyatt resort in St Kitts.

According to Asaria, while speaking at a press conference in China last week, he was targeted by a number of protesters, purporting to be aggrieved investors in the St /kitts Park Hyatt project. However, it became apparent the protestors were not genuine investors and had just been paid to make trouble.

An attorney also present, representing an investor in the Park Hyatt, raised an issue over interest payments, which was reportedly baseless and was clarified by Asaria on the spot, retrieving documentary evidence from his office.

Caribbean News Now was sent the same story for publication on Sunday but it raised a number of red flags, not the least of which was that the author could not spell Caribbean properly, so we declined to publish it pending receipt of requested identification and corroboration of the sources, which have not yet been provided.

The cover email claimed to be sent on behalf of a long-standing Caribbean News Now op-ed contributor who, it asserted, is currently in St Kitts. The individual in question has also not yet responded to a request for clarification as to his involvement.

Meanwhile, the prime minister’s office in St Kitts suggested that the disputed story is the work of unknown sources “attempting to destabilize the citizenship by investment (CBI) programmes within the OECS region”.

IMAGE: Mohammed Asaria (C) participated in the launch in China of Range Development’s Six Senses St Kitts project, which took place at the Park Hyatt Beijing on May 31, 2018

For more on this story go to: https://wp.caribbeannewsnow.com/2018/06/04/caribbean-project-developer-victim-of-fake-news-reports/