Sky Bahamas CEO and gov’t minister deny $30mn fraud claim

Randy Butler, president and chief executive of Sky Bahamas (SBM, Nassau Int’l), and Kevin Peter Turnquest, deputy prime minister and minister of finance of the Bahamas, have denied allegations that they were involved in a USD30 million fraud, the archipelago’s Eyewitness News and The Tribune have reported. Turnquest resigned over the issue on November 25, saying in a letter that he was stepping down to focus on clearing his name from what he claimed were “unfounded and untrue claims” against him. A statement of claim seen by the two newspapers alleged that Turnquest and Butler “dishonestly caused” two companies controlled by Canadian businessman Fred Kaiser, Alpha Aviation and Advanced Aviation, to “pay away” USD20.7 million and USD5.9 million, respectively, to Sky Bahamas via “some kind of bogus loan” between 2008 and 2017. No details in the court papers described how the scheme worked, but Kaiser’s companies also alleged that Turnquest and Butler used “39 fraudulent invoices and/or book entries” to pay another USD3.8 million to a firm controlled by Butler, Aviation Oversight, between 2008 and 2016. In addition, the defendants allegedly prompted Alpha in December 2017 to pay USD3 million to the defendants via AOG Maintenance, a company that owned Sky Bahamas’ maintenance hangar at Nassau Int’l Airport. The claim did not specify Turnquest personally as a defendant, but the court documents alleged he was a director and manager of Alpha Aviation and Advanced Aviation. The papers claimed that Butler and Turnquest conspired to defraud the plaintiffs and conceal their actions by failing to keep proper financial records. As previously reported, Sky Bahamas ceased flight operations in July 2019 pending the Bahamas Civil Aviation Authority’s renewal of its Air Operator’s Certificate (AOC). Butler has suggested that his business was intentionally sabotaged for political and personal reasons, claims the authority has rejected. Butler told Eyewitness News that he intended to defend himself against the accusations, saying: “I was on the operations side dealing with a lot of stuff. I don’t know the details to say yay or nay other than the fact that I did not take any funds.”