He Claimed 20 Years in Business. A Company Search Found No Such Company Ever Existed

• A man calling himself Ian Coke pitched an 88-unit Caymanas scheme
• He offered free lots to seniors and civil servants
• The parish council found nothing built on the site
• No company by that name was registered anywhere in Jamaica

A man identifying himself as Ian Coke, manager of a company called Topez, contacted the Gleaner requesting a story on what he described as an 88-unit housing scheme of two-bedroom homes on six acres at Caymanas, offering free lots to senior citizens over 55 and civil servants, who would in turn have Topez build their homes. He sent pictures of what he said were two model units already constructed on the site.

The St Catherine Parish Council’s own checks told a different story entirely: there was nothing on the site at all. When confronted with that discrepancy, Coke said he was in the process of making the application, a claim that did not square with his earlier assertion that construction had already begun.

Coke’s story unravelled further under basic verification. He first named the National Housing Trust as the project’s financial backer before backtracking on that claim entirely. He said the company had operated for 20 years, but a search at the Companies Office of Jamaica turned up no business called Topez Construction under any registration. He also claimed Portmore Municipality had approved the project, a claim Mayor Keith Hinds directly denied, noting Caymanas sits outside the municipality’s jurisdiction entirely.

The Real Estate Board confirmed neither the company nor the development was registered with them in any form. St Catherine Parish Council representative Powell had already launched an investigation and offered blunt guidance for anyone approached with a similar pitch: anybody who contacts you about any development, check with the parish councils to find out if the development is approved, advice that, applied to Coke’s own claims, would have unravelled the entire scheme before a single dollar changed hands.

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