A Lawyer Barred From Practising Kept Taking Land Deposits Anyway

• Akin Adaranaja was barred from practice in November 2013
• He took a $1 million deposit for land afterward regardless
• The client only discovered the ban after the fact
• He’d already been found guilty of failing to account for $4 million

Akin Adaranaja, a lawyer already barred from practising in Jamaica, was arrested and charged with fraudulent conversion after accepting a $1 million deposit for a parcel of land from a client, who only later discovered that the man she had entrusted with the transaction was not actually authorised to practise law at all.

The General Legal Council had barred Adaranaja from practising back in November 2013, well before this particular land transaction, after finding him guilty of professional misconduct for failing to account for $4 million in a separate, earlier land deal. That prior finding did not stop him from continuing to accept client funds for new property transactions, a gap between disciplinary action and any actual enforcement mechanism preventing him from operating.

The client made several failed attempts to secure a refund of her $1 million before escalating the matter to the Fraud Squad, at which point Adaranaja was formally arrested and scheduled to appear before the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court. The case follows the same pattern this publication has documented in the attorney found guilty of misconduct ten separate times while still practising: a professional bar that exists on paper, without a corresponding mechanism actually stopping the barred individual from continuing to take on new clients and new deposits.

For prospective land buyers, the practical lesson is stark: an attorney’s own claimed credentials, or even a general reputation as a practising lawyer, are not sufficient verification before handing over a deposit, since Adaranaja’s client had no way to know his practising status had already been revoked until her own money was already gone.

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