week in a London hospital, may have overshot Bermuda when he flew his private plane here but his worldwide investment schemes did not.

About 1,000 of the Island's residents got caught up in the offshore mutual fund investment vehicle craze created by Mr. Cornfeld in the late 1960s, according to Mr. Eugene Carmichael, one of six salespeople with LP Gutteridge Ltd., the company which acted as selling agent for Mr. Cornfeld's funds in Bermuda in the late 1960s.

Under the Investors Overseas Services (IOS) company banner, Mr. Cornfeld operated about a dozen mutual funds and went from New York cabby to millionaire playboy, reportedly amassing a personal fortune of $100 million in an empire worth $2.5 billion before losing everything in 1970.

Mr. Carmichael, now an account executive at Johnson & Higgins (Bermuda) Ltd., said: "Bernie made one trip to Bermuda, he arrived late for a speaking engagement at Castle Harbour, complete with entourage and beautiful women, and apparently said `if you don't want to be late don't fly your own plane'.'' According to Mr. Carmichael, Mr. Cornfeld had some difficulty finding the Island and had to backtrack.

Like many other parts of the world, Bermuda residents were caught up in Cornfeld's pyramid selling mutual fund schemes with some investors making money -- if they got out before the empire crashed -- and others losing, according to Mr. Carmichael.

"People in Bermuda have received periodic dividends (from liquidators),'' he added.

Mr. Carmichael was not only a salesman for the funds but had also invested in all of them when they crashed.

He said he still periodically receives cheques from the liquidators and over the 25 years since the collapse of IOS he has recouped his principle investment.

According to a spokesperson at LPG, that company still receives money for five Bermuda investors from a Luxembourg-based liquidator acting for one IOS mutual, the International Investment Trust fund.

As broker, LPG lost no money in connection with the collapse of the Cornfeld empire.

The spokesperson, who preferred not to be quoted, said legal battles associated with the liquidation of the collapsed mutual funds continue to this day.

But, according to Mr. Carmichael, one vehicle, now called Cannon Assurance Ltd., survived and continues to operate in the UK.

At the time, recalls, Mr. Carmichael, the sales people touted the insurance company vehicle as the "flagship'' of the IOS funds.

Mr. Carmichael said he believed Mr. Cornfeld's vision of offshore mutual investment vehicles was a good one and created many millionaires before it collapsed.

"He (Mr. Cornfeld) was the first at successful aggressive marketing and giving new life to offshore funds but the company perhaps grew too fast and it may have been too difficult to find triple A investments to put the funds into when the market dropped,'' he commented.

The epitaph for Mr. Cornfeld, as far as offshore investing was concerned, should read: "He opened it and he closed it'' because after him nobody had been able to emulate what he did with IOS in the offshore investment vehicle world, he added.

"The empire could have survived had it not been for Mr. Robert Vesco who entered the picture with the purpose of purchasing the company and looting it,'' continued Mr. Carmichael.

Mr. Vesco, also an American financier, is believed to have taken $550 million from IOS after he bought it and been evading US authorities ever since.

Mr. Cornfeld, who suffered a stroke last year, was 67, and with an army of salespeople, canvassed door-to-door for the offshore investment fund, according to Reuter.