A criminal investigation into an American multi-millionaire who has been convicted of fraud, perjury and tax evasion, is to resume in the United States and centres on allegations he used a Bermuda-based shell company as part of an elaborate tax evasion scheme.

Almon Glenn Braswell, who was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of making false claims about the effectiveness of a baldness treatment, was pardoned by President Bill Clinton before he left office.

At the time it was unsure whether the pardon would include a new investigation into his tax practices but US prosecutors said they were to launch an investigation into the man last week.

Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles filed court documents declaring they were moving forward with a new criminal investigation into Braswell, one of the 140 people pardoned by Bill Clinton in the waning hours of his presidency.

Braswell, a multimillionaire peddler of mail-order pills and potions, was convicted of fraud, perjury and tax evasion in 1983.

For 18 months before the pardon, Braswell was the target of a federal grand jury investigating a massive tax evasion and money-laundering scheme.

The new paperwork, filed in state Superior Court last week, marks the prosecutors' first legal step since the January 20 pardon.

This means the courts will move forward with the investigation despite the controversial Clinton pardon.

The current investigation into Braswell centres on allegations he used a Bermuda-based shell corporation as part of an elaborate tax-evasion scheme.

Between December 1994 and July 1997, the US government alleges, Braswell's company paid the Bermuda company for fictitious products.

The payments enabled Braswell to send millions of dollars outside the United States for his own benefit, according to the new court documents.

Braswell was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of making false claims about the effectiveness of a baldness treatment.

Braswell, 57, has a net worth in excess of an estimated $100 million. He recently divorced his wife, Renee, at a price tag of more than $40 million.

Last year an effort to stop the Minister of Finance from releasing information to the US Internal Revenue Service was launched by two of Brawell's companies in the Supreme Court.

Gero Vita International Inc and GB Data Systems Inc. said at the time that the method by which the IRS became interested in their operations is tainted.

The applicants claim that information revealed to the IRS by two former employees of GB Data Systems, was privileged and the subject of lawyer client confidentiality.

Bermuda has a tax treaty with the US by which it has agreed to furnish US authorities with information that might help them in their efforts to combat tax evasion.

And it is commonplace for the Finance Minister to be asked for such information from the IRS and other US authorities.

Former Assistant Justice Philip Storr sided with Solicitor General William Pierce and said that before the matter can go to trial it must first be determined whether it is valid for the Minister of Finance to be concerned with how the IRS received its information.

It is the Solicitor General's case that the applicants were bringing their case in the wrong place at the wrong time.

BUSINESS BUC