The reputation of the Bank of Bermuda has apparently been co-opted by incompetent villains in Florida, according to the Associated Press.

State officials in Clearwater have shut down what they said was a $10 million "investment scam'' run out of offices in Clearwater and Oldsmar in Pinellas County, Florida.

Last week, Circuit Judge Crockett Farnell appointed a receivership to take control of the assets of two Clearwater companies, Millennium Investment Inc.

and First Dominion Venture Capital Inc. Both companies were registered in Clearwater.

The assets of Stonehedge Group Inc. of Oldsmar, Florida and seven affiliated companies were also seized.

Handing down his ruling, Judge Farnell also granted Florida Comptroller Robert Milligan's request for a temporary injunction against all the companies and their agents to immediately stop selling unregistered securities.

Lawyers for the State of Florida said that Millennium, Stonehedge and their affiliates illegally sold promissory notes and preferred stock to more than 100 investors, mostly in Florida. The injunction request said that the companies had enhanced the attractiveness of the securities they were selling by claiming, falsely, to investors that the notes had been guaranteed by the Bank of Bermuda.

Among other information required to be given to potential investors, but overlooked by them in their sales presentations: the fact that one of Millennium's trustees, Dan Wey, was convicted in 1989 of multiple felonies in connection with an investment scam.

BUSINESS BUC COURTS CTS