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Some of the most damaging financial scams in Panama continue to centre around real estate and offshore investment schemes. A particularly worrying example is a company called Vida Wealth, which is promoting high-commission, long-term investment products like those offered by Hansard International and RL360 (formerly Royal London 360). These are marketed under names like ‘Vista’, ‘Quantum’, and ‘Regular Savings Plan’, and are widely recognised in the industry as toxic — banned or heavily restricted in regulated markets such as the UK, EU, Australia, and others.

These plans are usually sold by unqualified or unregulated financial advisers operating outside any meaningful oversight. Advisers often claim their services are free, or that they’re paid by the provider, when in reality they receive massive upfront commissions — often equal to 5 to 10 years’ worth of the client’s monthly contributions.

To fund those commissions, the first several years of client payments are not invested at all. Instead, they go directly to repaying the adviser’s commission. If the client misses payments or tries to exit early — which is extremely common — they face harsh surrender penalties and may receive back only a fraction of what they paid in.

What makes these schemes especially deceptive is the way valuations are presented. When clients log in or receive statements, they often see balances that appear to grow steadily. But these valuations are based on assumptions that the client will continue contributing every month for 20 to 25 years. They do not reflect the actual surrender value — which is what the client would receive if they stopped paying. This figure is often buried or omitted entirely. As a result, many clients falsely believe their investment is performing well, when in reality it is losing value due to layers of hidden fees, ongoing charges, and front-loaded commission structures.

Vida Wealth seems to be a textbook example of how these schemes operate. They have recently appeared in the market with slick branding, aggressive marketing, and a raft of exaggerated or clearly fabricated claims about experience, regulation, and licensing. This is a typical pattern: companies like this appear overnight with a lot of fanfare, quickly sign up as many clients as they can, and earn massive commissions upfront. Then they disappear quietly a few years later — just as their clients begin to realise they are locked into worthless, long-term contracts they can’t escape.

It’s exactly why offshore insurance bonds and regular savings plans are so attractive to these kinds of operators: they’re difficult to understand, deceptively presented, and financially devastating to the client — but extremely lucrative to the adviser.

@Cheryl

One kind of scam that is not easy to escape are fraudulent lawyers.

Becoming a lawyer in Panama is not very difficult. Getting one punished for unethical paractice is a very different thing.

I have my personal experience with a lawyer and an accountant who worked together and who both were recommended to me by a German expat whom I trusted at that time. I wanted to form a corporation to buy property not in my own name but in the form of a "juridic person", which is a common method here. These two set up the corporation for me and registered it. They told me there must be Panamanian members to start with, but initially I did not notice that they had set up the corporation in a way that they together owned 70% and I owned 30%. Fortunately, my Spanish was good enough to eventually see it before I actully bought property. I would have paid 100% and they would have legally owned 70%. I had to find another lawyer to get rid of these crooks.

My lawyer, then a young lady without a proper office is today part of a well renowned and trusted lawyer firm in Boquete with half a dozen employes, and I still work with her.

There are stories from expats who paid a "lawyer" in advance for immigration requests, but the "lawyer" did nothing and did not answer their emails and calls.

Another scam is faking to be the owner of property that is for rent or sale, charging clients for "fees" or "rent" and then disappearing with the money.

My advice: look for widely recommended lawyers.

Don't use "Real Estate Agents" that have no license. Find licensed realtors here: ***

Don't rent airbnb's from people that are not publicly registered and licensed to rent short term. Here is how you can find out if they rent legally: look them up in "Trusted Panama Stays" (google it). If the rental name does not appear there, they are illegal. It's a free website based on the official registry, just in a more readable form.