Most common scams in Panama

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.