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When police and prosecutors announced to the press that two US citizens, Tamara Pace and Robert Hammond for a million-dollar real estate fraud against a fellow American, it came as a signal that former Attorney General José Antonio Sossa’s policy of never bothering anybody for defrauding a foreigner was at long last over, and that Bocas del Toro’s days as a playground for real estate fraudsters were numbered. But was that what was really intended, and if so, did they get the right people?

In Pace’s case, clearly they didn’t get the right person. She was released a day and a half after her detention when no evidence could be produced against her, and, she claimed, without her ever having been questioned. In fact as the word of her arrest was being spread to and through the media she had already been released. But in keeping with long-standing law enforcement practices, no correction was released to the press. Once a Panamanian law enforcement trophy, so it seems, always a trophy, regardless of how the facts may turn out.

People in the gringo community in Bocas noted to The Panama News that Hammond, who while this article was written remained incarcerated, was not known in the community as one of its hustlers.

It seems, however, that Hammond and Pace had agreed to take a large amount of money from one Kim Opler, heiress to the World Famous chocolate fortune, and use it to buy and develop real estate in Hammond’s name. Why would a rich woman put a lot of money into somebody else’s name? According to Pace, this was done at Opler’s request because at the time she was going through a divorce and hiding the assets from her soon-to-be ex-husband.

It turns out that things did not go quite as planned, and Pace and Hammond did not get along at all with Opler’s new boyfriend. A parting of ways was called for, and according to Pace, Hammond was willing to sign over all the real estate bought for Opler but wanted to receive a commission for his work obtaining it as part of the transaction. At that point things got nasty and Opler --- somehow --- prevailed upon Panamanian authorities to arrest both Hammond and Pace for aggravated fraud.

Pace, along with Hammond’s friends here and in the United States, has embarked on a multi-pronged campaign to get her long-time companion out of jail, and pleas and allegations are flying fast and furious over the Internet. The US consulate here has checked on Hammond’s circumstances, but the American government is not and never has been in a position to do very much for a US citizen who is incarcerated in Panama.

Opler told her side of the story to the Daily Camera, a Colorado newspaper. “This is a dispute over a bunch of missing money and a bunch of property that I don't have control over that I should have control over," she alleged. Claiming that negotiations with Pace and Hammond conducted both by herself and her attorney were fruitless, she told the Colorado daily that “It became apparent that the next step was filing charges.”