Internal fraud is often the "silent killer" of businesses in Sint Maarten. While external factors like inflation and high utility costs are visible, internal misappropriation can bleed a company dry before the owner even notices.
In a small, close-knit economy, trust is the foundation of business. However, that same trust often leads to a lack of oversight, creating the perfect environment for internal fraud.
1. The "Trust is Not a Control" Gap
The most common driver of internal fraud in Sint Maarten is the concentration of power. In many family-owned or small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), a single trusted employee often handles multiple roles:
• Opening the mail and receiving checks.
• Recording transactions in the accounting software.
• Reconciling bank statements.
• Signing or authorizing payments.
Without segregation of duties, an employee can easily divert funds and then "fix" the books to hide the theft. Recent cases in 2026, including a significant banking sector scandal in Philipsburg, highlight that even established institutions are vulnerable when individual employees gain unchecked access to customer accounts.
2. Common Fraud Typologies in 2026
While technology has advanced, the methods of internal theft remain remarkably consistent:
• Asset Misappropriation: This is the most prevalent form. It ranges from "skimming" (stealing cash before it is recorded) to "larceny" (stealing cash or inventory already on the books).
• Payroll Fraud: In companies with high turnover or seasonal staff, "ghost employees" can be added to the payroll, or overtime hours can be falsified.
• Vendor Kickbacks: An employee in charge of procurement might approve inflated invoices from a preferred vendor in exchange for a "commission" paid under the table.
• Business Email Compromise (BEC): Fraudsters sometimes with internal help impersonate executives to authorize urgent "wire transfers" to offshore accounts.
3. The Red Flags of an "Internal Fraudster"
Internal fraud is rarely a one-time event; it is usually a series of small thefts that escalate. Business owners should look for behavioral red flags:
• The "No-Vacation" Employee: An employee who refuses to take time off or never calls in sick. This is often because they need to be present to maintain the "cover-up" (e.g., ensuring they are the only ones to see the bank statements).
• Lifestyle Changes: Living significantly beyond one's means (new luxury cars, high-end travel) that doesn't align with their known salary.
• Financial Distress: Employees facing personal debt or family pressure may turn to "temporary borrowing" from the company, which eventually becomes permanent theft.
4. The High Cost of Recovery
For a Sint Maarten business, the damage goes beyond the stolen cash:
• Detection Lag: On average, it takes 12 to 18 months to detect internal fraud. By that time, the money is usually gone.
• Legal Hurdles: The cost of forensic audits and legal fees can often exceed the amount stolen.
• Lack of Insurance: A 2026 IMF assessment noted that many local businesses and even some banks lack comprehensive insurance against financial fraud, leaving the business to absorb 100% of the loss.
5. Prevention Strategies for Local Owners
To protect a business in this environment, owners must move toward a Forensic Culture:
• Mandatory Rotations: Force employees to take at least five consecutive days of vacation annually, during which someone else performs their duties.
• External Verification: Regularly compare supplier invoices against actual physical delivery notes. Never allow the person who orders the goods to be the same person who authorizes the payment.
• Bank Statement Reviews: The business owner should receive the original bank statement (or digital access) directly, ensuring they are the first to see the transactions before they are reconciled by staff.
• Whistleblower Channels: Create a safe, anonymous way for other employees to report suspicious behavior. Most fraud is caught via "tips" rather than audits.

To secure the financial future of any enterprise in Sint Maarten, management must move beyond traditional "trust-based" oversight and adopt a rigorous, evidence-based approach to governance. In an era of rising operational costs and increasingly sophisticated internal threats, survival is no longer just about increasing revenue it is about protecting the integrity of the capital already within the business. By implementing professional risk assessments and forensic controls, business owners can transform their operations into resilient entities capable of withstanding both the economic pressures of the Caribbean market and the hidden dangers of internal misappropriation.
Terence Jandroep, Certified Risk Auditor

Dear Editor,

Over the past few days, I have read the reflections circulating online from St. Martiners, especially young St. Martiners, with a mixture of recognition and concern. Their words carry all of our frustration, but also something much more important: attachment. Their voices are not those of people who have given up on our island, but those of people who still care enough to speak out.

That is precisely why they deserve to be heard with seriousness rather than dismissed as merely negative, emotional, or impatient; there is nothing unreasonable about looking at the state of St. Martin with unease. There is nothing unfair about questioning traffic that consumes hours of people’s lives, or about a utilities system that is more fragile than it should be, development moving faster than the infrastructure required to support it, and a quality of life that is being steadily eroded.

I now also read these voices not only as someone from St. Martin, but also as someone who works across the wider Caribbean and, more poignantly, as a new father. Working regionally has provided me with perspective, but becoming a parent has introduced in me a worry in the pit of my belly, knowing that it is no longer about how we are living today, but about what kind of island will remain for my son’s generation and whether we are tending to this country with the seriousness that this extraordinary place demands.

What many are expressing is grounded in the fact that too many of the issues being discussed have lingered for years without any meaningful resolution. They are asking whether enough attention is being paid in a way that is grounded, honest, and visible; whether stewardship still exists in a meaningful sense. And they have every right to ask.

It is not the responsibility of ordinary citizens, least of all frustrated young people, to arrive with polished policy prescriptions before they are allowed to voice concern. They do not need to solve traffic to say that daily gridlock is eroding quality of life; they do not need to redesign the energy grid in order to point out how dangerous dependency and fragility have become; they do not need to come up with technical answers in order to name the neglect that has unfolded in front of them for decades. Their first right is not to solve. It is to be heard. They are asked to be more patient, more constructive, more measured, more diplomatic. Yet while this is happening, the conditions provoking their concern remain plainly visible. And so frustration begins to settle into normalcy. And this is a most dangerous moment for any society, because once decline starts to feel routine, people will slowly lose faith in the very idea that things can improve.

Working throughout the Caribbean has also made something else clear to me: St. Martin is not the only island facing pressure, but there are places with fewer resources and less visibility that are beginning to confront their limits with greater honesty than we often allow ourselves, and that comparison can be uncomfortable. We have long taken pride in our resilience, our dynamism, and our ability to move quickly. Yet there are times when that confidence drifts into hubris, when we behave as though we are exempt from the consequences of poor planning, from the realities of overextension, or from the natural limits of a Small Island Developing State. We have built, expanded, approved, and promised as though roads, utilities, coastlines, hillsides, neighborhoods, and our very social fabric itself can endlessly absorb more pressure. They cannot.

That is why the question of capacity matters so much. Development is not simply a matter of what can be built; it is also a matter of what can be sustained. A serious country must ask whether it can maintain the competence and continuity needed to manage growth responsibly. It speaks to whether we treat our country as something to steward or merely something to use, or abuse. And often by those with interests way outside of our extraordinary community.

What gives me hope, though, despite all of this, is that these voices are still being raised. Concern is not the opposite of patriotism but one of its clearest expressions. The young people speaking now are not detached from St. Martin but are attached to it, often by their navel strings buried in this soil. Like mine. Like my son’s. And their frustration comes precisely from that attachment. They want better from the place because they still believe it can be better. They want to feel that this country is more than traffic, strain, and neglect. They want to believe that it is still possible to live here with dignity, pride, and some confidence in the future.

As a new father, I am forced to think not only about the island we inherited, but also about the island we are shaping through action or inaction. Through complacency. St. Martin deserves more than a politics of reaction and more than a public culture in which concern is treated as an inconvenience. The people speaking up deserve to know that their country hears them, that their concerns are valid, and that caring enough to speak is still worth something.

If St. Martin is to have a future worthy of its people, one of the first things we must recover is the ability to listen seriously when our own sons and daughters tell us, plainly and without ornament, that something is not right.

Tadzio Bervoets

Belair

St. Martin

Dear Editor,

Over the past few years, many concerns have been raised about what is happening at St. Dominic High School. News reports have already mentioned that a number of teachers have left the school last year, and many of them pointed to problems with management and a lack of support.

I am writing not only as a former St Dominic High student and a parent of a current student, but also on behalf of more than 15 other current parents who share these concerns and want them to be addressed. We care about the school and want to see it return to the strong place it once had in our community.

I spoke with several teachers who have been at the school for years. Many said they feel unheard, unsupported, and extremely overworked. Others said the stress has become so heavy that they feel burned out. When teachers reach this level of stress, even the most dedicated teachers cannot perform at their best.

I also spoke with someone who has been at the school for many years and who is close to a member of the management team.
According to them, that member of management said that management itself often feels it does not receive the support it needs from the Catholic school board in order to manage the school effectively. Concerns have reportedly been raised to the Catholic school board before, but when it comes time for real action or funding, that is often where things stop. This creates a ripple effect where teachers feel unsupported by management, while management feels unsupported by the school board.

However, many of the teachers I spoke with were also very direct that they do not believe the current management is doing a good job managing the school. They feel that management is not providing the leadership, responsiveness, and support that teachers need. It is important to say that some of the current managers were teachers when I attended the school, and they were excellent educators and good people. But being a good teacher does not always mean someone will automatically be a good manager. If these individuals are going to remain in their roles, then serious leadership training may be needed. But also, they will need better support from the Catholic school board.

My biggest concern is for the students. Students are starting to feel the effects of this situation. My own child has spoken about it. My child is not perfect, but they work hard and try their best. Still, they often feel discouraged because many teachers look stressed and unhappy. This is not blaming teachers. If teachers are overwhelmed and unsupported, it is unrealistic to expect them to create the positive learning environment students deserve.

Many parents are also worried about how often teachers are changing. Some students have had several different teachers for the same subject in a short time. One teacher leaves, another is hired, and then that teacher leaves too. This constant change disrupts learning and makes things harder for students.

The real question is what is being done to keep good teachers. When strong, dedicated teachers leave, what efforts are being made to keep them so students are not constantly facing disruption?

Last year, newspaper articles raised many of these same concerns after several teachers left the school. From the perspective of many parents, nothing really changed afterward.

Our hope is that this time things will be different. Parents want to see real action, clear plans for improvement, and visible steps being taken to address these problems.

We are not raising these concerns to create conflict. We do not want to move our children to another school because that is also disruptive. What we want is for St. Dominic High School to work the way it should and to provide the strong education our children deserve.

St. Dominic was once one of the strongest schools on the island. It can be again. But that will require honest listening, real support for teachers, and the courage to make difficult decisions, even if that means making significant changes to the current management.

The status quo cannot continue. If St. Dominic High School is going to improve and thrive again, meaningful change must begin now.

By Dr. David Leffler

The conflict with Iran continues to strain military resources, elevate geopolitical risk, and destabilize the Middle East. Policymakers and defense leaders face a strategic environment where conventional tools alone cannot resolve the deeper forces driving hostility. Invincible Defense Technology (IDT), a non-religious, field-tested, scientifically validated approach offers a practical and cost-effective method for reducing societal stress and preventing conflict escalation. The evidence supporting this approach is robust, peer-reviewed, and directly relevant to national security planning.

IDT is not a replacement for conventional defense. It is a force-multiplier that reduces the underlying social stress that fuels extremism, insurgency, and interstate conflict. By lowering the ambient level of tension in a population, IDT helps create conditions where diplomacy and stabilization efforts can succeed.

Operational Logic of Invincible Defense Technology

IDT is based on a well-documented phenomenon in which large groups practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi programs generate measurable increases in societal coherence. Peer-reviewed studies have shown reductions in war intensity, terrorism, and crime when these groups reach a specific threshold relative to the surrounding population. For defense planners, the operational value is clear. IDT provides a nonlethal method for reducing hostility before it escalates, a low-cost capability that requires no new weapons systems, and a scalable tool that can be integrated into existing military structures.

The mechanism is supported by physiological research showing increased brain coherence, reduced stress hormones, and improved autonomic stability among practitioners. These individual level effects scale upward to influence collective behavior, providing a scientifically grounded explanation for the reductions in violence observed in multiple field studies.

Strategic Application to the Iran Conflict

The war with Iran is driven not only by political and military factors, but also by deep-rooted societal stress across the region. High-stress environments increase the probability of miscalculation, radicalization, and escalation. Conventional military operations cannot neutralize these underlying drivers. A dedicated IDT unit (known in military circles as a Prevention Wing of the Military) within the armed forces could serve as a coherence-creating group that reduces regional tension. As societal stress declines, the likelihood of escalation diminishes, diplomatic channels open more easily, and extremist motivations weaken. This approach has been shown to produce measurable effects even in high-conflict environments.

For policymakers, IDT offers a strategic advantage. It reduces the operational tempo required to manage crises and lowers the probability of large-scale conflict. It is a stabilizing capability that reduces the likelihood that adversaries will attack under the influence of high societal stress.

Peer-Reviewed Research Supporting IDT

A substantial body of peer‑reviewed research supports the effectiveness of IDT. Studies published in the Journal of Mind and Behavior and Social Indicators Research have documented notable reductions in crime, terrorism, and international conflict during periods when large groups practiced the TM and TM‑Sidhi programs. Dillbeck, Landrith, and Orme‑Johnson reported that a relatively small portion of the population engaging in these practices seems able to improve overall societal quality of life, emphasizing how scalable the effect may be. Orme‑Johnson and colleagues found statistically significant decreases in war intensity during large coherence‑creating assemblies and concluded that the findings are consistent with the idea that such groups can lessen societal stress and conflict. More recent work by Cavanaugh, Dillbeck, and Orme‑Johnson in Studies in Asian Social Science identified reductions in homicide rates associated with these practices and described the underlying mechanism as a nonlocalized field of consciousness that influences social behavior.

Research supporting the mechanism behind IDT is equally strong. Studies in the International Journal of Neuroscience have shown increased EEG coherence during TM practice, while research in Psychosomatic Medicine has documented reductions in stress hormones and improved autonomic stability. Sociological analyses published in the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality have linked periods of increased societal coherence to improved economic performance and social well-being.

A particularly relevant contribution comes from the Journal of Conflict Resolution, which published a study examining the relationship between societal stress, group coherence, and conflict dynamics in the Middle East. The authors found that reductions in societal stress were associated with measurable decreases in hostility and conflict intensity. Their analysis concluded that societies exhibiting higher levels of collective coherence demonstrate lower levels of violent conflict, a finding that aligns directly with the operational goals of IDT. This research provides an important bridge between the physiological and sociological mechanisms of IDT and the real-world dynamics of Middle Eastern conflict.

Together, these and many other studies form a coherent scientific foundation for understanding how IDT reduces violence and enhances stability.

A Strategic Path Forward

Ending the war with Iran and stabilizing the Middle East will require more than military strength. It will require a strategy that reduces the underlying stress that fuels conflict. IDT offers such a strategy. It is practical, affordable, and supported by decades of peer-reviewed research. For policymakers and military leaders, the question is no longer whether IDT works. The question is how quickly it can be integrated into existing defense structures to reduce conflict and enhance national security.

About the Author:

Dr. David Leffler served in the United States Air Force and earned his Ph.D. in Consciousness-Based Military Defense. He has published extensively on IDT and has presented on this topic at military and security conferences worldwide. He is the Executive Director of the Center for Advanced Military Science (CAMS).