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American ‘Talent Scouts’ Arrested

Bahamian authorities on Saturday arrested five Americans claiming to be talent scouts for a US-based entertainment company.

The Americans – three men and two women – were placed in the custody of the Department of Immigration as an investigation is conducted.

The group was arrested at the Wyndham Nassau Resort, where the talent search took place, allegedly for working in the Bahamas without proper documentation from the Immigration Department.

A group of Bahamian parents are now fearful that they will lose the money paid to the Americans.

Parents paid up to $1800 dollars to enroll their children into classes, supposedly to be taught by professionals from Los Angeles, that would prepare the children for an opportunity to perform  in front of agents from several Disney shows.

Instead, two Bahamian women conducted the training. And during the final talent show, no legitimate talent agents were in attendance and the Bahamian trainers were nowhere to be found.

One parent told a local newspaper that when she was finally able to track down one of the Bahamian trainers, the trainer told her that she had been escorted off hotel premises and was never paid.

It appears that the situation had been going on for several weeks before some of the parent’s got wise to what was happening.

Modelling scams were once so prevalent in the United States, particularly in California, that many states have enacted laws outlining the requirements for such businesses.

A professional photographer with decades of experience in the fashion photography business in the U.S., and now living in the Bahamas, told BahamasB2B that such scams, conducted by local Bahamians, are occurring regularly all over the Bahamas.

“Only very rarely, should people ever pay for any sort of modeling training, and only experienced models should pay for model composites from photographers,” the expert said.

Experienced models may want to pay a professional photographer for photos to update their portfolio after they get get a haircut, grow a beard or change their look. Sometimes they may want to show a certain look  that they have yet to be hired for. But for the most part portfolios should be images from actual jobs, to give prospectve employers an idea of how you have performed on other assignments.

“If you think your child has some potential, get any competent amateur photographer to take some pictures, then show them to a professional photographer or model agent.  Professionals can spot talent without the fancy overly-retouched images that many of today’s young photographers are churning out. In fact, professionals would prefer such undoctored images, so they can assess the person’s true potential, not a fictitious rendering created by Photoshop.

“If a reputable model agency sees potential in someone, the agency will almost always pay for professional photos to be taken and for any training that is neccesary. The agency stands to make good money by booking the talent, so they are happy to pay any expenses necessary to prepare the model for such lucrative bookings,” he added.

He told BahamasB2B that the biggest problem in the Bahamas, is that many “so-called” model agents will take money from “anyone” for pictures or training, even though most of the prospective models have absolutely no prospect of ever making any money in the business.

There are too many of those scams going on here in The Bahamas, you don’t need Americans coming in to add to the problem,” the photographer said.

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