I guess it should come as no surprise that no one from Connecticut officialdom did anything to go after the millions of dollars of state money that went down the Amistad hole, money from a spigot that stayed wide open even after state officials figured out Amistad America had lost its nonprofit status for failing to file tax returns for three years.

Subsequent audits proved adequate records were not kept for the state money, never mind all the money that creditors lost, when the nonprofit fizzled for good.

Attorney General George Jepsen finally went after and got back the boat, which had been spirited away to Maine, as Connecticut kept sending money.

But no one went after the people in charge when all that money disappeared.

Maybe this is related to the reason why state prosecutors make so few corruption arrests in Connecticut. The feds seem to find plenty.

The first and last time I ever spoke with Greg Belanger, longtime executive director of Amistad America, was when I discovered the lack of tax returns and lost nonprofit status.

He said then, in a rambling response from the cellphone I caught him on, that it was all a misunderstanding with the Internal Revenue Service that would be resolved promptly. It wasn’t ever resolved, of course, and he never again returned one of my phone calls.

After that, as the state dithered and kept sending money, I discovered Belanger had organized this interesting arrangement in which he took a job as head of a Maine-based sail training program, Ocean Classroom, while still heading Amistad America. He also turned the schooner Connecticut paid to build over to his new employer in Maine, some kind of lease.

This made me recall the nickname some former Amistad crew members had for Belanger. They called him the Talented Mr. Ripley, after the fictional character of the book and movie of the same name who was so good at massaging the truth and slipping out of dangerous confrontations.

Belanger not only presided over the foundering of Amistad America, but Ocean Classroom ended up defunct not long after Belanger was put in charge. More and more creditors appeared in his wake.

And then came reports recently in the tall ships trade press that Belanger has landed a new tall ship gig, this time in charge of one of the three Ocean Classroom ships, Harvey Gamage, which was out of the water and in bad disrepair when the nonprofit went belly up.

It turns out Phineas Sprague Jr., a prominent Portland, Maine, businessman who purchased the 129-foot Harvey Gamage, has put Belanger in charge of it. Plans are to base it some of the year in Cuba, where Belanger once sent Amistad when he was in charge of Connecticut’s schooner.

So this is talent, indeed. Belanger seems to be able to move with the schooners, first with Amistad, as Amistad’s nonprofit failed, to Ocean Classroom, then from Ocean Classroom with Harvey Gamage, after Ocean Classroom failed.

If I were the new owner of the Harvey Gamage, a beautiful ship now said to be in tip-top shape, I would worry about the pattern, about the clamoring creditors who have been left bobbing in Belanger’s wake.

If I were among Amistad America’s many creditors, I would not be so amused to think that official Connecticut never got to the bottom of where all that unaccounted-for money went.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter:@DavidCollinsct