Back in the late 1970s, American companies could obtain a tax holiday of as high as 95% by relocating to Puerto Rico, provided that they employed a decent number of local residents. As a result, I found myself taking many trips to San Juan, providing legal assistance to a Miami chemical company that transferred its manufacturing operations to that island commonwealth. I found that what took a day to accomplish in the US could require a week in the Caribbean, due to the constant delays suffered as a result of governmental inefficiency. Patience was truly a virtue, but that is what clients pay lawyers for, at least in part.

I had also ventured further afield from time to time for these clients, to the British Dependent Territories, where local governments had built turn-key manufacturing facilities, commonly known as factory shells, which were small industrial parks meant to encourage US and European firms to move operations there. I came to know the area fairly well, as the result of these adventures.

There were also stranger trips taken in those days. Perhaps one of the most unusual was a journey to Dominica, that lush tropical isle so rich in jungle foliage that the rare bold visitor often went on safari into the interior. My assigned task from the clients was to purchase citizenships from the corrupt local government, who had acquired a certain level of notoriety in the international legal community by brazenly selling passports to wealthy expat Iranians who were looking for a nationality that was free from the stigma of their Iranian heritage, what we now know as a passport of convenience.

 Dominica, known as having been the refuge of choice for the once-fugitive LSD pioneer Timothy Leary, was not your normal tourist destination, as the airport then was a three-hour drive via jeep from the capital, Roseau. Of course, it was extremely entertaining for yours truly, as it was vaguely reminiscent of my days in Indochina. Even the fact that electricity was only available for 4 hours a day didn't faze me.

Back then, the rugged regional puddle-jumper, LIAT, an acronym for Leeward Islands Air Transport, hopped the island chain from Puerto Rico to the northern coast of South America. Did the passengers carry chickens  and other animals on board in cages ? Only if they could fit in the overhead compartments. It was truly an airline for local inter-island traffic.

I traveled to Dominica via Antigua, because one first needed to know which lawyers in Dominica could be trusted to get me the needed passports. An Antiguan attorney I conferred with supplied me with that intelligence, and after  an evening of recreation gambling in a deserted mountaintop casino, and at a local Caribbean music concert, I was aloft again, destined for Dominica.

Arriving on a island that had seen a powerful hurricane cut a swath across the jungle only weeks before, and in any event generally had no tourists, I made for the law offices of the two-man law firm that would service my clients. Unfortunately, the local population had recently become aware of the passports-for-money scam, and had gathered recently at the seat of government to protest its corruption.

The island police and army had put down the protest violently, resulting in injuries and deaths, and an inquest into the incident was being conducted the day that I arrived. The two attorneys I had been recommended to by the Antiguan solicitor were in court, representing the police and the army, respectively. Of course I immediately went over to the courthouse to listen in on the testimony, upon learning from their secretary about the situation. The testimony I heard was quite damaging to the government.

As you may have guessed, that was the beginning of the end for sales of passports to all comers, for the government in power fell shortly thereafter. I failed to return with the treasured passports, but with additional acquired knowledge and contacts that would serve me well in the future.

So, I knew the East Caribbean, but didn't know who would be an effective and trustworthy legal counterpart to assist me in my new money laundering duties. I needed a name from the darker side of finance.

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