Whilst I watched the company participate in one financial transaction after another, and open banks in Panama and the Middle East, law enforcement investigators later painted a darker picture of the behind-the-scenes truth:

• The chief executive officer, a Cuban exile banker who had letter-perfect credentials, including being a Bay of Pigs veteran, was later found to be associated with a person who should have been his mortal enemy, Cuban President Fidel Castro. He was also linked to American traditional organised crime, or Mafia, figures.
• Money was being laundered through a mysterious Bahamian bank, and thence to numbered accounts in banks located in Switzerland and the Vatican City.
• The bank was implicated in narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling, financial fraud, circumvention of the Cuban trade embargo, and Latin American political corruption.
• There were strange ties to the Russian intelligence service, the KGB, who had lent it $2m, under what were described as unusual circumstances.
• Miami law enforcement officers searching a pest-control company found extensive financial records of the financial institution, linking it to the raided firm, with large unexplained funds transfers that indicated organised money laundering on a massive scale.
• Eight of the twelve directors of the company had ties to the Central Intelligence Agency, either as suspected former operatives or sources, or as current associates.
• There were links between the financial institution and a South American airline that was involved in smuggling drugs.

When it came time for US law enforcement to take action against the officers of the company after it and its overseas banks had crashed, with what was variously estimated as an $18m or $50m loss, the CIA caused the investigation to halt for "national security" reasons, and the only punishment meted out was a token tax evasion charge against the president of the company, who served one year in federal prison.

The moral of the story:

• The best money laundering techniques are often hidden amongst legitimate business transactions.
• The launderers may have powerful allies, on a criminal, or even political, level.
• Even the best professional can be taken in by expert financial criminals. Watch yourself.