Chapter 10: My flight to the Cayman Islands

The flight to the Cayman Islands was an ordeal with three changes of planes. When I finally arrived the next morning, I hurried to get off. Even in the late morning, the temperature on the runway was an unbelievable 40 degrees Celsius. The heat almost took my breath away. In no time, I was drenched in sweat.

From the airport I quickly took a taxi to a four-star hotel near the centre of George Town. Fortunately, the lobby was well cooled. The concierge was very accommodating and printed out a list of over forty well-known banks in the capital. I compared the tags on the safe keys with the list. I soon identified the Cayman National Bank from the three stars and Credit Suisse from the two blue sails.

There was another safe key with no logo, but it was attached to a ring with the other two keys. In Rus’ documents I had found a Swift and a bank code under ICBC George Town. There was also a bankcard. It was unclear whether the safe key belonged to that bank.

The Chinese Bank for Industry and Commerce was my first destination. Before going there, I tried the card at the ATM outside my hotel. The four-digit code worked and I easily got 1,000 KYD, which is Cayman dollars, worth just over US$1,000 at the time. A taxi took me to the bank, which unfortunately had no official entrance. The beautiful colonial-style building at the given address had a wide glass door as an entrance, but there was no sign of a bank. The taxi driver confirmed that the bank was operating at this location, but only received customers by appointment. From a nearby bar, I phoned to make an appointment for 4 p.m. today.

Back at the hotel, a staff member suggested that I could hire a motorboat for the evening to see the world-famous stingrays. The boats would be cheaper in the evening, most of the tourists would have left on their cruise ships, and a relaxed visit to Stingray Island would be possible for individual visitors. It was a good idea to spend the evening like this after what I hoped would be a successful bank meeting. Of course, he knew someone, surely a friend or relative, who wanted to do the tour with me for ‘only’ $200.

So, I lay down and rested for three hours. Then I went to ICBC. By lunchtime, the bank had only asked me for the last six digits of my account, immediately suggested an appointment and even seemed to be looking forward to my arrival. And so, it was. When I arrived in a taxi, the door opened and a pretty Latin American woman of African descent greeted me with a pleasant smile. The reception area was well cooled and very modern. The Chinese branch manager greeted me with a happy smile and an almost submissive bow. He handed me a business card with both hands, told me he had been appointed this year and was delighted to welcome me back to his bank after so many years.

The orange juice tasted delicious. I thanked the friendly Jamy, as she had introduced herself, and waited until I was alone with the branch manager again.

“You know, Mr. Yang, I’m currently taking stock of my portfolios and accounts. Unfortunately, I was in a helicopter crash, lost my tablet and my cell phone, was ill for a long time and have one or two memory lapses. We agreed that you wouldn’t correspond with me and that I would pick up all the documents personally, didn’t we?”

Now Yang was more cautious. “I’m sorry, but in your case it was different. We sent the report once a year by courier to your contact address, most recently this year in March for 2018.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t remember. To Roberto Sentasco in Medellin?”

“No, to Mr. Rodrigo Tama in Medellin.”

I was surprised. The Tamas had not said that they were keeping mail for Rus. I simply said, “Oh yes, to the Tamas. Unfortunately I haven’t been to Medellin for a long time, but soon,” I explained.

Very carefully, I pulled out the bunch of three safe keys. I rattled more keys in my pocket. Covering the tags on the other two keys, I showed Mr Yang the one I couldn’t identify.

“I’m sorry. I’ve spread some of my money around the world over the last five years, but as I said, I lost my tablet in the accident, so I can’t keep track. These three keys belong to banks in George Town, but I can’t assign this one key here.”

Yang regretted that he could not help me with this question. He pointed out that his bank only does overseas banking and does not rent out safes in its branch. He suggested I activate my online banking. That was no problem. As the six-digit PIN required by the bank, I used my own date of birth in reverse order, as I had copied the idea from Rus.

As requested, I received an analysis of the portfolio’s performance. The bank manager painted the results in rosy colours and calculated a 6.3% increase in value for the years 2016 to 2018. This was clearly not enough for me.

“That’s only an increase of around 2% per year, and that’s despite the good performance of all the major stocks worldwide. I’m really disappointed.”

Now I had him. He explained the reasons and the potential of investing in his bank, and again became submissive. I wanted to raise the limit for the bankcard to $5,000 a day and gave him two sell orders for funds in order to increase the checking account to $500,000. Yang wanted confirmation of the orders with the agreed code and handed me a tablet. I looked in my documents. For this bank, there was only the PIN for the debit card that had already been used, but also a ‘8+’. I thought hard, had seen that before. That’s right, the code for Rus’ PC was like this. What was it again? ‘AW’ as an abbreviation for his two first names and then his date of birth spelled backwards. AW automatically enabled the entry of a six-digit code on the tablet. I tried to write Rus’ date of birth backwards, just like on the PC. ‘473081’ Perfect. The sales orders were released. I also set up a standing order for a donation of 8,000 KYD per month for the newly opened donation account in Huaraz.

As I left, Mr Yang confirmed that the bankcard could be used anywhere in the Cayman Islands and at any ICBC branch worldwide. It would be best to manage the account online. I could also place orders or make deposits in China and at many bank branches, but cash deposits of more than $10,000 have had to be reported everywhere for the past three years. Only here in the Cayman Islands could exceptions be made. I could pick up the credit card I had ordered on my next visit.

With a smile on my face, I got into a taxi. After this visit, I was more than seven million dollars richer, invested in funds, and had an account with almost half a million Cayman dollars available via the debit card. “Not a bad start,” I muttered to myself. My mood had improved considerably. I could continue like this tomorrow.

They were already waiting for me at the hotel. A tall, athletic man about my age was going to accompany me on the boat trip. I quickly put my belt bag in the hotel safe and changed into shorts, swimming trunks, and a simple T-shirt.

It was a wonderful trip. At first, I was a bit cautious, maybe even scared, but it was amazing to feel the stingrays eating from my hand. The stingrays, as everyone said, were amazing creatures. They glided silently through the water. I felt their fins especially on my feet and calves. There were few people in the water, but many rays. As I generously handed out pieces of squid, I was literally besieged by more than ten of these rays. Finally, the boat owner told me to pour out the rest of the squid in a wide arc and to board carefully. In the evening, at dusk, more rays would join the trained animals. You should be careful then.

On the way back, the boatman hoisted the sails. We glided almost silently over the water. I was given a prepared fishing rod. Although I knew nothing about deep-sea fishing, it was a fantastic but exhausting experience. In a short time, I had caught three fairly large kingfish, a particularly large species of mackerel. That’s not just fishing nonsense; the biggest fish was over a metre long.

The boatman took a picture of me with my proud catch on my phone. As requested, he had already saved some photos of the stingrays and me. The boatman took me to a restaurant, handed over my fish, and recommended that I try my catch for free that evening. It was a wonderful evening. However, it was not easy to explain to some pushy young ladies that my only pleasure was to eat and drink. Eventually, the restaurant manager sorted things out.

Slightly drunk, I sent a WhatsApp message from the hotel with warm greetings to everyone and the three best photos of the day. Ramona replied immediately. The crazy group had celebrated Daja and Luca’s engagement yesterday. The photos and the short clip showed how wild and crazy everyone was that night. Of course, I was happy inside, but I replied ironically: “Do you miss the man of the house? You’re crazy,” However, I returned the appropriate emoticons to make my reply funny. The video clip alone of the ten virgins, the girls from the second group, all topless, smearing pudding and jam on the couple’s faces and shoulders, which the engaged couple had to lick off, showed me that Ramona allowed a lot, but my loved ones should have a bit of fun, too.

The next morning, I went to the second bank, Cayman National. There was a counter for customers. Without any ID, I was led into the vault with the key and laminated bankcard. A bank employee locked my safe deposit box and left me alone after I had opened the rather large safe box with my key. I placed three A4 boxes, each about five centimetres high, on the table. In the first box were two passports for Kuklina and Rus, issued in Nicaragua under fictitious names, an envelope with a credit card from the Cayman National Bank, and a small notepad with notes written in Russian. In the back of the box was a pistol wrapped in oilpaper with two full magazines. I took only the credit card and the notepad. Lenya or Daryna could probably help me with the notes.

In the second box I found $50,000 in cash, four small gold bars, and some old coins, some of them made of gold. I couldn’t do much with it. I had enough money with me. So, I left everything in the metal container. In the third box there were two notarised purchase contracts for properties in the Cayman Islands and the corresponding lease agreements. It was obviously for a hotel and a country house with corresponding land. I photographed the most important pages and wrote down the addresses of the properties.

The bank employee led me into a separate room after I showed him my bankcard to get the bank statements. He had also seen the second card, which I hadn’t noticed until now. This gold card identified me as a VIP customer, as I later found out, but that was not important at the moment. The fact was that I had full access to this account.

Once again, I was given a tablet that had to be unlocked with the PIN. This allowed me to browse through the account transactions of the last two years. There had been weekly payments of KYD 6,000 from a hotel and a monthly payment of KYD 3,300 from a company. This probably meant that the two properties were bringing in almost US$28,000 per month. Four times a year, payments of KYD 2,200 each were made, presumably a tax payment by the account holder, who was now entirely me thanks to the bankcards. 20,000 KYD per month was transferred from this account to the account in England. I had found an important source of income for this account. However, I redirected this payment to my personal account in Trujillo. I specified ‘investment for mining’ as the intended purpose. I also set up a standing order for 9,000 Cayman dollars as a donation to our OSWP association in Huaraz.

The incoming payments were substantial, but they did not explain the high balance of well over 11 million Cayman dollars. This enormous sum was simply sitting in the account. No interest was agreed; no investments had been made in funds or shares. Obviously, as so often before, Rus or his accountant had simply not had the time to make investments or at least agree interest rates. Unfortunately, interest rates around the world were at rock bottom at the time. Nevertheless, the bank gave me 0.75% for one year on 5 million KYD and 0.95% for two years on another 5 million KYD.

The monthly fees were relatively high at KYD 900, but I didn’t need any documents to access the safe and the account documents. And everything was tax-free. In this tax-free paradise, only tourist accommodation such as hotels or beach houses had to be taxed. Hopefully, the users took care of that themselves. Or was it just the KYD 8,800 that was withdrawn from this account each year?

Things got a little more complicated when it came to investing. Shares and funds had to be subscribed to in person. George, as the banker liked to be called, suggested that if I wanted to remain anonymous, I should set up a company and trade in its name. Setting up another company seemed too complicated in such a short time. First, I wanted to register as many assets as possible. I had just updated my online banking. This gave me access to just over a million Cayman dollars, which was interest-free.

George helped me back into the vault. There I placed the documents I had just signed in the safe. The multi-millionaire Michael Berthier had finished his work for the day. As I left, George handed me a small leather case with a mini SD card containing the documents and bank statements for the last four years. The files could be accessed using the four-digit PIN on the bankcard. He invited me to a reception at his bank at the end of September, which I unfortunately couldn’t and didn’t want to attend.

These millions were supposed to go to the heirs of Rus, hopefully including our Michi. But if we could not secure the inheritance for Olivia’s son, we could at least have this money at our disposal. I knew it was illegal, but who else knew about it but me, and maybe Kuklina even earlier? I wanted to use this fortune, in consultation with Olivia, for investment in Peru and for the welfare of the Indios.

I was beginning to lose track of all the accounts. But there was much more information about banks in Kiev, Odessa, and Moscow, as well as in Panama, Mumbai, and Saigon. I began to realise the enormous wealth the Russians had amassed in addition to what I already knew. I desperately tried to devise a system to record all the information in writing, but to encrypt it so that no unauthorised person could make a connection.

After a wonderful lunch at a beach hotel, I went back to rest. The midday heat was really hard to get used to. Unfortunately, I had problems making an appointment with Credit Suisse for the evening. They wanted to know my account number and my name. They no longer had anonymous accounts. They said they had told me that almost three years ago. I was supposed to come by that evening to find a solution together. I only had the credit card and the key to the safe deposit box. All the other documents were in the bank’s safe-deposit box, as I knew from the documents.

Accompanied by a bank employee, I was allowed to open my safe deposit box. It was just a small box with a second bankcard, account documents and some cash. I would have preferred to close the account immediately, but first the previously anonymous documents had to be completely rewritten in my name due to the European Union’s new money laundering and tax regulations.

The woman told me that for EU citizens like me, they had to send annual control notices to the tax authorities of the EU country in question. She was surprised that I had a permanent visa for Peru. Then they might not need to send the data to Belgium. Just when I thought I had control over the account, she told me that she needed to get a certified confirmation of my details from my contact address, that is, from my lawyer in Medellín, Mr Roberto Tama, before she could give me access. I had to smile. Rus had passed off his janitor as his lawyer. Unbelievable! Didn’t anyone check things like that?