Chapter 76

Thursday morning Marcy, Jeanna and I departed Morton Field at 0800 for Thimble Shoal Island after dodging reporters that were everywhere. I stopped long enough to answer two questions.

Thimble Shoals was a two island nation - one island a five star resort with casinos that catered only to the very wealthy, the other the banking island and private residence. There were no motels on the banking island and a simple bridge connected the two.

Thimble Shoals was the illegal banking capital of the world and an independent nation. They were not aligned with any world government and were anti-disclosure of any private agreements. Even the famous Swiss banks had finally thrown in the towel and agreed to divulge their depositors to the world’s tax collectors and courts. Thimble Shoals told the UN banking system and foreign tax collectors to put it where the sun didn’t shine.

They had enough of the world’s movers and shakers - powerful people - as depositors that the UN backed off. That just proved where those unaccounted billions were that were missing in the UN’s annual budget.

There were two main banks in Thimble Shoals. The Thimble Shoals National Bank and the Pirates International Bank. Several of the board of directors rotated between the two banks.

The National Bank handled international transactions - including electronic transfers - and everything for the resort and its casinos. It bought gold, diamonds, platinum and other hard currency for its depositors and sold such items. The directors of the National Bank were essentially the government of the island.

The National Bank was the island’s treasury with the President of the bank as the island’s governor. There were less than five thousand permanent residents on the island. There was no immigration to the islands and only temporary visas. The residents worked the resorts, casinos, airport and tourist shops. There were no personal taxes or property taxes. Heavy taxes on the tourists paid the bills. There were no taxes on the winnings at the casinos.

Pirates Bank was a storage facility and accepted transfers and such deposits directly from depositors who walked in the door carrying the items to deposit to their numbered accounts. New customers walked out with a numbered account with their names sealed in Pirates Bank system. Funds deposited in Pirates Bank gained no interest.

When funds were sent to National Bank that were destined for Pirates Bank, a bank director withdrew the money and physically carried it across the street, listing it as a cash withdrawal on the electronic accounts. Certain electronic transactions were never recorded as being received.

My security team had loaded twenty of the gold bars and four bags of diamonds onto the plane. Marcy had twenty of the five million US treasury bonds in her briefcase that we had taken from the Prince. I had opened the door by promising to invest in the bank. It was a two hour flight over the Caribbean past our Deep Water Cay resort island.

Two taxis carried us and our investments from the airport to Pirates Bank to our meeting with the board.

Winston Churchman was the senior board director and apparently the spokesman of the Pirates Bank. Sidney Blake and Oscar Dente were the other two directors who met us.

‘‘We can only assume that you are here for more than investing in our bank. We stay up on the world news and have seen recent news events that seem to be focused on you a lot the last few weeks. Let’s talk about the investment to see just how serious you are, then we can talk about other things.”

Winston went through all the bank’s investment opportunities including levels to buy in and all the services they offered to those wealthy individuals, including the untraceable numbered accounts.

They laundered money, cut and reshaped diamonds or other jewels and melted bars of gold and silver into coins or other collectibles.

‘‘We mint coins for over a dozen other nations as well as for our nation and can mint special coins for special occasions of customers. Thimble Shoals only uses gold and silver as it’s national currency and is accepted worldwide using the gold standard and US dollar,’’ Winston said.

Jeanna informed them that she was an executive Vice President of Midwest Bank and wanted to know about the executive positions and how one progressed to a bank director.

He looked a long time before deciding if he was going to answer. ‘‘There are ten directors. The original directors put up the money to start the banks. One hundred million each for a total of one billion dollars. All transactions are in US dollars. The bank charges three percent and we don’t do transactions less than one million dollars. That is the return that is divided between the directors.

‘‘There is only one way to become a director and that is to buy out a director who wants to retire - or his estate if he dies - for the original one hundred million amount and you have to maintain a ten million minimum on deposit. Directors are the only ones who have access or can make changes in the numbered accounts,’’ Winston said.

‘‘So there are few turnovers at the director level,’’ Marcy said.

‘‘Yes, very few. Director Olgermeir is ninety and has been looking to retire for a while; he would be the first in a decade,’’ Winston said.

‘‘Do you have a specialist to place a value on uncut diamonds?’’ I asked.

‘‘Yes, Benjamin Otto,’’ Winston said.

‘‘Call him please. We wish to deposit diamonds and need to have a value placed on them, along with several gold bars. We wish to start a numbered account,’’ Marcy said.

‘‘I would also like to talk with Mr. Olgermeir - if he is available - to see if he could be persuaded to retire and sell his directorship,’’ I said.

A little while later Ben Otto was seated in a meeting room at a table with a stainless steel tray on it.

‘‘Just pour the diamonds on it and I will get started,’’ he said.

By the expression on his face, he wasn’t expecting a bag of uncut diamonds the size of a ten pound bag of flour to be dumped into his tray. He put on his little monocle and started grading and assigning a value on his pad. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we had three more bags from the South African mine.