Chapter 3: Naing Soe

Brad was bored, and the day was as sour as his mood. He was tired of putting up with the Quey Ma Tha who thought nothing of keeping him waiting, him of all people. His grip on his teak walking stick tightened in anger, but his aging grip and years of hard living could no longer make the wood creak with the satisfaction he once had had when both he and the wood were younger. Since Brad had taken most of his diverse operations legit a decade ago, he'd had to distance himself from the more satisfying and bloody means of earning respect from his lieutenants.

Naing Soe, who had long-ago taken the English name Brad, had been seen as "soft" by some of his syndicate, since he had distanced himself from the human trafficking, extortion and kidnapping lines of his business. Nothing could be further from the truth, and his will was still iron, even if his operations now employed corporate raiders, identity theft and computer pirates, instead of border raiders, thieves and shipping pirates. The bloodless battles, however, were no less profitable, just covered with a cloak of respectability. Perhaps, noted Naing Soe, it had been too long since he'd made an example of the need for discipline, respect and face. His lieutenants were the ones who had grown soft, insolent and greedy. Mak Po had obviously been skimming the profits from the identity theft and money laundering operations in Guangzhou, likely up to 15% now, from the evidence provided by his investigators and forensic accountants. It had been five years since he'd last had to lash out at insolence with the supreme violence he had been noted for in his glory days running the largest Thai and Burmese organized crime ring. Brad's sullen mood improved as he resolved to treat Mak Po to the justice he had brought down on Waine Waine five years prior. His father had taught him well – grinding up a friend or relative like so much hamburger was especially useful at providing an object lesson to unrelated and unloved henchmen. If he will torture his own blood, they realized their usefulness, honor and loyalty were their only protection. Waine Waine had been his college roommate and best friend, so the lesson had been clear five years prior. Naing Soe smiled at his fortunate choice. Mak Po was his brother-in-law, father of his three eldest nephews, and ideal for his next object lesson, just as his roommate had been before. They would see he was not soft.

Naing Soe had studied business and law at Princeton, one of the sure keys to success among Boston's elite in the 1980s. The university had never questioned the source of his father's money, and turned a blind eye to the excesses of the playboy son of a corrupt general. When Naing Soe had been able to make his father understand that, not only would the bribe work, but the "library endowment" of $88 million was also tax-deductible for their American corporations, he thought his father was going to soil himself he laughed so hard. The joke was on the dirty Americans and their greedy capitalism, since none of the money had even been reported for tax purposes, so the donation was even better than free! Naing Soe still found that nearly as funny as his late father had.

The bribe was shady but legal, and imminently effective, ensuring both a place in the Ivy League and VIP status with the university administration, which had the power to open doors in corporations across America. The only concessions that Princeton had gently and apologetically requested in a conciliatory tone was that there be no press release, and that they name the new wing of the law library after the English name of his son, Bradley, to avoid political entanglements from the name of his father. Thus it was that the final joke was played in the transaction. Naing Soe had selected the name while smoking pot the prior summer at the midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. He was stoned and mellow, and thought "Brad" was the typical American ideal. Once he'd come off his high, the name wasn't bad, but he did get a perverse pleasure in the knowledge of where the name came from that went on the large brass plaque of the "Bradley Majors Research Library", as though he'd pissed on the building himself.

Secretly, Naing Soe loved the name "Brad Majors" because it helped constantly remind his inferiors that their command of English was incomplete, since it was so difficult to say for the Burmese tongue. Because Naing Soe had been raised from the age of two in Vancouver, London, Seattle and finally Miami, he was completely fluent in English (and 4 other languages) while his underworld lieutenants struggled. Naing Soe has spent the six years from age 16 to 24 running the most violent of his father's businesses, first in Miami, then Burma and Thailand. The experience hadn't dulled his language skills, the polished British or American culture he could effect, nor had the supreme violence even begun to slake his bloodlust. No, Naing Soe reveled in his violent control on the drug, child prostitution, slavery and gambling trades his father had favored, even while he learned to control corrupt and greedy government ministers as though his hand was up inside them like a puppet. Turning over the Thai and Burmese operations to his trusted advisor Soong enabled respectable playboy Bradley Majors to graduate Princeton Law with an MBA. Fawning law school administrators and well-paid tutors enabled Brad to quickly pass the bar in New York, Florida and Massachusetts, cementing his credentials to control the shell companies his father owned in the U.S.

It was then that Brad had an epiphany, a brilliant plan he'd copied directly from Don Michael Corleone in The Godfather and The Godfather Two. The four-part plan was simplicity itself. Strike out viciously without mercy at a moment of your competitors' weaknesses, cash out as they staggered and the market swung in your favor, retire from the field and go legit, and launder the money through legal cash-based businesses. Brad found the strategy brilliant, and loved the simplicity of the blueprint that could provide for his own family to take the same path to legitimate operations. Skillful execution of the transition was particularly crucial to avoid the reprisals of the other families. However, Brad thought it seemed manageable, particularly if you leave the field of play wide-open and chaotic as you go. With diligence and luck, the other crime syndicates would be too busy at filling the power vacuum and hitting their competitors to worry about visiting revenge on a retired old man and his US companies.

Brad and his father has already discussed that it was time to cut their losses and run, but hadn't yet figured out the exit strategy that avoided both death and poverty. The Myanmar junta was corrupt but dragging the country to ruin. Though easy to operate in corrupt Myanmar, the opportunities were constrained by the limited GDP. Thailand was a richer target, even if more difficult for secure operations, but was too small if they pulled out of Myanmar. No, it was time to go, and now he had a plan. Naing Soe obtained copies of all three Godfather films dubbed in Burmese, and then joined his father for two solid weeks of watching the films repeatedly, taking notes, and refining their strategy. There were only two small changes that his father insisted on, and both had to do with laundering the illegitimate money through a cash-based business. The well-connected General had a plan for laundering the money that solved both problems, and it was handled with ease within 18 months.

Five lowly administrators in the Myanmar junta were swiftly promoted, and foreign aid was asked for and accepted from various sources for the first time in recent memory. $8 Billion in foreign aid was diverted through official government channels and diplomatic pouches to the offshore accounts managed by Brad's family as the administrators of the aid, and $8 Billion in illicit money from organized crime was sent to Myanmar to aid the Burmese people. Before the deception could be noted, the five sub-ministers were framed and executed for corruption, and all accounting records disappeared or were misplaced. After initial panic by the international aid organizations, all concerns were smoothed over by simply accounting for the $8 Billion in funds, so the missing funds transfer documents were seen as an audit trail gap of little importance. After all, if the money could all be accounted for, and was helping a needy people, why worry?