The St. Kitts Connection

Terry Downes, is a successful commercial banker in Wilmington, Delaware who gets recruited for a position at First Community Bank (FCB) in Palm Beach Florida. The Chairman and majority shareholder, to whom he reports, is a known ‘maverick’ banker who is constantly at odds with the regulatory agencies for various potentially questionable lending and illegal financial practices.

Downes is eventually fired and, after leaving FCB, forms a consulting business where he is approached by Draper and Ford, a couple of Canadian real estate tycoons looking for someone with his banking expertise. They own several real estate companies in Wellington, Florida and are interested in forming or acquiring a bank. They also own an offshore bank in St. Kitts, West Indies called First Investors Trust Company Limited.