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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.
Expressing some interest in the job offer, Downes travels with Draper and Ford, their accountant and the banks manager, first to Toronto, then to St. Kitts and finally to Miami. He is investigating their operations and assessing their legitimacy before deciding about joining them
In St. Kitts, Downes visits First Investors Trust. He learns about its restricted operations and the questionable dealings of its directors, including potentially illegal payments to government officials. He witnesses suspicious cash transactions and becomes increasingly concerned about the source of their funds. In Miami the group meets with their lawyers where Downes seeks clarification on certain activities and weighs the attractive opportunities against the growing suspicions of the group’s legitimacy.
After accepting the position and very new in his job, Downes suspicions come to fruition when the offices in Wellington are raided by federal and local agencies and all Florida properties confiscated under the RICO Act. The Canadians were convicted and sentenced to 15 to 20 years in federal prison.
Two years later, and thinking this episode in his life was over, Downes receives a call from two separate international newspaper reporters asking him to confirm the identity of a numbered account opened in the offshore bank. The information, he was told, was faxed to them by an anonymous source and belonged to an Indian politician running for president of India in upcoming elections. The account had activity totaling 50 million dollars and showed Terry Downes Managing Director as the official signer.
After refusing to comment, due to the strict privacy laws, Downes and a friend decide to visit St. Kitts to find out why his name appeared on the document and who sent the document to the newspapers.
Life threatening issues are encountered when they get involved in local political upheaval that includes money laundering, weapons trading and drug trafficking brokered through the First Investors Trust. and leading to the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi former prime minister of India.