Found Money - James Grippando [62]
“Liz, what do you say?”
“Go for it, counselor. You’ll eat that moron alive.”
29
At noon Ryan called Norm from the Panama City Marriott. He had taken a room through tomorrow, until his new passport was ready. The passport, however, wasn’t his first order of business.
“I got it,” said Ryan, seated on the bed. “I got the scoop on the three million that was transferred to my father’s account at Banco del Istmo.”
“How’d you pull that off?”
“All it took was a little persuasion.”
“Something tells me I’d rather not hear the details.”
“And I don’t think I want to tell you. At least not on the phone.”
“What did you find out?” asked Norm.
“Believe it or not, the money was transferred in three hundred installments of nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine dollars, and then one last installment of three hundred dollars for an even total of three million. It was spread out over a fifteen-year period. The last one was made a little over a year ago.”
“Sounds like they were trying to avoid some financial reporting requirements.”
“How do you mean?” asked Ryan.
“Banks are required to file a CTR—a currency transaction report—for any deposit of ten thousand dollars or more. That raises a red flag for the regulatory authorities. It’s a way of keeping track of the big money flow between banks.”
“But these transfers weren’t between two different banks. They were internal transactions, from one account holder at Banco del Istmo to another. Why would that attract anyone’s attention?”
“I’m sure the intra-bank transfer was the last layer of protection in a series of deposits and wire transfers that crossed several national borders. No doubt at least one of the banks along the way did business in the United States, which meant it would have been required to file a CTR for deposits of ten thousand or more. The final internal transfers at Banco del Istmo were each less than ten thousand dollars because they mirrored the amount of the inter-bank transfers.”
“That makes sense, I guess. It also explains why the name on the account at Banco del Istmo doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
“Who is it?” asked Norm.
“It’s a foreign corporation registered in the Cayman Islands. Jablon Enterprises, Ltd. I don’t have a clue who that could be.”
“Quite possibly, you never will. No doubt it’s just a shell corporation.”
“But even if it’s a shell, aren’t they required to have real human beings as officers and directors? Somewhere that has to be a matter of public record, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, but the only place those records would be is in the Cayman Islands.”
“Then that’s where I need to go.”
“You’ll need a passport first. You should be able to pick it up at the embassy tomorrow morning.”
Ryan grimaced. “I hate to lose a day just waiting around.”
“Frankly, I hate to see you go. You’ve already been robbed, Ryan. And that was just for checking on your father’s account. If you start snooping around the Cayman Islands for the names behind this shell corporation, they may not be so polite the next time around.”
“I can be discreet.”
“Sure you can.”
“Can you do me a favor?”
“What, notify your next of kin?”
“Don’t be a wiseass. I need your help sorting this out. I’ve been thinking about this rape conviction. The fact that those documents were in the safe deposit box with the other bank records makes it clear that the extortion is somehow connected to the rape, agreed?”
“I don’t think it was purely coincidence that those records were in the same box, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Exactly. Now, if you think about it, there are a limited number of people on this planet who can afford to pay five million dollars in extortion money.”
“It’s a big world out there, Ryan.”
“Not that big. Especially when you consider that whoever that person is, somewhere along the line he had to come into contact with my father. More than likely it dates back to the rape.”
“That’s logical.”
“Agreed. So the only sensible thing we can do is reconstruct that period of my father’s life—when Frank Duffy was sixteen. Let