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Laundering the Gains of the Drug Trade: Miami and Caribbean Tax Havens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Extract

The Headlines Had a Tone of sensationalism in Trinidad's Sunday Guardian: “ Drug Barons Taking Over Big Business: 'Dirty’ Money is being laundered into the system” (Guardian, 1988).

Trinidadians, however, were hardly in a mood to accuse the normally staid Trinidad Guardian of sensationalism; the doings of drug barons is the subject of almost every dinner, cocktail party and informal conversation. Visitors are taken on tours of the new multimillion-dollar mansions springing up in formerly placid and genteel neighborhoods. Their massive walls and remote control cameras stand in stark contrast to the gingerbread quaintness of the adjoining structures (Interviews, 1988). But architectural divergency is the least of the contrasts so annoying to Trinidad citizens. What the Guardian calls the “satanic plot,” carried out by men of “prominence and respectability, ” is especially grating as the depressed economy has everyone else tightening belts or, worse, going into receivership. The court system is overwhelmed with drug and drug-related cases, and the main thrust of communityoriented philanthropy is the establishment of drug rehabilitation centers.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1988

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