REMEMBERING THE CARIBBEAN'S MOST PROLIFIC SHELF COMPANY PIRATE AND HIS BUSY BVI OPERATION

If we turn the page back to money laundering's so-called "Golden Era," the 1980s Miami vice period, we find SEAN MICHAEL MURPHY, that lovable Irish accountant and shelf company purveyor, in his quaint office in Road Town, Tortola, British West Indies. He aimed to please, and his wall of shelf company corporate kits, with fully functional (and active) BVI companies, was yours for the taking, for cash on delivery, US Dollars preferred.

I used to charter a light twin and pilot in Sint Maarten, and fly into what was then known as Beef Island Airport, have the pilot keep it warm while I took transport into town, race into Murphy's office, and grad a corporation, and fly out of there so fast law enforcement would not have an opportunity to learn that I was there.

What happened to this character? I have heard from one of those Scotland Yard agents, specially deputized to have arrest powers in the British Dependent Territories during that period, that he was in a task force that hit Murphy's office hard one day. The accountant was said to be involved in moving the proceeds of the £26m Brinks-MAT robbery; Operation Man.

Murphy, caught red-handed, reportedly told the arresting agents that his operation was small, but that if they wanted to see where real money was going on laundering, they needed to go to Anguilla, which they soon did, to the discomfort of the lawyer running the operation there, Billy Herbert. (Dr. Herbert was soon encouraged to take a holiday in the United States, while the agents farmed his files for American money launderers, myself included, but his subsequent assassination is a story for another day.)

A cooperating Sean Murphy was quietly resettled by law enforcement elsewhere in the East Caribbean states, and one or two journalists have actually communicated with him, I understand, but I wonder if they actually tracked down all the missing corporate kits? Perhaps defrocked BVI Premier ANDREW FAHIE might have something to contribute from his house arrest venue in Miami. Someone might want to ask him who runs the shelf company industry there now. If he wants a sentence reduction later, he'd best start remembering.