THIRTY YEARS AFTER HIS DISAPPEARANCE, THIS CARIBBEAN MONEY LAUNDERER AND POWER BROKER IS STILL SPOKEN OF IN HUSHED TONES WHERE HE FORMERLY REIGNED SUPREME

This Summer, we are coming up on the thirtieth anniversary of the June 1994 disappearance of Saint Kitts Foreign Minister, attorney William (Billy) Herbert Jr., BUT his larger-than-life power and influence remains in effect. A recent call to a Kittitian professional, inquiring about whether media should return to covering the unsolved mystery was met with what can only be described as abject fear about any new publicity about the subject. I worked with Billy Herbert in the Caribbean Tax Havens for several years in the nineteen eighties; he coordinated and facilitated my money laundering activities for clients who were engaged in narcotics trafficking. I also knew him as one of the original founders of the Peoples' Action Movement, more commonly known as PAM.

Doctor Herbert, as he was known in the East Caribbean, was a potent political figure, both in his native St. Kitts, and in the nearby British Overseas Territory of Anguilla, where he was the Constitutional Adviser to the UK Government. His politics were judged by many to be radical; he was acquitted in an earlier era of Conspiring to Overthrow the SKN Government by Force, but he held several Ambassadorships, and I always regarded him as the heir apparent to a future premiership there, had he lived, but there are no happy endings for laundrymen in most cases.

The opaque circumstances of his death, where he is believed to be buried, the clients of his money laundering activities for over a decade, and his targeting by American and British law enforcement are all topics that St. Kitts' leaders do not want to see the light of day again. especially since Billy Herbert's involvement in creating the country's controversial Citizenship by Investment (CBI) passport sales program will only further draw attention to its flaws.

In short, the last thing that Saint Kitts politicians want or need is to revisit the sordid career of one of its past dominant leaders. Perhaps for this very reason, the truth should now come out, notwithstanding their sensitivities, especially when many observers have the island nation under close scrutiny, due to the CBI scandal, and the exposure of serious political influence by the Peoples Republic of China.