AMERICAN CUSTOMS AUTHORITIES ARE ONCE AGAIN LOOKING CLOSELY AT CARIBBEAN SCOUNDRELS, SCALAWAGS AND SCRAPPERS

Back in the period some call the Golden Age of Money Laundering, when the owners of offshore tax haven financial institutions grew wealthy banking illicit cocaine profits earned in North America, and smuggled into the Caribbean, American Customs officers payed particular attention to citizens of the West Indies entering the United States. Many of those arriving "businessmen and tourists" were but a small cog in a huge international money laundering operation. that depended upon such fringe players to quietly bring financial instruments into American banks, make investments with cleaned drug capital, and facilitate what was a well-oiled machine, operated at the behest of traffickers for whom narcotics was simply a business featuring a high return on investment.

During that period, US Customs more than one photocopied my entire American passport upon my arrival in CONUS , outright interrogated me, and x-rayed my carry-on briefcase, looking for incriminating evidence. Now, thirty years later, we have reports that individuals arriving from the states of the West Indies are receiving a similar level of attention, which of course disturbs them, and which treatment they have been reporting to their government leaders, in such jurisdictions as Saint Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia and Dominica. Did those leaders not consider that the new American administration, which is slowly implementing a new policy regarding those CBI states, due to their systemic corruption, fraud and money laundering, would also detail its law enforcement agencies to increase surveillance of individuals who are potentially engaged in violations of American criminal law? Will those visits result in the arrest and prosecution of the Caribbean couriers?

We understand that, while publicly putting on an external facade, dismissing the possibility that major U.S. action will affect all their constituents, the leaders privately worry about whether the proverbial knock on the door of their palatial residences will come, sooner rather than later. It is fast approaching the point where all their CBI sins and transgressions will have serious international consequences; Let the Games begin.