Robert Montague

Robert was paranoid ; there was no question about it.

When his father had died, leaving his only son his entire estate worth $100 million and an extra $70 million in cash, Robert s paranoia had only grown. You see, Robert had doubts about his father s accounting practices, and had good reason to believe that his father simply had not paid his taxes, ever.

Out of fear of his money being tied up in probate forever, or being seized by the tax agency, Robert had decided on a plan to keep the money out of the United States, and out of prying eyes. His plan was simple but crafty. Robert was to make all the money vanish by converting the entire $70 million into e-dollars, removing it from any bank or physical location.

E-dollars are used by people who want to pay for services or products online; they are popular in auctions and e-commerce sites, acclaimed by people that do not wish to deal with the government and tax laws or use conventional slow money transfer methods . Every dollar you transfer into your e-dollar account would be converted into an amount of real gold or silver, so $1,000 might be 2 kg of gold, for example. This could then be transferred to other users to pay for services, or withdrawn back to a bank account in real dollars.

Robert would achieve this by first transferring all of his money to his own bank account in the Maltese Islands, a well-known tax haven that should be a good stop-over point for the money. He would transfer it again into his e-dollars online account, buying him $70 million worth of gold and silver (a few thousand kilograms). Once all the money had been turned into gold, he would SWIFT wire the money to its new resting place in Venezuela. Robert had chosen Venezuela for its discreet nature and lack of real police. This should make the trail long enough, he thought.

Using this method, three tax haven countries would be involved, The Maltese Islands, Switzerland (where e-dollars is located), and Venezuela. It would take years of search warrants and government investigations even to get access to his account in the Maltese Islands, let alone the next two locations.

Robert began his plan on Monday, moving the entire bank balance of $70 million to the Maltese Islands. By Wednesday, it was ready for use. Then, using an account under his name , he moved the money in $10 million allotments into his e-gold account. This was an attempt to not draw too much attention to himself. Ten million is one thing, $70 million is another.

By the following Monday the entire $70 million had been transferred and was ready for use in his e-dollars account. Robert then ordered a withdrawal from the account to Venezuela; the withdrawal sadly was not free. As an incentive to keep money within the e-dollar s system, any conversion to USD would cost 0.05 percent of the sum. A heavy $3.5 thousand dollars in fees, but it was worth it. The tax man would have wanted a good $50 million.

And so the final transfer was performed. By that Friday the money was ready and waiting in Venezuela.