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"This picture?" Castillo asked and held it up. "You know this guy?"
"His name is Bertrand," Yung said. "He's a Lebanese antiquities dealer."
"A Lebanese antiques dealer?"
"Antiques are old furniture, things like that," Yung clarified. "Antiquities are things boosted from King Tut's tomb, things like that. Really old stuff. And Bertrand's very good at it, makes a lot of money. I learned a lot from him."
"About antiquities?"
"About how to have money in a bank and not worry about getting it back out. You do know, don't you, why people don't use Argentina much to launder and/or hide money?"
"No. But I wondered why there were so many FBI agents in Montevideo and zero in Argentina."
"Because this is where the money is laundered and hidden," Yung said. "Argentina used to be the place, but a couple years ago, just before Argentina defaulted on its government bonds, the government decided to help themselves to the dollars in everybody's bank accounts. The peso on one Sunday was worth one U.S. dollar. On Monday morning, the government announced the 'pesification of the dollar.' All dollar deposits in Argentine banks were converted to pesos at a rate of one-point-three pesos per dollar. In other words, if you had a hundred dollars on Sunday, on Monday you had a hundred thirty pesos. Now, if you wanted dollars, you had to buy them, and the rate was five to the dollar. In other words, your hundred-dollar deposit was now worth twenty-six. A lot of people-including a lot of honest ones-took a hell of a bath. The Argentines blamed it on the IMF, who had loaned them the money they couldn't, didn't want to, repay."
"Fascinating!"
"Their argument was pure Argentine. It was like some guy on a thousand-a-month salary buying a Cadillac with no money down. Then, when it comes time to make the monthly payment, he says, 'Not only am I not gonna make the payment, but I'm gonna keep the Caddy, too, because you should have known I couldn't afford to pay for it.'"
"You're serious, aren't you?" Castillo asked.
"Absolutely. The banking system took a hell of a beating. The Scotia Bank-one of Canada's biggest; they'd been doing business in Argentina for more than a century-just took their losses and pulled out. For a while it looked like CitiBank and Bank of Boston were going to take their losses and leave, too, but they finally decided to stay."
"How did this affect the antiquities dealer? Bertrand?"
"Well, first of all, he was smart enough to have his money here-a lot of money; the last time I looked it was a little over sixteen million, U.S.-and not across the river. And then he's got an interesting deal with the banks."
"What kind of a deal?"
"This is pretty complicated…"
"Make it simple for me," Castillo said.
"Okay. He doesn't deposit his money in his banks. He loans it to them, just like he was another bank. Banks are always borrowing money from each other, so nobody notices one more loan. They don't pay Bertrand what they have to pay other banks, so they're happy. And he's happy because he has their note, callable on demand. Or he can endorse the bank's promissory note over to somebody-anybody-else, an individual or another bank. You see how it works? Like a super cashier's check."
"I'm not sure," Castillo admitted. "How is he sure the banks will come up with the money when he says, 'Pay me'?"
"Because he's taken out insurance that they will," Yung said, just a little smugly. "He gets it either from the bank or the insurance company. It costs him a little money, sure, but his money is safe."
"What if somebody steals the promissory notes?"
"Unless he signs them, they're just pieces of paper."
"You know a lot about this guy, don't you, Yung?"
"I've been keeping my eye on him ever since I came down here."
"You know something about his personal habits? Where he lives?"
"He's got an estancia-he calls it 'Shangri-La'-in Tacuarembo Province, and a fancy condominium in Punta del Este. He doesn't use the condo much because, getting to his personal habits, he likes the young girls- very young girls-he has at Shangri-La."
"There's one thing you don't know about this guy, Yung," Castillo said.
"And what's that?"
"His real name is Jean-Paul Lorimer."
Yung looked at Castillo incredulously, and then smiled.
