The pathological liar Charles Platt <cp@panix.com> posted the following racist garbage to the "cypherpunks@toad.com" mailing list:
I've been writing up my week in Anguilla, including a digested version of the interviews I did with the Minister of Finance and the owner of the local bank. I append this text below. Please note that although I am
It was very poor judgment on Minister's part to meet with the pathological liar and an alcoholic - Charles Platt.
distributing it via this list, I still consider it copyrighted material, for what that's worth. It will eventually be published, in some form, in a magazine, as part of a much longer article.
Right - Chris Platt wants everybody to believe that he's a journalist. Just ask all the people on sci.cryo who think he's just a lying crook. If the drunkard publishes this crap, it'll be at his own expense.
More to the point, this is UNCORRECTED text, probably containing spelling errors, and Vince Cate or Bob Hettinga may well be able to correct some factual errors, in which case I encourage them to do so.
--Charles Platt
What a maroon. Does the FBI monitor this mailing list? They better find out why he's suddenly interested in money laundering. Is Charles Platt dealing drugs too?
Monday evening, there's a cocktail party on Road Bay,
Of course Charles Platt would be found at a cocktail party. Did he get drunk like a skunk again and shout obscenities at the guests? Did he get arrested by Anguila police this time?
where pirates, rum smugglers, and slave traders once made landfall and the ocean is such a vivid azure, it looks artificially enhanced. Everyone gathers in a colorfully painted shack out on the white-sand beach, where a bar serves free margaritas and bad steel band music plays from cheap
I bet Charles Platt had at least a dozen before he switched to Long Islands Ice Teas. Too bad they didn't serve coke at this party. Did Charles Platt bring his own coke and try to sell it to the guests?
loudspeakers as the sun goes down. The party is being thrown by Lynwood Bell, a stern but hearty character who's the only one wearing a tie. He projects an image of dignity and respectability, which is appropriate since he owns a bank.
It was very foolish of Lynwood ever to talk to Charles Platt, because Charles Platt is a crackpot and a pathological liar.
"Anguilla used to have a large number of banks," he tells me. "In fact, there were 47. But several years ago a British commission reviewed their records, and today only mine remains. The rest were snuffed out or left voluntarily." Anguilla still retains a British governor who can veto local legislation. "I like that it's under the eye of the British," Bell claims. "It would be much harder to corrupt the government here than in some other Caribbean countries." He won't name names, but I suspect he's thinking of islands such as Antigua or St. Kitts, where there have been some memorable scandals.
Alcoholic degenerate Charles Platt is a patholigical liar who probably twisted everything poor Lynwood said.
I ask Bell to what extent his bank assures privacy. "The country does have strong secrecy laws," he says, sounding very cautious, "but the theme that is more--ah--appropriate for your readers is that we do not provide secrecy from money laundering and fraud." Bell used to be the country staff sales manager in Canada for IBM, so he has no trouble seeing "an expanse of possibilities" to be opened up by the Internet. "I think the main barriers to financial transactions on the net are fear, uncertainty, and greed. People think they are protecting their existing highly profitable operations instead of realizing that if they open the doors they would have ten times as much business."
Charles Platt was drunk like a skunk when Lynwood allegedly said this. Did he bring a tape recorder or did he just make up the whole quote?
And Bell outlines a vision that sounds remarkably similar to Cate's. In fact, come to think of it, he may have acquired it from Cate. "Companies are going to want to set up their business on the Internet in a country where they get freedom from taxation," he says. But if some people put a web page on Vincent Cate's server, form a corporation in Anguilla, and open at account at Lynwood Bell's bank, does that really exempt them from American corporate taxes, bearing in mind that physically they never leave the United States?
I bet Lynwood is going to be very embarrased when he finds out that he was interviewed by a crook and a pathological liar. In fact, Lynwood already announced that he never said anything remotely resembling the long quotes Charles Platt attributed to him. Platt just made up all these quotes. Liar!
"Quite possible," claims Bell. "Tax authorities always ask if there is 'mind and management' in a country, or just nominees doing things. A server here, with transactions going through it, adds to the mind and management. If an offer of money is made on Vince's web site, under British common law, the offer was made in Anguilla. If the offer is accepted, I define that as where we check the person's credit. We do the credit check from here--electronically, of course. The only way that British or U.S. authorities could object would be if there were physical goods moving from here into those countries, in which case they would impose a customs tax." So, Bell has his niche market carefully mapped out, and now he's just waiting for net businesses to realize what a deal they're missing. (He isn't interested in individuals wanting private bank accounts, though; corporate customers only need apply.)
Of course Lynwood doesn't want Charles Platt's bank account. The money Charles Platt wanted to depost in Anguila was stolen from Platt's former business partners and clients of his fraudelent "cryocare" business. Charles Platt is a crook and is primarily interested in money laundering. Lynwood stopped talking to Charles Platt after he realized that he was drunk like a skunk.
Meanwhile, the Honorary Victor Banks, Minister of Finance, Planning, and Economic Development in the Government of Anguilla, is also hanging out at the party, a barrel-
Charles Platt is so stupid, he can't spell "Honorable".
chested man wearing an open-necked checked shirt and brown pants. He's treating all the guests with scrupulous respect--even the hairiest types who look twisted and paranoid, because for all he knows, these people are helping to mold online commerce, and Anguilla wants a piece of it.
The only person who wasn't treated with any respect was Charles Platt himself, because the twisted and paranoid crackpot got drunk and was shouting obscenities at the guests. Anybody who refused to talk to Charles Platt because he was drunk and is known to be a liar and a crook got labeled "twisted and paranoid".
Banks tells me he is computer-literate (he owns a Gateway 2000, "with a Pentium processor," he adds quickly). Then he trots out a string of earnest platitudes. "Regardless of restrictions imposed by US and european countries, this emerging technology will eventually win out. Internet-based commerce is a very important issue. Here in Anguilla we are well situated for it. Our banks are well regulated, clean, secure, we are very vigilant of criminal activity, we have strong rules against money laundering and traffic in illegal drugs. We have mutual legal assistance with the U.S. that allows them to get information from us about any clientele involved in criminal activity, although they can't go on fishing expeditions to find out about tax avoidance."
Poor Banks really regrets having spoken to the racist lying crackpot Charles Platt. In another article Platt wrote that Banks isn't fit to be a minister because he knows too much:
Banks seems blissfully unaware that most of the cryptonerds around him probably see nothing wrong with money laundering and illegal drugs, and view all governments as an archaic encrumbrance ripe for demolition. I can't see Victor Banks sympathizing with this libertarian attitude, and indeed it turns out that he obtained his masters degree in economics at The New School for Social Research in New York City, where the graduate faculty promotes Marxist economic theory, attracting many students from some Latin American countries.
Right - Charles Platt is a high school dropout who bought his B.A. in journalism from a mail order college advertized in the National Enquirer. Platt is threatened by "spics" and "niggers" who graduated high school and know more than he does about economic theories.
When I mention this to Banks, he simply denies it. "My education was not left-wing," he says. But I happen to teach at The New School's computer lab, so I have personal
The fact that New School has a drunkard teaching students how to insert a floppy in a PC and how to bring up Microsoft Word reflects very badly on this school. They should fire Charles Platt at once to avoid further embarassment.
experience of its politics. Of course Banks may be a late convert to market economics, just like Deng Xiaopeng. On the
It takes a very sick mind to conclude that since 20 years ago the Minister of Finance went to the same school that later was foolish enough to hire Charles Platt to teach Microsoft Office, and Platt has noticed Marxists there, that the Minister is anything close to a Marxist or to assume anything at all about Anguilla. After all, Platt is currently near this school, so by his twisted and paranoid logic he must have caught the infection too.
other hand, Anguilla's government doesn't seek competitive bids for contracts, maintains a state-owned radio station, and allows Cable and Wireless to have a comfortable monopoly
The USA had a monopoly phone company not that long ago.
of the phone system, with the result that calling rates are extortionate and you have to wait three months to get a phone installed. Cable and Wireless have even deactivated all the pound keys and star keys on Anguillan phones so that no one can use United States call-back services.
This claim by Charles Platt was shown to be another lie.
Something tells me that when Anguilla begins to understand what the net is _really_ all about, the government's enthusiasm may become tempered with caution-- or even (perish the thought!) protectionism.
Who cares what Charles Platt thinks - he's just an alcoholic crackpot. Perpetually drunk, Charles Platt has been spamming Usenet with ads for his phoney 'cryocare' business - freezeing dead bodies so they can be revived in the future. Many former business partners and victims of his scams have exposed Charles Platt as a liar and a crook. Now Charles Platt wants to diversify into money laundering. Someone, call the FBI.