St. Maarten Private Eye

Corruption in St. Maarten

A friend of mine was having lunch at a Dutch Side restaurant a while back when he noticed a prominent politician having lunch with a local business person. There were smiles all around the table, handshakes and at one point at least one envelope was passed from the business person to the politician.

Eventually lunch ended, and both gentlemen left, but the envelope, a rather fat one, fell to the floor and wasn't noticed.

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My friend didn't touch it but decided to stick around. After a while he saw a restaurant employee pick up the envelope. It had no markings on the outside so the employee opened it to see whose it was. Imagine his surprise when he found lots of American bills inside.... it was unmistakable to my friend from his vantage point that many bills were in that envelope. My friend said the employee's eyes bugged out.

Minutes later the employee was approached by the politician, who came back realizing he had dropped the envelope. He thanked the employee for picking up the dropped envelope. Away went the politician with his envelope filled with money.

Perhaps this was a personal debt or a business debt. Perhaps not. In any case, after all these years of "alleged" envelopes, lunches, dinners, breakfasts and secret meetings, it is very interesting to see Dutch investigators looking under the rugs of our elected politicians. One wonders just how many empty envelopes smelling of dirty money they could uncover.

Island Politics | Justice Police Crime | caribsnooper's blog | 12 comments | read more