Getting Started in Flight Capital

M E M O R A N D U M

To: Chairman, First MegaBank of New York

From: [name withheld]

Re: Why you haven’t received our last payment

Dear Mr. Chairman,

Sir, I am writing to you today to explain why you haven’t received payment on our property loans. As you know, the hurricanes hit our island pretty hard last year — and the banana crop hasn’t fully recovered yet from Hurricane Mitch.

Tourism isn’t doing too well either, what with the people from Europe not traveling as much because of the soft euro. We’re still good for the money we owe, but we’ll need a little more time before we can pay you.

Do you have any ideas for how we can make more money? The textile business didn’t pan out, and my kids got tired of typing up credit card receipts.

Dmitri — the guy who lives down the road in the house with walls — suggests we get into the offshore banking business. He says it’s real easy. All we have to do is promise not to tell anybody where the money came from. And anyway, it’s supposed to be good to diversify our income, right?

Dmitri says his friends have lots of flight capital. When I asked what that was, he explained that his buddies would bring the money here on airplanes. Hence, the name flight capital. Sounds good to me.

I’ve looked on the Internet and found a do-it-yourself banking kit, but I want to run a classy outfit. Could you please send us copies of your banking kit?

Respectfully yours,

[name withheld]