At best, the brothers were running an un-registered commodities business in Monaco, atop an apartment building purchased by their company in January 1998 for 423,000,000 French francs (sixty-five million dollars) in cash. They re-named the building and kept it completely empty, aside from its top two floors, where each brother kept an apartment and from which they ran their investment trading company. At worst, they were laundering money for Russian interests, including Gazprom, of which they were the fourth largest investor-and fronting for Gazprom's extensive money laundering and kickback schemes.
The first piece of data linking the brothers to Monaco dealt with the dissolution of their New Zealand property company, struck off the record on 30 January 1991. As they were residing outside of New Zealand, the brothers were obliged to provide their address: Le Soleil d'Or, 14th floor, CD Rainier III, MC 98000 Monaco.
A decade later, in addition to owning their own (mostly empty) apartment building, the brothers' owned and resided in villas in nearby St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Additionally, they bought and renovated the old David Niven estate in St-Jean facing the Med, where they had planted their elderly parents. They also possessed their own yacht, helicopter and jet plane, along with a security apparatus that was described to Eringer as "like Fort Knox."
To be certain that their building indeed housed a thriving, un-registered business enterprise, Eringer arranged surveillance one morning. It was an awkward location, opposite Monaco's heliport, where someone either on foot or in a car for three hours would come under suspicion. So Eringer recruited an artist, who set up an easel and painted a landscape while noting the plates of no fewer than eighteen vehicles entering the private underground car park. These were the commodity brokers and support staff employed by the brothers.
Further inquiry revealed that the Swiss government was in the midst of their own investigation into the brothers activities. Eringer dispatched Piers to Zurich to meet investigating magistrate Ivo Hoppler, who believed the brothers had engaged in money laundering for Russian clients in Switzerland and also believed their company had defrauded a number of Russian investors.
Hoppler had begun his investigation after a ruling in September 2002 by the Swiss Federal Banking Commission that the brothers' company should be shut down. Subsequent to this decision, police commenced sweeping searches at the brothers' Zurich offices, and they were discovered to be operating a bank without a license.
Soon after, on October 7th, a Swiss court ordered the company to cease its various operations due to alleged money laundering activities in Russia and the Caribbean. Part of the evidence removed by police were documents linking it to Credit Agricole as one of the main money laundering ports for elements of Chechen organized crime, as well as for former high-ranking officials in the Russian government.
Eringer discussed various options with the Prince on how to counter the brothers. Because he was still Hereditary Prince, without power to take action through Monaco's government, Albert concurred with his spymaster to commence Operation Spook, an overt investigation that would send a signal to the brothers that their activities were under scrutiny. It would suggest to them that they consider looking for another country in which to base themselves and their operations.
Coming Next: First Briefing Continues