Powerful Aruban Business Family
The Mansur family made its fortune as cigarette manufacturers and in the import-export business. With a licence of Philip Morris, they were the major suppliers of Marlboro in the Caribbean basin for many years (the licence has been withdrawn). The Mansurs sponsored the best baseball team – Aruba's national sport – the Marlboro Red Tigers as well as the Aruban People's Party (Arubaanse Volkspartij, AVP) of former Prime Minister Henny Eman. They owned their own bank, the Interbank, and the biggest hotel and time-sharing complex, La Cabana, and the Royal Cabana casino. And they have a couple of import-export businesses in the Free Trade Zone.
US President Bill Clinton in 1996 publicly identified Aruba "as a major drug-transit country" and noted that "a substantial portion of the free-zone's businesses in Aruba are owned and operated by members of the Mansur family, who have been indicted in the United States on charges of conspiracy to launder trafficking proceeds." In the late 1980s, an investigator for Senator John Kerry's committee investigating the Iran-Contra Affair, interviewing drug traffickers in a West Miami prison kept hearing about the Mansurs. "Who are the Mansurs?" he would ask. Answer: "The big family in Aruba we used for laundering money and moving cocaine."
Read more about this topic: Jossy Mansur
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