Thief by Greg Curtis Read Free Book Online

all he’d had plenty of practice over the previous years and decades. The police when they started checking the clues he’d left for them, had found themselves irresistibly drawn to the new Asian crime gangs appearing on the scene. Bogus licence plates, fake financial transfers and some strange tales spread on the street, all had done their work well. No doubt the triads would be picking up some more unwelcome publicity and, quite probably for the first time in their miserable existence, would actually be innocent of it. That might at least curb their evil for a while.
     
    The stones he decided to pawn through his vast network of jewellers, stone by stone as he usually did. Breaking them up and setting them in stunning arrangements would as always be slow. But it would net the best possible price, the tracks would be that much harder to follow and there was no sign yet that anyone was on to the ring.
     
    Mikel had a network of jewellers always willing to deal with him, few of them even suspecting the gems were stolen. After all he was a registered dealer in precious stones. It was just that he sold far more than he bought. A little astute bookkeeping meant he showed only a relatively small profit each financial year. Enough to explain the nice though not particularly lavish home he lived in, and the frequent trips around the world. Not enough to mark him as anything more.
     
    Likewise the gold would be traded at a huge profit through other stores, after carefully being re-smelted so it could pass as Swiss gold. Paper money was always a problem, although he doubted the serial numbers would have been recorded. But a hundred million in U.S. currency was simply too difficult to just bank. Over the coming weeks it would be banked in small deposits in a thousand accounts and under a thousand different names. Likewise, large wads of it would simply be mailed from a dummy mail box somewhere, to respective charities.
     
    The electronic money on the other hand was a cinch to move. He simply passed it through a set of dummy bank accounts, and then deposited it directly in some of his favourite charities. It would take years and multiple court orders before anyone would be able to track it, and by then it would be far too late. The accounts would have been emptied and closed, new ones created and when they checked the owners would never have existed anyway.
     
    Next he turned his attention to the crime scene. True to the old saying, this criminal always returned to the scene of the crime, but only ever as an electronic eavesdropper. If the authorities only knew he’d often joked, though only to himself, - they’d have had a fit.
     
    Initial forensics reports from the New York Police Departments’ own computers hadn’t yet logged any blood he’d left behind in the hallway, which wasn’t really surprising. They were still trying to piece together what had happened in Mr. Smith’s apartment, which had apparently been vaporized in a mini explosion. Thus far they were working on the principle that the mobsters had used a rocket on it. Mikel tried not to laugh too loudly.
     
    At much the same time the Fed’s had shown up, wanting to know all about organized crime and the evidence that had been found. Excellent! He couldn’t have planned it any better. By the time those two departments had finished snipping at each other there wouldn’t be any evidence left to worry about.
     
    The CIA’s Cat Squad hadn’t even shown up yet officially, although there were several references to ‘agents of other agencies’ in the reports. Either they were slow for once, or else just being more discrete. In a way he felt privileged, having had an entire department of the CIA dedicated to catching just him. A tribute to his skill and success. But it was also a worry. Still, despite having an overview of his operations in dozens of different countries, having studied his methods extensively, and even knowing what he was doing with the moneys,