Norman Casper

Norman Casper was a private detective in Miami, formerly an agent of the Wackenhut Corporation, who worked as a paid informant of the Internal Revenue Service under the designation TW-24 in Operation Tradewinds, its inquiry into American money in the banks of the Bahamas. He was known as "the Friendly Ghost." The operation was run in coordination with Robert Peloquin of Intertel and Henry Petersen of the organized crime section of the Department of Justice.¹

Casper was used for his "good contacts in the Miami and Caribbean areas." In October 1972 he met Samuel Pierson, president of the Castle Bank, at the Miami airport while posing as a federal narcotics agent. The Castle Bank had been organized by the Miami lawyer Paul Helliwell.¹

The Briefcase Caper

In late October 1972 Special Agent Richard Jaffe of the revenue service's Jacksonville office asked Casper for the names of the depositors of the Castle Bank. Casper cultivated the bank's officer Michael Wolstencroft and introduced him to a private investigator, Sybol Kennedy, whom he later called a member of his "spy network." Learning that Wolstencroft would be in Miami on January 15, 1973, he planned what he called "the briefcase caper," clearing each step with Jaffe, who cleared it with the chief of IRS intelligence in Jacksonville and supplied a "trusted" locksmith. While Wolstencroft and Kennedy dined at Key Biscayne, Casper entered her apartment with her key, took the briefcase to the house of an IRS agent, had some 400 documents photographed, and replaced it. "The entire 'caper' lasted approximately one and one-half hours." Two weeks later Kennedy stole a Rolodex from Wolstencroft's office in the Bahamas. Jaffe testified "that he had not cared how the rolodex file had been obtained." "The IRS paid Casper $8,000 in cash," of which about 1,000 went to Kennedy. His standing fee was put at 5,000 dollars on every million recovered.²³

A federal judge found in 1977 that "the activities of the Government agents Jaffe and Casper were outrageous," and that they had probably committed a felony under Florida law. The government did not call Kennedy as a witness. Casper said that a name on the depositor printout was Richard M. Nixon: "There's no way to know if that's the Richard M. Nixon. I can't believe he'd be so stupid as to use his own name on an account like that." After the cases were dropped he said: "Now, I'm just trying to pay my bills (the IRS is dunning me for eight hundred dollars in back taxes). And trying not to get killed." CBS reported in 1980 that he was "out of a job, broke, yet sure of what he's done."²³⁴