The Cayman Islands are famous as a tax haven – and as the home of the Iguana. Today the islanders make chicken soup instead of turtles and owe the export hit a former pilot, and his creativity to chance.

In the youth in Jamaica, Robert Hamaty worked on the sugar cane fields of his father; he cut the straws and took them to markets and mills. Later he breathed the scent of world-wide, 30 years as a flight captain at Air Jamaica and Cayman Airways. The smell of molasses, but he had all the time does not get out of the nose, says Hamaty.

The pilot cap, he has long hung on the nail. Today Hamaty a white guard, for hygiene reasons. He stands in his small factory in George Town on Grand Cayman. “We use our best rums,” says Hamaty. He points to two oak barrels, from which the dark, five-year-old alcohol ferments.

 

What else in this dough is a mystery, the Hamaty strict guard than the local banks, their customer. And it wants in the Cayman Islands which are called. Not for nothing is the British colony as the “Switzerland of the Caribbean”. The banking secrecy is as sacred as the generous financial supervision. Above all, there are no taxes, businesses pay only registration fees. So today on the islands about 80,000 resident companies – twice as many as humans. 500 insurance companies, 600 banks and 2000, make Fund’s capital George Town the fifth largest financial center in the world.

 

Because the Cayman Islands are a place of the mailbox-existences, hardly a company has more than one address, or is ever at work lives in bodily form. Most famous exception is Robert Hamatys Tortuga Rum Company. It operates on Grand Cayman is not just a factory, but also several shops. Hamatys famous spirits company, however, less with her than with her rum cake – specifically with a product, the spirit of the rum is completely expelled. “When flies jaws of alcohol,” says Hamaty. “Back remains only the delicious aroma.”