Money Laundering

The Signoretti Mob has controlled most of Vermillion's illegal activity -- rackets, drugs, prostitution, etc -- for much of the 20th century. From his immense villa in the mountains outside Violet City, Marco Signoretti (Mr. Not Appearing in This Film) rules over all of this. It is highly profitable, and still goes fairly well, but he has been facing a growing problem in recent years: modern banking regulations make it harder and harder to manage his money.

So he's taken a new and innovative approach, to go with the times: venture capital. He essentially owns Brian Truman, who is a rags-to-riches-to-rags story -- he made a fortune building up a company 20 years ago, then blew it on a succession of gold-digger wives and gambling. In the end, he was sufficiently in hock to the mob that his life was in danger, at which point Don Signoretti made him a deal: Signoretti would back him and make him appear rich, but most of the money would go where the Don wanted it to.

That was the beginning of Greyrock Investments. Since then, it has acquired several more "partners", all with similar stories: they are owned by the Mob, and invest the Don's money. They've done pretty well, but are acutely conscious of the (lethal) price of making a big mistake. This is why they have a very short-term viewpoint, and will often pull out of a company at the first hint of trouble.

Bjorn Ari works for the Don, among others. Most of the time he is decently honest, but he receives instructions now and then -- hiding evidence that a company is Mob-controlled, or doing something to hurt a competing company. He is well-paid for this. He leaked information about a robbery at a company a couple of months ago on the Don's orders -- the company was competing with one of his, and he is trying to sink it before it becomes a problem.

Regan Archie represents the Don's legal interests, brushing aside problems and using her position as a top lawyer in Violet City to sway things in the right direction. It was her idea to match Greyrock up with Decameron, about three years ago -- right up to his death, Roger Cameron had no idea that his company had become a Mob money-laundering (and profit-making) front. Fred Ronit has been starting to get very slightly suspicious, though. The one person at Decameron who roughly does know what is going on is of course Jamie Rickie (who is meticulous about understanding money flows), but he isn't stupid enough to do anything about it.

Senator Newbold has been under the thumb of the Don for pretty much his entire career. Back when he was an eager pup, in need of funds for his first Senate campaign, the Don backed him through intermediaries, only telling him about it afterwards. The Don is too smart to abuse him too much -- having someone in Washington is simply too useful. The Modern American Freedom PAC, which is paying for most of his current campaign, was set up by the Don and his friends, who care a lot about this election. The Don hates Jeri Ferdinand with a burning passion: not only has she been a pain in the ass in fighting organized crime, she's been bringing in lots of Latinos, who are now competing for his drug trade. And Fred Ronit is simply too unpredictable, and apparently uncorruptible -- a potential enemy, instead of the tool that Newbold has been.

Rhona Finlay spent a while seconded to an FBI investigation early this year: she was mostly an errand-runner, but knows the key take-away, that the FBI suspects a connection between Signoretti and Regan Archie, and that there is a lot of money being laundered through Violet City.

Characters and Archetypes: B Ari