---
alias:
- Paul L.E. Helliwell
- Paul Lionel Edward Helliwell
category: Intelligence & Government
created: 2026-09-21
died: 1976-12-24
location: Miami, Florida
summary: Miami lawyer and wartime OSS intelligence chief in China who set up the CIA
  front Sea Supply in 1951 and the Castle Bank in the Bahamas, and held Walt Disney's
  Florida land options.
tags:
- Person
- PaulHelliwell
- OSS
- CIA
- CastleBank
- SeaSupply
- Proprietaries
- Miami
updated: 2026-09-21
---

Paul Lionel Edward Helliwell was a [Miami](/places/miami/) lawyer who died on December 24, 1976, at 62. "During [World War II](/events/world-war-ii/), he was chief of special intelligence in [China](/places/china/) for the [Office of Strategic Services](/organizations/office-of-strategic-services/)," The Wall Street Journal reported in 1980. Former colleagues told the paper that Helliwell, then a colonel, "regularly used to buy information with five-pound shipments of opium."[^1]

### Sea Supply

"In 1951 Mr. Helliwell helped set up and run Sea Supply Corp., a concern controlled by the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/) as a front. For almost 10 years, Sea Supply was used to supply huge amounts of weapons and equipment to 10,000 Nationalist Chinese troops in Burma as well as to [Thailand](/places/thailand/)'s police." The newspaper described him as "instrumental in helping to direct a network of CIA undercover operations and 'proprietaries.'" A former federal official told it that Helliwell "reputedly was one of the paymasters" for the Bay of Pigs invasion and was "deeply involved" in financing raids on [Cuba](/places/cuba/) from Andros Island between 1963 and 1975.[^1]

### Disney

In the middle 1960s a lawyer for Walt Disney Productions, Robert Price Foster, came to the firm of Helliwell, Melrose and DeWolf to arrange the secret purchase of land in central [Florida](/places/florida/). "All of the options we had taken on larger tracts were in Helliwell's name," Foster recalled. "And so to relieve him as the prolific generator of rumors that he had become, we created a family of corporations as repositories of titles to our purchases." They were Reedy Creek Ranch Lands, Bay Lake Properties, Ayefour Corporation, Latin American Development and Management Corporation, and Tomahawk Properties.[^2]

### Castle Bank

"[Castle Bank](/organizations/castle-bank-and-trust/) was set up and principally controlled by the late Paul Lionel Edward Helliwell." The foreign companies on its 1973 list of depositors traced back to concerns "mostly formed or controlled by Paul Helliwell and his associates." The bank, the paper reported, "was the conduit for millions of dollars earmarked by the CIA for the funding of clandestine operations against Cuba and for other covert intelligence operations directed at countries in Latin America and the Far East," and "pressure from the Central Intelligence Agency, rather than a legal problem, was what caused the Justice Department to drop what could have been the biggest tax-evasion case of all." The agency, the [Justice Department](/organizations/department-of-justice/), and Helliwell's firm declined to comment. The [Miami Herald](/organizations/miami-herald/) reported the next day that "Helliwell may have used his CIA contacts to force an abrupt end to the investigation." Neither federal court that ruled on the case mentions the agency or Helliwell.[^1][^3]

[^1]: Drinkhall, Jim. "IRS vs. CIA: Big Tax Investigation Was Quietly Scuttled by Intelligence Agency," *The Wall Street Journal,* April 18, 1980, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-01208R000100100061-5.
[^2]: Walt Disney Archives, "We Say It's Disney," D23. https://d23.com/we-say-its-disney/
[^3]: "CIA May Have Ended Nassau Bank Probe," *The Miami Herald,* April 19, 1980, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00806R000100200024-2; United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727 (1980); United States v. Payner, 434 F. Supp. 113 (N.D. Ohio 1977).