---
alias:
- Operation Trade Winds
category: Law Enforcement Operation
created: 2026-09-21
end: 1975
location: Jacksonville, Florida
start: 1965
summary: IRS intelligence operation run from Jacksonville from 1965 against American
  money in Bahamian banks, which used paid informants in violation of Bahamian law
  and was called off after the Castle Bank briefcase theft.
tags:
- Project
- OperationTradewinds
- InternalRevenueService
- Bahamas
- TaxHavens
- OrganizedCrime
- CastleBank
- Intertel
updated: 2026-09-21
---

"In 1965, the Internal Revenue Service launched an investigation into the financial activities of American citizens in the [Bahamas](/places/bahamas/). The project, known as 'Operation Trade Winds,' was headquartered in Jacksonville," the Supreme Court recorded in 1980.[^1]

### Method

In 1966 senior officers of IRS intelligence met Henry Petersen, chief of the [Justice Department](/organizations/department-of-justice/)'s organized crime section, to arrange "special handling" of the evidence, which was being obtained in ways that "violated Bahamian laws." Informants such as "former [Wackenhut](/organizations/wackenhut-corporation/) agent [Norman Casper](/people/norman-casper/), a/k/a 'TW-24'" could gather material to be used only "for lead purposes," and it was handed to the service on American soil by a different agent from the one who had gone to the islands "for normal liaison purposes." The operation is said to have recruited Lynden Pindling, later prime minister, as an informant. A Justice Department lawyer who worked with it, Robert Peloquin, wrote in a January memorandum on the casino planned for Paradise Island that "the atmosphere looks right for a Lansky skim." Peloquin, his colleague [William Hundley](/people/william-hundley/), the IRS intelligence chief William Kolar, and several agents afterward went to work for [Intertel](/organizations/intertel/), a subsidiary of the company that owned that casino.[^2]

### Castle Bank

In 1972 the operation turned to the [Castle Bank and Trust](/organizations/castle-bank-and-trust/). On January 15, 1973, Casper, working for Special Agent Richard Jaffe, took the briefcase of a bank officer from a [Miami](/places/miami/) apartment and had its contents photographed at an IRS agent's house. The list of some 300 depositors produced a project of several hundred tax cases. A federal judge called the conduct "outrageous" in 1977. The Supreme Court noted that "in 1976 Congress investigated the improprieties revealed in this record," and that "as a result, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue 'called off' Operation Trade Winds." The Wall Street Journal reported in 1980 that the cases had been dropped at the request of the [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/), for which the bank's founder, [Paul Helliwell](/people/paul-helliwell/), had moved money.[^1][^3]

[^1]: United States v. Payner, 447 U.S. 727 (1980); United States v. Payner, 434 F. Supp. 113 (N.D. Ohio 1977); House Committee on Government Operations, *Oversight Hearings into the Operations of the IRS (Operation Tradewinds, Project Haven, and Narcotics Traffickers Tax Program),* 94th Cong., 1st Sess., 1975.
[^2]: Hougan, Jim. *Spooks: The Haunting of America: The Private Use of Secret Agents*. William Morrow, 1978, pp. 382-383.
[^3]: 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.