“The only cigarettes allowed in the Dominican Republic were those made from tobacco grown on Trujillo’s plantations and manufactured at his 1,600-man cigarette factory. Although Dominican tobacco is good when used in making cigars, the people wanted what they couldn’t have and that was American-made cigarettes, which were impossible to get on the island. It was also more profitable to raise sugarcane on the available land, so that also hampered the amount of tobacco grown. Noticing the bumboats around the stern, I shouted down to them, asking what they were selling. It turned out that they were buying and were willing to pay $50 per carton for the same American cigarettes that we only paid twenty-five cents a pack for. At that time we were allowed to keep the ship’s store open in port, so the arithmetic made sense. I quickly bought five cartons at $2.50 each, and started lowering them down in a bucket. Each time I lowered a carton of Lucky Strikes, $50.00 came back up. Not bad, and all went well, until I got to the fourth carton and the bucket came up empty. The scoundrel, on his bumboat, was heading back to the port with a carton that he didn’t pay for. There were still other vendors in boats looking to make a deal, but by now I couldn’t buy any more cigarettes because the ship’s storekeeper had figured out what was happening. Knowing that it would deplete the cigarettes left in the ship’s store, he dropped the wire screen closure. Okay, I knew what to do…. I went to the carpenter’s locker and carefully slit open my remaining carton and filled the empty carton with sawdust before resealing it again. Down went the carton and up came $50. With that, I closed up shop, knowing that the guys in the bumboats would figure out what had happened and would try to get even. I wound up with $200 and 10 packs of cigarettes, less my unforeseen expenses. Not a bad day’s work.”