WHO NEEDS THE CAYMAN ISLANDS?
(FORTUNE Magazine) – Anadarko, Oklahoma, isn’t exactly the sort of place you’d expect to find an offshore bank. For starters, this small Western town is landlocked in the middle of farm and cattle country–in other words, decidedly onshore. It’s got a population of 6,600 and a median household income of $21,000, and you’d be hard pressed to find much of anything to do there, save hunting, horseback riding, and the occasional meat-pie bake-off. So what makes the town’s First Lenape Nation Bank an offshore bank, exactly? The answer is tribal sovereignty. First Lenape is owned by the Delaware tribe of western Oklahoma, a sovereign Indian nation whose independence from U.S. state and federal authority has been federally recognized since 1934. So in return for getting their land stolen, the Delawares, who were originally from their namesake state and were exiled to Oklahoma, get to operate a bank that can guarantee Swiss-style banking secrecy to both tribal members and nonmembers. That mean
