In 1990 the Corleone crime family had an overabundance of cash. It needed to launder that cash in some legitimate business. The business had to operate outside the family’s headquarters in New York. It must be a business that needed great influxes of cash to operate.

Don Corleone conceived of a company based in Omaha, Nebraska called Waste, Asbestos Removal and Technology (WART). He placed in control of WART a local businessman of low reputation, Amos Nicholas, whose experience was selling used cars.

WART, capitalized with equipment purchased with the Family’s money, began the process of obtaining contracts to remove asbestos from public buildings throughout the country. WART hired marketing specialists whom it promised a commission of 50 percent of the contract price for every contract obtained. WART had no interest in making a profit. Its only interest was to convert the monies the family got by its criminal activities to clean money paid by various governmental entities for the removal of asbestos. WART made profit by removing the asbestos and then dumping it in stream beds, gullies, and vacant land in Nebraska, Wyoming and Colorado.

On occasion WART even obtained a contract from the City of Omaha to remove and dispose of waste asbestos it had illegally dumped. WART’S only difficulty was in getting insurance that the public entities with which it contracted required. Because of the high risks involved in removing asbestos and other toxic waste, WART was uninsurable in the regular marketplace. WART was required to go to the surplus lines market and buy its insurance from new, untested, insurers operating out of the Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos Islands. Premiums were high and the level of confidence that the insurer would pay a claim was low. Two insurers, in fact, disappeared off the face of the earth shortly before the termination of the policies.

Amos Nicholas suggested at a WART board meeting that Don Corleone start his own offshore insurance company. It would allow him to launder more money and provide insurance as required by the contract.

Shortly after that, Bindle & Crucible Insurance Company of the Turks and Caicos was born. The Turks Insurance Department chartered it to insure and reinsure the specialty risks of toxic waste disposal contractors. Its first client was WART. It then found that it could sell insurance to legitimate waste disposal companies who were also having difficulty finding policies. Bindle & Crucible stayed in business for eighteen months. Fourteen million dollars in premium ran into the company, it paid two million dollars in claims, and twelve million dollars in commissions and directors and officer’s salaries. The doors then closed and no one could find or make contact with any of the officers, directors or employees of Bindle & Crucible. Those companies who had purchased the insurance in good faith found they had none. Each paid claims out of their own pocket. Each vowed never again to purchase insurance from an offshore insurance company.

Amos Nicholas was now a trusted advisor of Don Corleone. He suggested to the Don, now that they had taken as much money as they could from the defunct Bindle & Crucible Insurance Company, that they should buy a legitimate company. He had learned that a small Omaha company, admitted in all fifty states, named Brickwall Insurance Company was for sale for only $4,000,000, its total assets. The Don agreed to fund the purchase if Nicholas was willing to operate the company.

Nicholas explained that buying the company was not necessary. It should be enough to merely make a legitimate sounding offer and then issue policies as if they did own the company. The insurance buyers would never know; no claims would ever be paid; and if they were lucky, they would stick the insurance company with all of the liabilities.
Nicholas issued policies in Brickwall’s name to the same clients who had purchased insurance from Bindle & Crucible. They were now confident that they were being insured by an admitted company. The scheme worked well until the first claims started to come in and Brickwall denied knowledge of the insurance.

Brickwall sued Nicholas for fraudulently issuing policies. He accepted service, admitted his “error” and promised never to do it again. The court issued a judgment in favor of Brickwall prohibiting Nicholas from ever issuing a policy in their name again.