For Wall Street Villains: The Five Best Hideouts – With No Extradition

With the Goldman Sachs scandal playing out in the press and President Obama’s recent Cooper Union speech still resonating through America’s financial community, the word on The Street is that many of the country’s less-principled financiers have recently found themselves daydreaming about getting a one-way ticket out of Dodge.

Luckily, the financial scofflaw with a truckload of money has several options at his or her disposal. Granted, traditional havens like Canada might be a little hesitant to adopt someone who helped bring down the world economy – and in light of recent events in Greece, even France might be reluctant to open its doors.

But never fear, dozens of countries don’t have extradition treaties with the U.S. – and are desperate for new visitors.

Admittedly, most of the countries on the nonextradition list are communist, run by brutal theocracies, currently at war or lack a functional government. But with a little imagination, a walled fortress and a steady supply of the local moonshine, intrepid on-the-lam travelers can handle it. What’s more, with kinds of winters New York has frozen through lately, equatorial Africa is looking better and better.

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Which leads us to DailyFinance’s picks for the top five places to run to when the U.S. Senate decides that it wants to have a little talk.

Outdoorsman: With a per-capita GDP of over $17,000, Croatia occupies that sweet spot between places that are too poor to be safe and too expensive to be enjoyable. Your dollar will go a long way here, and with miles of beaches, remote castles, extensive caves and uninhabited islands, the formerly war-torn republic has endless options for your next home. While a little lacking in nightlife, Croatia’s extensive diving, caving and hiking opportunities make it ideal for outdoorsmen, and its stable government and parliamentary republic promise that your property – and life – should be well protected by the rule of law.

Star Trek Enthusiast: Trekkers have few better choices than Kazakhstan. This Central Asian nation, the ninth-largest country in the world, is basically what happens when you mix hundreds of years of Mongol heritage with gobs of revenues from oil and uranium. Terrain options range from extensive shoreline to rugged canyons, but Kazakhstan is particularly famous for the steppes, a sprawling, windblown grassland where the descendants of the Khans drink fermented mare’s milk and practice Khyz Kuu, a traditional sport that basically involves chasing down maidens while on horseback. In terms of cities, the capital, Astana, halves the distance between Mongol and Klingon culture, with breathtaking buildings that seem to have jumped off the cover of a Ray Bradbury novel. Officially a presidential republic, Kazakhstan is actually more of a benevolent dictatorship, but the rule of law is strong, and chances are that you won’t have any unpleasant run-ins with the local authorities.

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May 18, 2010

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