But it wasn’t the history, the architectural splendor, or the warm, inviting culture that had drawn Zack Chambers and a team of CIA Special Activities Division operators. It was the online gaming industry, which was introduced on the island in 2004 when significant tax breaks had transformed the economy of Malta and led to one of the highest concentrations of online-gaming licenses in the European Union. As a result, it was now home to over three hundred online, invisible casinos that served customers all throughout the EU and attracted all sorts of elements, including organized crime. With that amount of cash flowing in and out of the banks, the casinos were the perfect place to launder large amounts of money.

In addition to the reported criminal element, the online gaming industry attracted wealthy financiers from all over the world, and it was one such financier that had drawn the attention of the US government. The worst part about it from Zack’s perspective was that he was a US citizen who had betrayed his own country.

Raymond Moretti, known as “Ray-Ray” to his friends, had existed as a relative nobody for six years, slaving away on the trading floors of Wall Street, futilely attempting to make a living with a business degree from Wharton. While the six-figure income was nice, it was New York City, not Cincinnati, and the cost of living barely kept him in the black. He was a natural at identifying low-risk stocks, but he spent the few hours he had to himself away from work trying to devise a way to earn money with little overhead and almost no effort. And it was e-commerce that presented the perfect opportunity. The trick had been determining the right products to peddle, and he’d landed his first big sales with inflatable lounge chairs. Next, he’d stumbled upon fidget spinners and fidget cubes, and before he knew it, after setting up agreements with producers in China to direct-ship his customers and prevent himself from taking on inventory, he was earning tens of thousands of dollars. Within one year, he’d earned his first million, and he’d walked away from Wall Street.

But Ray-Ray wasn’t content with just e-commerce. An avid online gambler, he’d heard about the licensing opportunities on Malta before they’d been publicly announced, and he’d pounced on them, opening Big City Limits in honor of New York City, which had quickly earned him more millions. Even then, had he just remained in the online gambling business, he would’ve never entered the spotlight of the US government.

Unfortunately for Ray-Ray, on a trip to Malta to inspect the servers of his company, tour the country, and lose real, hard cash in one of the nation’s four physical casinos, he’d become close friends and business partners with Aleksei Belyekov. The real problem was that Aleksei was a Russian oligarch, the kind with ties to the Kremlin at all levels.