Close to Christmas a customer called Express Flexi-Pack in Dubai’s Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZ) specifically requested that I install their recently purchased machine. My accountant sister lived in Dubai and I had visited her there before (1991 & 1994), but I did not know this customer or why they should specifically request that I attend. My customer data base entry for this customer is linked here. I stayed with my sister in Dubai rather than a hotel for this visit.
There was nothing unusual about the visit that I recall, except in hindsight: the customer’s address (PO Box 16797, JAFZ) is very similar to an address (PO Box 16958, JAFZ) used by 9/11 accomplice and Guantanamo detainee Ammar al-Baluchi. In October 1998 Baluchi used that address to register a bank account for transferring funds from bank accounts in the United Arab Emirates to the future hijackers already in the USA. The PO Box addresses are similar enough - 16797 and 16958 - that they are very likely to have been in the same building or the same block of buildings. Link to Ammar al-Baluchi’s Wikipedia entry that details his activities in Dubai in 1998.
My one clear memory from visiting this customer was when I stepped outside of the air-conditioned factory’s rear fire exit for a cigarette. What I saw in the neighbouring factory compound reminded me of a scene from a concentration camp - the south Asian workers there were waving and calling to me from behind a barbed wire covered slit window (with no glass)l. Although I couldn’t hear/understand what they were saying, it appeared that seeing me smoking a cigarette was a highlight in their day. I felt ashamed to be part of a financial system that was underpinned by such exploitation.
The strangest thing about this customer was they asked me to return three months later, in March 1998.