Legally blind, the brothers Bill and James Alderdice had a cocaine-fueled dream as they squinted down on Fort Lauderdale from the opulent executive penthouse of their International Gold Bullion Exchange.
First they wanted to create the largest corporate empire on Earth.
Then, as Bill put it, ``We want to be able to feed the poor people, help the blind people, help the crippled people, help the homeless, help anybody ...``
But in 1983 their precious metals trading company collapsed, leaving some 13,000 stunned investors with losses of more than $75 million. Authorities in New York, Illinois and Florida launched seperate investigations that led to dozens of criminal fraud charges against the Alderdices.
While awaiting trial in his Fort Lauderdale home, Bill was hacked to death by his ex-convict chauffeur in July of 1984. Sunshine documented the strange saga in an article that appeared on Sept. 23, 1984.
In April 1985, Jim Alderdice was found guilty on multiple counts of criminal fraud, and sentenced to 10 years.
``I will not be imprisoned,`` Jim, 28, said as he entered the Federal Corrections Institution in Tallahassee. ``Christ lives inside me, so I will truly be free whether I am bound or not.``
The only chance that IGBE`s investor-victims had of recovering their losses lay in a Nome, Alaska, offshore gold mining venture the Alderdice brothers had been involved in. ``The gold is out there,`` reports IGBE trustee Earl Faircloth. ``But we`re unable to find anyone willing to invest the $3 to $5 million it will cost to go after it. So I don`t think any of IGBE`s investors stand any real chance of recovering the money they lost.