Chasing Black Gold: The Incredible True Story of a Fuel Smuggler in Africa

For two decades Robert Stone made his living on the high seas. A modern-day pirate, he was a pioneer saturation oil field diver, involved in fishing, treasure-hunting and, more than anything else, smuggling, which brought him more money than he knew how to spend. Stone spent the last ten of his smuggling years in Africa, where he traded in illicit fuel. The murky waters of the Niger delta were his place of business as he operated in the most corrupt regime in the world, a place ruled by money and guns. Protected by the military, he bought diesel directly from refineries and sold his black cargo to legitimate and illegitimate businesses all over the world, making millions of dollars in the process until his smuggling empire came crashing down thanks to a friend’s betrayal and the US law enforcement. Chasing Black Gold is the incredible true story of Stone’s African fuel smuggling adventure. It is a tale straight out of Hollywood, one which throws the reader into a world where suitcases full of millions in cash are flown around the globe on private jets, where the corrupt practices of Third World governments and military regimes must be mastered, a world of numbered bank accounts and countries of convenience where living under false IDs and money laundering are all in a day’s work.