We gossiped and fibbed our way through many Vashon stories about the mysterious, Balkan cigarette man named Ramos (isn’t that a Spanish surname, by the way?).



We heard how Zamfir’s was going to hurt Granny’s Attic and bankrupt the clinic. There were plenty of racial slurs that made no sense. How can one be precisely racist while being completely ignorant about a person’s heritage?

Sea Change Tattoo was in cahoots with Zamfir. Pawn shops were bad because island teens would hock the family toaster oven for drug money.

I heard nothing about the American dream or the reverie of entrepreneurship in Hard Times. Some folks would rather see a line of boarded storefronts than a place to sell Grandpa’s trombone.

We enjoyed several versions of this vignette:

Three Japanese men (sometimes told with two Chinese, or maybe Koreans) entered Movie Magic and asked (in heavy accent) for pornographic movies in hushed voices. The folks at Movie Magic courteously explained that they did not carry hard core. Instead, they offered up Mickey Rourke’s ridiculously erotic 9 ½ Weeks (in VHS only).

The unhappy men wanted nothing from Mickey. When they couldn’t find It on our fair isle, they envisioned opening their own shop. What an opportunity! Nine thousand souls lacking a convenient outlet to purchase pornography.

[Footnote: The Wall Street Journal says porn is recession-proof. Try investing in a porn mutual fund like Fidelity’s Millennial Snuff Fund.]

The strangers did not read English well. As they left, they saw shady Zamfir’s across the street. They misread ‘Pawn’ as ‘Porn.’

The Japanese did not want competition, especially from European gypsies, known to ruthlessly guard their porn and cigarette enterprises. Challenge a Romanian or a Greek or a Turkman (whatever) and you could lose an ear in a knife fight. Or worse.

The way we see it, Zamfir saved Vashon from an Asian porn epidemic.

The Fall of Zamfir?

DRESDEN – A senior investment banker with Credit Suisse First Boston has been arrested in Germany on charges of commercial espionage, prosecutors said Wednesday. A Bulgarian and two Romanian privatization officials have also been detained.

Vadim Benyatov, managing director in the investment banking department of Credit Suisse First Boston Europe in London, and Ramos Zamfir, a consultant working for CSFB, had been detained. Benyatov is responsible for the bank's business in central and Eastern Europe.

Two Romanian officials – Mihai Dorinel Mucea, who heads a state privatization department, and Radu Mihai Donciu, a former adviser to the Minister for Communications – have been detained on the same charges. Four other people, including another privatization official, are also being investigated in the case but have not been detained.

Prosecutors say the group, allegedly led by Zamfir, obtained secret commercial documents which they provided to foreign companies participating in the sale of Romanian state-owned tobacco companies.

Credit Suisse said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that the bank had “no reason to believe that any Credit Suisse employee has acted inappropriately” adding it would cooperate fully with the investigation. The statement said the bank would not comment further until “we have a clear understanding of the basis for these allegations.”