The Tin Tycoon

The Tin Tycoon | Daily Tribune

This story is inspired by actual events in the futures market and the Netflix movie “Blackhat.”

A “futures contract” is an agreement to buy or sell a commodity, like wheat, at a future date at a pre-agreed price and volume. The contract is based on speculation that the price would go up due to a shortage, induced or natural. Wall Street bigwigs made windfall profits in the wheat futures market but brought hunger to millions of farmers in the Arab nations, the main global supplier, and soaring wheat prices for consumers worldwide.

Tony de la Cruz was a Filipino maverick billionaire who was heavily into futures investments. Fortune Magazine featured him as “Asia’s Rising Star in Business.” Here, he is talking to his young and attractive Marketing VP, Didi, who is his futures market research specialist.

TONY: How much did we earn in the wheat futures?

DIDI: $64.05 million.

TONY: My, I didn’t know it was that small.

DIDI: Your fault, Tony. I told you to double your investment.

TONY: You’re more of a gambler because you don’t own the company. Futures are a risky investment. A sudden event could wipe us out.

DIDI: True, but I did my homework. It was a combination of a looming drought causing a potential wheat shortage plus the fact that other investors were scared of the Arabs, who were the main suppliers. It was almost a monopoly investment for us until Wall Street noticed us.

TONY: We destroyed the economies of four Arab nations? Millions of farmers went hungry.

DIDI: It’s a vicious world, Tony. We profit from the loss of others.

TONY: Didi, you have no conscience. You’re a Machiavellian fool.

DIDI: Aren’t you? I learned everything from you.

TONY: Shut up. So you did (they laugh). Can you look into the tin market in Malaysia?

DIDI: Oh, our next victim. But how do we induce a shortage to push prices up?

TONY: Leave that to me.

After two months, Didi reports to Tony.

DIDI: In Perak, Malaysia, there are five tin mining operations, which supply 65 percent of the tin to the global market. They are concentrated along a river.

TONY: Wow, billions of dollars in tin concentrated in a single spot. My, my.

DIDI: I know your mind is churning fast, Tony. Hear this. There is a complex network of river water pumps to protect the mines from flooding.

TONY: Wow. Simple. My evil mind says we destroy the pumps.

DIDI: We have a branch in Kuala Lumpur.

TONY: Didi, you’re a genius. I love you. Get Joey in Kuala to hire some mercs to do the job.

DIDI: Are you sure about this? (He nods) Talk to him. I can’t do this. (Didi hands her cell phone to Tony).

TONY: Hi Joey. Send a car over to the airport tomorrow. Didi will give you the details. Bye. Didi, pack your bags. We’re going to see some great Filipino jazz bands in Kuala tomorrow. They’re my friends.

DIDI: Wow. Great.

Tony told Joey they had to destroy all the pumps simultaneously. However, only four of the nine pumps were destroyed because of poor coordination. The rest were saved as security was tightened. There was still a tin shortage, but not that much. The windfall Tony calculated was reduced by half, as tin stocks did not go that high. Still, he made a cool half-billion.

Tony organized a Jazz Festival for six Filipino bands. He gave all the festival income to the bands, minus the airfare and hotel for him and Didi. They included Japanese, Malaysian, and Indonesian bands.

Tony was featured in another business magazine as “Tin Tycoon Tony.” Although there was no evidence against him, he gained much notoriety, which became his downfall. Alienated, he went into a deep depression and contracted terminal brain cancer.

Before he died, he raised half a billion dollars for a music foundation for budding Asian jazz musicians, establishing a jazz school in Kuala Lumpur that rivaled Juilliard of New York. The Malaysian government honored him for establishing Kuala Lumpur as the Jazz Festival center of Asia. Fortune Magazine gave him a new name—“Jazz Tycoon Tony.”

He died a peaceful death in 2011.