Fat Leonard and Alex Saab were exchanged by two governments with very different ways of tackling corruption. Fat Leonard made his fortune by weaving an extensive web of corruption within the US Navy, bribing senior naval officers with money, trips, meals and prostitutes.

Saab illicitly took out nearly $350 million by manipulating the Venezuelan exchange system, according to the US Government. The destinies of the two characters crossed in the context of a diplomatic negotiation in Barbados, through which the international community dreamed, in vain, of resurrecting Venezuelan democracy.