Stafford Sands Hired Private Police For Bahamas Government Work And Later To Protect His Daughter From Her Husband 1967

In May 1967, during a U. S. Senate investigation hearings on electronic eavesdropping, it was disclosed that Sir Stafford Sands, in his role as Chairman of the Bahamas Development Board and Finance Minister, had used the services of George Wackenhut, head of the third largest private investigations agency in the United States.

Wackenhut testified that he had never actually met Stafford Sands.

Wackenhut continued to maintain that while he had never met Stafford Sands, and despite the fact that Sands, had hired Wackenhut, in the past, to perform certain private police services, in the Bahamas.

Sands also requested Wackenhut to provide private security for his daughter, to keep her safe from assault, by her estranged husband. It was also revealed that Stafford Sands’ daughter, was working for Wackenhut at one his regional offices in Miami, Florida.

It was further revealed that Stafford Sands was sending money to Wackenhut to pay his daughter’s salary, while she worked in Wackenhut’s Miami office.

This relationship with Sir Stafford Sands, the Senate committee contended, compromised Wackenhut as his privately hired role of director of Florida’s war on crime.

(Pensacola News Journal, Friday, 18 May, 1967)

SIR STAFFORD SANDS HIRED PRIVATE POLICE FOR UNDISCLOSED WORK FOR THE BAHAMAS GOVERNMENT

Sir Stafford used the private police services of George Wackenhut to conduct supposed “shopping surveys” and to provide again supposedly “un-uniformed, unarmed” security for various people and various times in Nassau. “Shopping surveys” was code for using wired recording devices. The who, what, why and when Wackenhut conducted business, in the Bahamas, on behalf of Stafford Sands, was not disclosed.

What was of more interest to the Senate committee, in 1967, was what Sir Stafford’s daughter was doing in Wackenhut’s regional office, given that her father, was allegedly linked to underworld mafia figures, involved in gambling.

Stafford Sands used the services of George Wackenhut to provide protection for his daughter, from her abusive husband, while they were going through a divorce

Wackenhut claimed he had never met Sir Stafford Sands. He claimed that as a top private detective in the United States, he did not know of Sands’ alleged ties to gambling underworld mafia figures like Myer Lansky until he read it in a Life Magazine article.

Wackenhut asserted, under oath, that he knew nothing of Sir Stafford Sands, despite having employed Sir Stafford’s daughter in his Miami office with Sir Stafford sending money to pay her salary.