When Frederick Rustmann Jr. retired after 24 years with the same federal agency, he looked forward to afternoons of golf and tennis.

     Instead, he was lured into a business that would tap into skills he developed and contacts he made while in clandestine operations at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). 

     “I retired from the agency and my phone started to ring asking for information,” said Rustmann, who has been stationed in Asia, Europe and Africa, retiring as a member of the elite senior intelligence service.

     And so, the predecessor to CTC International Group Ltd. was born in West Palm Beach, on a shoestring budget from Rustmann’s bank account.

     He started with a couple of trips per year investigating political, economic and cultural environments for private enterprise. Some call it business espionage.

     And without trying, Rustmann added $60,000 to $70,000 in income a year, “which was a nice adjunct to my annuity,” he noted.

     “Then it started getting out of hand and I couldn’t handle it,” Rustmann said. “I started getting subcontractors to help me and incorporated CTC in November. I already had the clients and then Bob joined me.”

     Bob is Robert Sanders, formerly with the Goodman Company, which built the Phillips Point office project in West Palm Beach. An accountant and attorney by trade, Sanders, who invested in the company and was named president, is the only one in CTC without a CIA connection.

     The third member of the team is Brad Robinson, 37, another former CIA agent and now vice president of operations.

     “There was a lot of excitement (in the CIA) and I do miss it, but there’s quite a bit of excitement with CTC and I’m enjoying the challenge of applying my skills to the business world,” said Robinson.

     The strength of the company lies in its ability to gather information and analyze it.

     Consider the case of David Burton of Dallas, a senior security adviser for a Fortune 500 oil and gas exploration and production company. Burton would not reveal his company, citing competitive reasons.

     Burton took Rustmann abroad to gather information regarding a particular country’s economic status, its political stability, any possible threat from terrorism and data on the competition. He refused to name the countries where CTC has gathered information.

     Burton found Rustmann through CIA contacts, but has yet to determine whether his company plans to go ahead with exploration drilling or not, based on CTC’s reports. He says it’s a three to five-year decision, but that the reports are invaluable.

     “Fred has never been wrong with anything he’s supplied me,” Burton said. “Reliability is very difficult to find.”

     “We continue to receive information from CTC on countries we’re interested in,” he said, adding that the company is looking at locations in Africa, South America and the Far East.

     Rustmann says he expects CTC International Group to gross $500,000 this year and double that next year. He notes one competitor, who he refused to name, reported $60 million growth in eight years, “and we can do it better.”

     Among those competitors, he added, are Kroll Associates in New York; Fairfax Group in Washington, D.C., and Ackerman in Miami.

     “But those three are detective agencies doing investigative work,” Rustmann noted. “We are all CIA, except my business partner.”

     The staff uses overseas contacts to help American businesses in solving overseas problems, to “operate without surprises,” said Sanders, the non-CIA partner.

     American businesses, he said, have difficulty obtaining information, a problem that becomes magnified when operating overseas.

     Charges vary, but monthly reports average $2,000 for in-depth analyses about economics and government stability.

     CTC collects and analyzes information in several areas. Those are:
     --General risk analysis that helps companies operate abroad, particularly in unfamiliar environments.
     --Specifically targeted information to help a company secure a larger share of market (“What the competition is doing, for example,” Sanders explained.)
     --Counter intelligence-type of investigations, to guard against internal fraud and theft.
     --Making available worldwide contacts and sources.

     For two years, CIA agents spend time at “the farm” to learn about sifting through information, Sanders explained.

     “For a government, knowledge is power and security. For a business, knowledge is profit.”

     CTC has offices in London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Paris, Bangkok, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Frankfurt, Cyprus and Mexico City.

     Sanders said CTC is planning additional bureaus in Latin America and in Eastern Europe.

     “They say CIA operatives are the best problem-solvers money can buy,” Robinson said. “So with CTC, they have the next best thing.”