Papeete, located on the island of Tahiti became the capital of Free France in the decades after the Peace of Cairo of 1944. Nonetheless, the town remained in some ways a sleepy town. In 1964, ginger smugglers Rance Auerbach and Penny Summers fled South Africa to Tahiti and took up residence in the town. Summers and Auberbach continued on in the ginger trade in Papeete, as Race tourists traveled there, and the Free French government was more than willing to look the other way (after skimming off the top).