After three days of efforts, Liu got a permit to enter the Green Zone and opened his restaurant with money borrowed from friends.

Soon, business was brisk. He sold a plate of snacks for US$7 and the food was apparently so alluring that it was common to see tanks lined up outside as the soldiers dined. Civilian foreigners, too, started patronizing his restaurant and Liu was well on his way to his first fortune.

He did not stop with food, though  he found selling whisky to US soldiers more profitable. Liu bought the stuff from a  market outside the Green Zone and sold for five times the price  and sometimes, US helicopters would land to pick up the liquor, he said.

"The daily income from selling whisky was between US$3,000 and US$4,000," Liu said. "But making money was always like walking a tightrope."

One day, a US official questioned him for selling liquor to US soldiers who were not allowed to drink on the base but fortunately, the British official accompanying him helped Liu, claiming it was not against the rules because the British soldiers were allowed to drink.

The next year, he took his friend Xiao Shuai a former colleague in the Shenzhen IT office  to expand the business.

In the next two years, the pair made nearly 4 million yuan (US$500,000). But with things getting worse by the day, they decided to say goodbye to the country late last year.

Now back in Shenzhen, Liu has bought two apartments on the city's coast, but is not content with putting his feet up  he has set eyes on an even more distant land, Cote d'Ivoire, a country plagued by civil war.

"I've heard that one tomato sells for as high as US$1 there," Liu said. "I want to start a tomato farm and reap another fortune."

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