As we passed the fourth industrial complex en route from Port of Spain airport to the hotel, I was shaking my head. This just couldn't be right.
Sensing the consternation, my newest friend Ramesh -- a sage taxi driver if ever you met one -- jumped in unprompted.
"Most tourists get the ferry to Tobago. Trinidad is a place to do business. What brings you here?"
Our business, of course, was "Mr. Warner," as Trinidadians refer to arguably the island's most notorious resident.
My journey had started the previous week in Zurich after news broke of the arrests of a number of FIFA executives at dawn.
Sepp Blatter was re-elected. Sepp Blatter resigned. Each day there was a new development that has woven a tapestry of allegations and revelations to touch every continent on the planet.
Seemingly at the center of that tapestry was Warner. And despite his steadfast denial of any wrongdoing, there were countless questions that needed to be asked. CNN would do its best to do just that.
Which was why we were getting a tour -- together with U.S.-based colleagues Robyn Curnow, Nicol Nicolson and Jose Armijo -- of Port of Spain's industrial estates.
The charges against Warner are extensive.
He resigned from the FIFA Executive Committee in 2011 after being accused of several counts of corruption in the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. However, after being banned from football administration worldwide, all investigations into those allegations were dropped.
All that changed when Warner was one of 14 executives charged by the U.S. Justice Department over alleged racketeering, wire fraud, money laundering and bribery. The U.S. has formally requested his extradition, and judicial proceedings in Trinidad have already begun.
As we crawled towards the city center, Ramesh put us on the phone to his daughter -- a local reporter, who in turn gave me two direct numbers for Warner.
As it turned out, they were the same as two I had been given by a colleague in London. The chances of them being genuine suddenly seemed much more likely.
Calls were made to both of the numbers. No answer, but messages were left nonetheless. A contact had also given us Warner's personal email address. Again, no reply to our request to talk to him.
Warner's business interests have spread throughout Trinidad, which provided other possible avenues of inquiry.
The 72-year-old owns a professional football team called Joe Public in the district of Tunapuna. He also has control of one of the island's newspapers, Sunshine, and owns a restaurant.
Ramesh also told us that Warner's house was located in the Five Rivers area of Arouca -- although we would have to sniff out which one it was.
Another possibility was Trinidad's Parliament. The day before we arrived, Warner -- a prominent opposition MP in Trinidad -- had been laughed at by some peers in the chamber after yet again vowing to "unleash an avalanche of evidence" to clear his name.
But this being a Saturday, he wouldn't be in Parliament for another 48 hours.
There was also Warner's political constituency of Chiguanas West. It was there that he had danced at a public rally only hours after being released from prison the previous week.
Our driver didn't know the area well, so it took 30 minutes of circling in the heat before we located a ramshackle building with several crumbling signs outside.
Next to advertisements for ultrasound testing and corrective footcare, a sign for "OFFICE OF THE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR CHAGUANAS WEST" stood out imposingly.
As we walked up the stairs, the office manager came out and started stonewalling us. "Is he here?" asked Robyn. "Yes, and he asks that you respect his privacy," came the reply.
Warner was holding a "clinic" for his constituents -- a drop-in center where residents could talk face-to-face with their MP about local issues. Unfortunately face-to-face didn't stretch to questions about multiple allegations of serious fraud from journalists.
After a couple of interviews with junior staff members and constituents, we were unceremoniously kicked out.
Other broadcasters came and went, before a team from Sky News in the UK arrived to join us in the wait for Warner to leave. His car was directly outside, so he had to leave at some stage.
Ultimately it was a fruitless five hours.
After countless attempts to get back in, even calling through the window at one stage, we realized any faint hopes of our man deciding to talk to CNN were in vain.
Warner is happy to publish rambling video messages when it suits him, but it became pretty clear that this was not a man ready to be asked questions by the media. Questions he has still never answered publicly.
Warner is not a free man, though.
A stipulation of his bail agreement forces him to check in at his local police station every Monday and Thursday.
He cannot leave the country, and once all the evidence is presented to the Trinidadian Attorney General by the U.S. authorities, Warner will likely face an extradition hearing as soon as August. That was confirmed to us by the Attorney General the following morning.
It seems likely that if Warner does have an "avalanche" of evidence, he is likely to need it in court to prove his innocence.
Among all the turmoil, he also has an upcoming Parliamentary re-election campaign to fight later this year.
So where does Warner stand in the court of public opinion in Trinidad?
Some utterly detest him and many of those in positions of authority feel he has brought shame on his own country, yet speak to his constituents and you hear a different story.
"I tell you what ... Jack may have got some things wrong," said Raymond, another taxi driver.
"But for every mistake, he's done 10 great things for people on this island. He's a fighter is Jack. He'll come back from this, just like he always has done."