Is anyone else fascinated more about the stories of the people that get into this kind of stuff? I mean, it seems like you must just be destined to be in this business if you are in it. Nobody goes on the Internet and researches how to get started sand trafficking.
I personally think getting into organised crime kind of mirrors the process where corps pick up fresh grads. Someone who fits the profile of being suitable for organised crime is someone without legal opportunities due to a lack of education, illegal immigration status, prior convictions, etc. In similar ways they are "headhunted" in a process that is more about convenience than key skills in a resume. If you're one of these people you'll end up floating around spaces where the "headhunting" happens.
I remember when I was young and unemployed being plucked from the street when I was looking at job cards in the window of a job centre by members of an MLM. They tried to rope me into their ugly embrace selling door to door on commission only deals that were dubious in nature.
What's kind of spooky to me is how thin those lines can be, it only takes one mistake, lapse in judgement in youth or rolling your birth into an unstable family to end up on the wrong side of that line. This is why I personally find it quite distasteful when people who travelled the happy path turn up their nose at people who fell off onto the darker one. In some cases some kids excel in their black market roles and would have applied the same gusto to a white market profession if they'd had that opportunity.
Once you’re in, it also gets progressively easier to get in deeper, and harder to get ‘out’.
All your contacts are ‘in’, you have a reputation and people trust you to do what they expect, etc. etc. If you get arrested, even more so, as now people ‘outside’ have a clear signal which side of the line you’re in.
People looking down on you is as much a defense mechanism for them as anything else too, of course, as it provides not only a us vs them mechanism, but also makes it easier to segregate themselves and avoid crossing the line.
It seems to me that business springs up wherever there is arbitrage and this is especially true for "free" natural resources (timber, water, etc).
Organised crime can make it profitable because they already have manpower and equipment, but it isn't necessary.
The smuggling operations between Guatemala and Mexico go both ways, depending on market prices in both countries for some very unglamorous products like eggs and gasoline.
Makes sense. Being in organized crime must be fucking fascinating. One day, you’re haggling on the price of black market eggs. Next day, you’re arranging the smuggling of sand from Latin America to Australia.
I lost a best friend that few years prior to his jail conviction got his phd in economics. I always knew about his business and he told me many stories about why he was doing it. I even advised him. But I always stayed out of it. One thing got clear to me. The people in that world are similar to our 'normal' world. You have the same hierarchy as in normal society with smart and dumb, nice and not so nice people. His story took place in Europe. He started after meeting some people in his fighting gym. Got a first assignment and things rolled fasr from there. High reward and thrill was an important motivation for him. He occasionally had hundreds of thousands of euros in cash. which we mainly spend on parties, escorts and drugs. Sometimes huge chunks of the money got lost because a person in the chain got caught or stole the money. But on avarage he was making like 200k a month.
He got caught on the highway few years ago with several kilos of heroine and cocaine and has to sit for 22 years.
This is the way it is with everyone. Rarely does someone choose their industry and job. I was into computers as a child because I had access to them through my grandparents' bookeeping business and being taught by my grandfather.
I really wanted to build houses but could never find a confluence of opportunity. I was sucked in by the available opportunities. My family were all artists and skilled industrial laborers. A lot of whom picked up their trade in the military. My opportunity was tech and I consider myself very lucky.
My father was a failed artist turned retailer bootstrapped by his father's GE stock he was granted as a precision welder, and I worked as a retail clerk and manager in the retail business for a time when I wasn't working in tech.
Farmers kid becomes a farmer. Maybe another opportunity comes up and they take it.
I'm never impressed by anyone's professional title until I hear their story. 99% of the time it's a result of the circumstances they were born into. Usually the only people with an interesting story were born into very modest or limited opportunity and had to grind it out until a better opportunity presented itself.
Sand trafficking is a perfect example. It is the best opportunity they have.
your answer was like "tell me you don't live in a third-world country without telling me..."
I am from Argentina so I know: You go to buy sand and are offered the legit one at a price hard to afford, or the "black" one with some discount. This way you learn there is a black market. Maybe for one bag you will get the same price anyway, but when you need an important amount of it, there will be 2 prices.
If you are in a beach town, you hear the rumors about why there is less sand.
I've forgotten the name, but I once watched a documentary on illegal gold mining in Brazil. One of the most successful of them was a German (illegal immigrant?
not enforced in brazil anyway) , who was attracted by the wild west aspect.
There definitely does seem to be a breed of people like this, and Latin America or Africa can present some interesting opportunities (see alo cowboy capitalists by vice).
This is happening in SEA, too. The Chinese show up with a giant ship to some rather remote island, offer a few promises or money in exchange to take a little, and completely ravage what beach exists. I've seen it firsthand.
To my knowledge, but not necessarily fact, they aren't even working with the country's national government, but small poor regional governments directly.
>A few years ago, an entire beach in a remote area of Jamaica vanished. Thieves dug up hundreds of tons of sand and hauled it away in dump trucks in the middle of the night. The sand--white, powdery, Caribbean sand--was worth about a million dollars.
In case of the Chinese, when I was at sea, I heard stories of massive prisoner ships that are essentially used for slave-labour at-sea. That time it was for fishing (massive mother ship with smaller, still huge ships spreading out to empty out the seas in waters very far away from China).
If they would engage in sand stealing, the prisoner slaves might help keep the labour cost down.
A big slow barge can carry $200-500k, depening on how big the barge is. That's a fair amount of cash.
From there, you've got 40-100 truck runs from wherever the barge unloads to wherever the sand's in use, assuming you can't run the barge straight to the customer. Again, that's not a huge amount +to the CFR above.
Above using barge capacity of 20-50k tons, and truck capacity 50 ton.
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I remember when I was young and unemployed being plucked from the street when I was looking at job cards in the window of a job centre by members of an MLM. They tried to rope me into their ugly embrace selling door to door on commission only deals that were dubious in nature.
What's kind of spooky to me is how thin those lines can be, it only takes one mistake, lapse in judgement in youth or rolling your birth into an unstable family to end up on the wrong side of that line. This is why I personally find it quite distasteful when people who travelled the happy path turn up their nose at people who fell off onto the darker one. In some cases some kids excel in their black market roles and would have applied the same gusto to a white market profession if they'd had that opportunity.
All your contacts are ‘in’, you have a reputation and people trust you to do what they expect, etc. etc. If you get arrested, even more so, as now people ‘outside’ have a clear signal which side of the line you’re in.
People looking down on you is as much a defense mechanism for them as anything else too, of course, as it provides not only a us vs them mechanism, but also makes it easier to segregate themselves and avoid crossing the line.
It’s genius really.
Organised crime can make it profitable because they already have manpower and equipment, but it isn't necessary.
The smuggling operations between Guatemala and Mexico go both ways, depending on market prices in both countries for some very unglamorous products like eggs and gasoline.
I really wanted to build houses but could never find a confluence of opportunity. I was sucked in by the available opportunities. My family were all artists and skilled industrial laborers. A lot of whom picked up their trade in the military. My opportunity was tech and I consider myself very lucky.
My father was a failed artist turned retailer bootstrapped by his father's GE stock he was granted as a precision welder, and I worked as a retail clerk and manager in the retail business for a time when I wasn't working in tech.
Farmers kid becomes a farmer. Maybe another opportunity comes up and they take it.
I'm never impressed by anyone's professional title until I hear their story. 99% of the time it's a result of the circumstances they were born into. Usually the only people with an interesting story were born into very modest or limited opportunity and had to grind it out until a better opportunity presented itself.
Sand trafficking is a perfect example. It is the best opportunity they have.
There definitely does seem to be a breed of people like this, and Latin America or Africa can present some interesting opportunities (see alo cowboy capitalists by vice).
Dead Comment
To my knowledge, but not necessarily fact, they aren't even working with the country's national government, but small poor regional governments directly.
>A few years ago, an entire beach in a remote area of Jamaica vanished. Thieves dug up hundreds of tons of sand and hauled it away in dump trucks in the middle of the night. The sand--white, powdery, Caribbean sand--was worth about a million dollars.
Ever since that I’ve assumed it’s about 2.5 tons per cubic metre. This works much better.
If they would engage in sand stealing, the prisoner slaves might help keep the labour cost down.
From there, you've got 40-100 truck runs from wherever the barge unloads to wherever the sand's in use, assuming you can't run the barge straight to the customer. Again, that's not a huge amount +to the CFR above.
Above using barge capacity of 20-50k tons, and truck capacity 50 ton.