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DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

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Re: DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

#31

Post by metadat »

doryWalnut wrote: post #7
datadeft wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be surprised if there was an "industry" without kickbacks.

[flagged]

Holy unethical kickback batman.

This appears to be true, unveiled only yesterday:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/harlan-crow-bought-c...

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-cr...

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/clarence-thomas-...

Discussed yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35581266

And flagged after 80 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35467948

Re: DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

#33

Post by belinder »

coredog64 wrote: post #30
pc86 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The kicker is that some poor bastard was indicted for paying the "consulting" fee! I mean the system works best if people on both sides of the equation are punished, right?

Theoretically, what we want is for it to be illegal to solicit or offer a bribe. If we can construct a legal environment in which people can accept or pay bribes but report that in a constructive way, then the negative side gets riskier without making everyone involved co-conspirators. Practical example: Tuna boats in the Pacific have onboard observers from one of the island nations that own the EEZs that are fished.…

And now that observer no longer gets invited on any boats

Re: DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

#34

Post by neilv »

belinder wrote: post #33
coredog64 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, what we want is for it to be illegal to solicit or offer a bribe. If we can construct a legal environment in which people can accept or pay bribes but report that in a constructive way, then the negative side gets riskier without making everyone involved co-conspirators. Practical example: Tuna boats in the Pacific have onboard observers from one of the island nations that own the EEZs that are fished.…

And now that observer no longer gets invited on any boats

Or invited once more, to swim with the fishes.

Re: DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

#35

Post by scheme271 »

belinder wrote: post #33
coredog64 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically, what we want is for it to be illegal to solicit or offer a bribe. If we can construct a legal environment in which people can accept or pay bribes but report that in a constructive way, then the negative side gets riskier without making everyone involved co-conspirators. Practical example: Tuna boats in the Pacific have onboard observers from one of the island nations that own the EEZs that are fished.…

And now that observer no longer gets invited on any boats

I don't think the observers get an invitation to be on a boat. It's more like, you have been assigned observer X for this trip. They'll be on the boat if you plan on fishing in our waters.

Re: DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

#36

Post by [deleted] »

metadat wrote: post #31
doryWalnut wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Holy unethical kickback batman. This appears to be true, unveiled only yesterday: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/04/harlan-crow-bought-c... https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-cr... https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/04/clarence-thomas-... Discussed yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35581266 And flagged after 80 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35467948

[deleted]

Re: DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

#37

Post by Wowfunhappy »

doryWalnut wrote: post #7
datadeft wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be surprised if there was an "industry" without kickbacks.

[flagged]

It should be noted that this isn't normal! He may get away with it because he's a supreme court justice, our supreme court sucks right now, and our constitution provides insufficient checks on the supreme court's power. But there's a reason Pro Publica did an exposé.

Re: DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

#38

Post by [deleted] »

A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #6

The article doesn't make it clear what the crime actually was. I got curious, so I dug up some more details: https://archive.ph/gvYFE And the indictment is here: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/press-release/file/1579271... Long story short, the indicted executives had fly-by-night LLCs that they used to accept payments from Polar Freight clients for preferential service. (Or for access to Polar Freight's shipping…

[deleted]

Re: DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

#39

Post by tonyarkles »

rideontime wrote: post #21
slavboj wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It aligns incentives on both sides to keep the scheme secret.

Or to report the scheme instead of participating in it?

This is the real kicker... how do you positively incentivize reporting the scheme instead of participating in it? Generally speaking the upside of participating is quite a bit larger than the upside of reporting. The downside of participating can be made pretty harsh by the government, but there can be negative downsides to reporting as well (e.g. physical harm)

Re: DOJ charges 10 with fraud in global air freight kickback scheme

#40

Post by thatguy0900 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #37
doryWalnut wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It should be noted that this isn't normal! He may get away with it because he's a supreme court justice, our supreme court sucks right now, and our constitution provides insufficient checks on the supreme court's power. But there's a reason Pro Publica did an exposé.

We just found out about this recently. How do we know it's not normal? This wasn't even the only thing, he also received multiple all expense paid luxery vacations from rich people. Surely his fellow justices have questions about his exotic all expense paid trips. If anything I would assume they are doing similar things until proven otherwise.
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