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The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats

straitstimes.com

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Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats

#171

Post by Rastonbury »

jcpst wrote: post #74
ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was struck by these two paragraphs in the article: Mr Black, who runs a freight brokering company called Freight Rate Central in Sarasota, Florida, is part of an invisible army of professionals who coordinate and marshal the fleets of trucks that criss-cross the country, carrying everything from chickens to smartphones. For this job, Bokksu would pay him about US$13,000. Mr Black got to it. He posted the job on a t…

The market is very competitive- capacity can get tight, which makes room for the “little guy” to grab a load. Even at the biggest companies with millions of lines of software, tons of logistics is still driven by email. Job boards are big business. They act like a 4th party logistics company, where they aggregate the available loads from multiple 3rd party logistics companies. But there’s plenty of these aggregation…

In every industry there are fly by night hucksters that take business from people who have no experience procuring services and don't know how to find legitimate companies. Mr Black seems like one of these. Imagine risking 100k on a craiglist driver, I don't blame Mr Black, he has his business model and customers who take th risk on him, but surely the candy company would spend more time doing due diligence of vendors and insurance when it involves a 100k shipment. A lesson learnt I suppose

Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats

#172

Post by wyclif »

INTPenis wrote: post #124

It's funny how this became a fad because it's really just mediocre chocolate with a bunch of aromatic addatives. I'm guessing they use whatever they can to make those flavors. I have tried one or two when they've been in a local store, but as a chocoholic it's sacrilicious.

It's true it's not high-quality chocolate. The appeal seems to be to people who get into hobbies like this for the exclusivity or exotic nature of the items. The same kind of people who used to buy "limited edition" Supreme bling and then post it to Insta. Essentially hypebeast kiddies.

Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats

#173

Post by wyclif »

keepamovin wrote: post #168
Legogris wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reporter wrote the text; a photographer took the photo; an editor arranged the final composition. They don't always perfectly align on big nor small.

Completely agree! It's hard to pin down intention or suggest coordination. Sometimes it could simply be accidental. But it's also possible to argue that, in aggregate, the average media expression of a culture would likely reflect its unconscious biases. And I think the evidence of this in media imagery is clear. Surely there may sometimes be a deliberate agenda carefully projected through manipulations of imagery, b…

Danny Taing does give off an Asian gangsta vibe. It wouldn't surprise me if he is a gangsta of sorts, in terms of business. It's not easy to be in a business that involves high risk international importing and distribution.

Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats

#174

Post by keepamovin »

bragr wrote: post #128
keepamovin wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that sounds reasonable. Well said! But the niggle is that the issue covered in the article occured after the acquisition. What do you say about that? :)

It might be mundane rather than nefarious. If your business empire intersected a disaster at multiple points, figuring out which of your many insurance policies should pay out could be non-trivial, and reviewing the various terms, you might lean towards a preferred narrative. I guess that's a bit nefarious, but not as much as he stole his own candy.

That's an interesting point that I didn't consider as well!

On brief reflection I wouldn't consider that really nefarious as long as it was largely true. It's just "insurance optimization", as often unfortunately those terms seem strongly biased against claimants.

Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats

#175

Post by kuschku »

keepamovin wrote: post #167
kuschku wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wouldn't be the first supply chain disruption. Only a short while back Covid disrupted global supply chains. It'd absolutely make sense for this company to get the supply chain in house for a safer supply chain. If something like this happens while such an acquisition is still ongoing, that wouldn't be suspicious, it'd just be a sign you made the right call.

Yeah, that's reasonable. Without further information we don't really know what prompted the purchase, but it's reasonable to speculate it is as you say: in response to pre-existing supply chain issues. Taking it further, it would seem a pretty dumb fraud if the trail could be traced back so easily via ownership, making that suggestion less likely perhaps. Indeed your defense of Tiang via the alternate interpretation…

With enough skill, it's possible to defend or vilify almost anything. That's why it's so important to avoid prejudice and to keep an open mind.

In this case, we don't have enough information to know what happened, but as this comment chain has shown, we can find many reasonable explanations for what might have happened.

Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats

#177

Post by wlonkly »

burnerburnito wrote: post #161
keepamovin wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s another great point. I noticed that too, and the suggestion that it makes. However, besides the image, in the article they don’t exactly sell the theory that he does anything suspicious at all. I don’t think they even suggested it. It seems he’s painting entirely as the victim. This seeming contrast raises a fascinating point. I totally agree with you of the importance of image messaging. Image analysis in the…

How come white's the only group not capitalized? Just funny to spot.

I know you were asking the GP, but that matches AP style: https://blog.ap.org/announcements/why-we-will-lowercase-whit...

And The Atlantic wrote an interesting article on capital-Black, lowercase-white in 2020, when Blackness was particulary under the microscope as BLM took root: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/time-to-ca...

Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats

#178

Post by wlonkly »

keepamovin wrote: post #166
nocoiner wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of wonder how the Times would have ascertained that the acquisition had been completed in June. I’m wondering if the deal signed in June and closed in September. Maybe they found a merger sub formation doc for “Japan Crate Acquisition Corp.” or something and thought that meant the deal had been completed when the entity was formed. Still a weird story. And man, that freight broker is either the unluckiest man…

I know right? The freight broker! It's like: Trust random guy who replied on Craigslist -> seems legit! Haha. It is weird certainly to interested but uninvolved readers like us. Yet by the sound of it, to insiders in the industry, this strategic theft is surprisingly common! It must not be weird to insiders, but rather than unfortunate reality of logistics. :( The Times may indeed have been sloppy in their fact check…

Worth noting that it is not Craigslist itself, though - they made an analogy that the freight hiring website was like the Craigslist of that industry (possibly ubiquity, possibly user experience, who knows?).

Re: The hijacking of rare Japanese KitKats

#179

Post by wlonkly »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #55
tristor wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless I'm missing something, this already exists. This is basically what the entire LTL freight market is based around. Am I missing something?

I was struck by these two paragraphs in the article: Mr Black, who runs a freight brokering company called Freight Rate Central in Sarasota, Florida, is part of an invisible army of professionals who coordinate and marshal the fleets of trucks that criss-cross the country, carrying everything from chickens to smartphones. For this job, Bokksu would pay him about US$13,000. Mr Black got to it. He posted the job on a t…

I think the freight-specific job board is the app here.
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