The takings are just insane. In EU they seized 8 tonnes (!) of cocaine and 22 tonnes of marijuana.
8t, but global production is 1000-2000t per annum.
Wow. Had no idea. That's incredible.
Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
351–360 of 361 posts
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
But yours assumes that Russia doesn't do counter-intel and wouldn't be looking for exactly these kinds of infiltrations. If it is obvious to us that these things would be targets, I'm pretty sure it is obvious to Russian intelligence services.
Bellingcat appear to routinely buy data from Russian blackmarket data brokers.
Replace 'buy' with 'receive' and 'Russian blackmarket data brokers' with 'intelligence assets' and you're correct.
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yea.. I can see some people thinking that, but that sentiment kind of goes against the rule of law. If all of the criminals committed crimes that everyone agreed should be punishable by death I could see it being more acceptable, but if these are lesser crimes that wouldn't be punishable by death but where the individual could be killed by other criminals that believe them to be a snitch, having law enforcement risk…
>> having law enforcement risk a person's life seems to go against the rule of law. Most criminals who engage in any kind of criminal activity are usually living dangerous lives as it is. Working with the mob? Drug dealing with Mexican cartels? Finance crimes with sketchy people like Jeffrey Epstein? Engaging in credit card fraud with Russian mobsters? I would say a majority of profitable criminal activity involves d…
Yes, criminals do criminal things, but normally we don't just execute criminals that are involved in bad organizations. Even criminals are afforded rights here and it is one of the things that makes this country so great. Having law enforcement decide that they get to pass judgement on criminals is an incredibly slippery and ugly slope. Without everyone getting a right to a fair trial, those that are innocent can be impacted as well (e.g.: this is why one of our founding fathers defended the british soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre [1]).
Why is it ok that law enforcement get to decide what punishment a criminal should receive? You don't think that has a risk of trending society towards a police state where law enforcement power is not checked at all?
Innocent people getting thrown in jail happens. Say the police give this type of public exposure to an actually innocent person and that innocent person gets convicted. Say a newspaper article reports on the lie that the given innocent person was cooperating with police and that article is read by a big audience. That innocent person runs the risk of being murdered in jail because they have been marked as a snitch by law enforcement.
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Organised crime" is a bit of a oxymoron. These people are organised in that they make deals with each other in friend networks. But the people involved are not the sharpest knives in the draw. They get their positions via violence and intimidation more than cunning and planning. There are cleaver crooks, but we do not often hear from them. A lot of them work at Wall Street, which contains the biggest and most profit…
The cleverest crooks are in Capitol Hill and Downing Street and Brussels, not Wall Street.
I think we probably disagree on "cleaver"!
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
It was much more than drug dealers. Generally drug dealers are servants of their community, providing goods and services to people in a collegial manner. These were viscous, murderous, gangsters. Their greed and hubris bought them down as much as cleaver policing. Which is not to minimise the cleverness of the coppers, very cleaver, very smart. Get these parasites out of our communities.
Where do you think the "servants of the community" dealers get their supply from?
For drugs like MDMA from cooperative chemists
For drugs like cannabis from neighbourhood indoor growers.
For drugs like synthetic opioids (ad Ketamine) directly from the pharmaceutical companies.
For drugs like cocaine and natural opiates they are imported from revolutionary groups mostly. This one is tricky, as the other end of the trade tends to be fairly brutish, so there is a thriving "middle man" business.
I do not get your point.
My point is that dealing illegal drugs is a community service. The laws are complete bullshit, no body with half a ounce of sense thinks they are socially useful, they are maintained for reasons of brute power and political lag. They are failing
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
But he's not innocent, you missing the boat here jimmy ?
The point I'm trying to make is that we have judges and juries for prosecuting criminals and deciding sentences for guilty criminals. You don't think it's a little bit wrong that law enforcement is side stepping that and deciding for themselves that the criminal is guilty and that they should get the death penalty? Iirc, the fifth amendment grants individuals the right to refuse to testify against themselves, but thi…
law enforcement isn't doing the executing
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#357Earlier quoted context omitted.
To a much lesser extent though. I cannot think of any time I've used a black market for something that was otherwise available on the regular market. It's not common, and not very profitable.
Also has anyone ever been shot or had their arm chopped off with a chainsaw over cigarette smuggling to avoid sales tax?
I take it you didn't see the video of the high speed multi-vehicle heist attempt that devolved into a shootout on a South African highway a couple weeks ago? Because that was all over a legal shipment of cellphones. [0]
[0] https://abc11.com/south-africa-armored-truck-heist-pretoria/...
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh boohoo. Calling out a completely immoral business idea isn’t hostile. It’s moral.
To recycle your phraseology, "what the fuck is wrong with you?" There are plenty of things that are illegal but not immoral. Sounds like you'd have railed against a steampunk app that helped the Underground Railroad operate, or Jews evade German checkpoints in 1938. Technology making end-runs around government laws is not, per se, wrong.
Making a software suite to help criminal enterprise (drug dealing, human trafficking, identify theft, etc) is nothing like building the kind of apps you are talking about. I’ve never seen such a long bow drawn on the Orange website before. This must be very embarrassing for you.
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh boohoo. Calling out a completely immoral business idea isn’t hostile. It’s moral.
> Calling out a completely immoral business idea isn’t hostile. It’s moral. That’s fine, but it’s not what you seemed to be doing.
Must be hard to keep up in a discussion!
Re: Australian Federal Police and FBI nab underworld figures using encrypted app
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
The point I'm trying to make is that we have judges and juries for prosecuting criminals and deciding sentences for guilty criminals. You don't think it's a little bit wrong that law enforcement is side stepping that and deciding for themselves that the criminal is guilty and that they should get the death penalty? Iirc, the fifth amendment grants individuals the right to refuse to testify against themselves, but thi…
law enforcement isn't doing the executing
That's like saying a hitman's customer isn't committing murder. Try another