r/Documentaries • u/dmacrolensystematica • Jan 10 '20
Anthropology German shipping companies and the arms trade (2019) - "Germany’s secret service, the BND, is heavily involved in the delivery of weapons to crisis areas of the world. As this documentary shows, it has - among other things - played along with arms deals made by German shipping companies."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6X1Y0Mj7Qzc37
Jan 11 '20
Okay, so while watching this documentary I keep hearing that this arm exports were illegal because there is an EU embargo to the countries to which they were sent; how come then? So at 28:20 a German prosecutor explains that the embargo only applies if the items are to be delivered to an "specific listed person" for his/her "own private use" but since the tanks were delivered to the ministry of defense and if the "listed person" took the items on behalf of the ministry of defense he did not receive it personally so there's no violation of the EU arms embargo.
So this law was designed to be easily broken on purpose (IMHO); this is not a problem with the shipping company or the German intelligence service (BND), but the politicians that put this "law" in place.
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u/Carrash22 Jan 11 '20
It’s just there so that they can save face saying that they have the embargo while letting their friends still turn a profit.
Yet It is the shipping company’s fault because they simply could just do ethical business and not transport/sell arms.
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u/TheFizzardofWas Jan 11 '20
But but but my monneeeeyyzz
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u/NateLikesToLift Jan 11 '20
I was just learning about money this week. From what I have gathered thus far, it's pretty cool.
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u/mscott8088 Jan 10 '20
"What is this?! A tank for ants!?"
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u/magicsonar Jan 10 '20 edited Jan 11 '20
I have a theory that a decent percentage of the revenues earnt by many of the world largest shipping companies are derived from illicit arms and drug traffic. The UN estimates that the global drug trade is worth around $500 billion per year. In terms of physical volume, that's an awful lot of drugs. A recent drug bust in Philadelphia uncovered 16.5 tons of drugs that was estimated to be worth $1 billion. If you extrapolate from that, $500 billion would be around 8250 tons of drugs (that's almost 7.5 million kg). It defies belief that such a large volume of drugs can be globally distributed without the direct involvement and knowledge of the big container shipping companies. And probably the big port operators like Dubai Ports (DP World). There is too much money involved to believe these companies aren't involved and profiting from it. And it's also likely that the large intelligence services, like the BND, CIA, SIS, Mossad & FSB all use these shipping companies for their own "off books" purposes. Illicit drug and arms deals are a major source of unofficial revenue for the intelligence services. And it then stands to reason that because of this many governments choose to turn a blind eye to this illicit trafficking activity because it's useful and wildly profitable.
Edit: and yes, the next part of this would be looking at the world's biggest banks and realising that if the global illicit drug trade is worth half a trillion dollars per year, that money needs to be moved and laundered - and that amount of money isn't being laundered through car washes. Governments know this but they also know how useful/important that money is to their economies. "Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse <during the GFC>. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result."
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2009/dec/13/drug-money-banks-saved-un-cfief-claims
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u/theJJBanks Jan 11 '20
16.5 tons is roughly one 20 ft container. 8250 tons is 500 containers. Some of the largest container vessels can carry 18,000 containers. There are hundreds/thousands of these vessels shipping off every day. It's not surprising that this amount could move unnoticed. Regulations are lax in a lot of countries and consolidated cargo happens all the time. Not to mention that things can be booked as simply "Freight of all kinds".
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u/Mayor__Defacto Jan 11 '20
Well presumably you’d hide it with some kind of cover product. So you put it in crates and call it a shipment of DVDs.
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u/Scljstcwrrr Jan 10 '20
Does 1 Ton not equal 1000 Kilogramm?
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u/zombiebolo7 Jan 10 '20
1 US ton ~ 900 kg
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u/Mountainbranch Jan 10 '20
Police say they have seized 900kg of drugs, a spokesman said that the 700kg of drugs will be disposed of safely, but not before their forensics teams have had time to analyze the 500kg of drugs to uncover who might be behind the manufacture of 200kg of drugs that were seized by police today.
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u/VTCEngineers Jan 11 '20
Add 150kg for each tier and you get the actual number (ya kno for “private use”)
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u/magicsonar Jan 11 '20
When it comes to drugs, the authorities confiscate 1 metric ton. When handing it over for evidence, it's 1 "US ton."
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u/deuger Jan 11 '20
I mean CIA used to traffic cocaine and do human experiments on innocent people with LSD..I wouldnt find this hard to believe.
I honestly dont even want to know what other countries agencies have been/are up to. Even big banks have accounts for mexican cartels. People dont realize how much fucking corruption there is
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u/Ropes4u Jan 10 '20
Don’t forget that they are also not missing out on slavery and sex trafficking!
https://complianceandethics.org/human-trafficking-in-the-supply-chain/
https://humanityunited.org/human-trafficking-on-the-high-seas-the-outlaw-ocean/
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Jan 10 '20
[deleted]
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u/newworkaccount Jan 11 '20
It's also a disproportionately profitable cargo. Park one conex of some in-demand substance on your container ship, and your trip is now not just profitable, but wildly profitable.
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if some container shipping companies ran loss lanes purely to disguise drug traffic and play the odds. (All transport companies run loss lanes for various reasons anyhow - planes, trucks, autos, boats, they all do it.)
Maritime law in particular would also be the perfect clusterfuck to obsfucate this sort of activity. In fact, in the U.S. anyhow, bringing charges against property is primarily used for drug related offenses, and as a legal fiction for seizing unclaimed drugs on multi-tenant cargo ships and the like. (Think State of California v. 500 kilos of cocaine, this happens all the time.)
Although I suspect you would have to ship East to West - from countries like China to countries like America, in order to take advantage of the camoflauge provided by high traffic.
I would guess bulk container shippers and fuel shippers would be the most likely to do this. The first due to volume to hide in and the 2nd due to special allowances and precautions around fuels. Additionally many fuels are excellent solvents, while many drugs are shipped in salt forms that dissolve well and can be recovered from the fuel.
Basically, not only is this not a ludicrous theory, it's almost certain that some shippers are doing this. Whether there's a global conspiracy of intel agencies to allow this traffic, I can't speak to. But the regular 'ol conspiracy of shipping companies looking the other way for money is pretty likely.
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u/BortSimpsons Jan 11 '20
You can dissolve drugs in oil and then get it back out?
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u/Direwolf202 Jan 11 '20
Yup. It's almost trivial to do it with distillation. The drug you want will boil off way before the fuel will.
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u/TheFizzardofWas Jan 11 '20
Uh correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t the solvent usually “boil” off leaving solute (drug/salt) behind? Not 100% sure what the boiling point of heroin is relative to gasoline but I’m thinking it’s higher.
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u/magicsonar Jan 11 '20 edited Jan 11 '20
And maybe, just maybe, it's no coincidence that one of the largest and most powerful shipping companies in the world is the Foremost Group, founded by James Chao. The company grew by shipping rice to Asia for the US Government during the Vietnam War period. This was the period that the CIA was rumoured to be involved in drug smuggling from the infamous Golden Triangle, particularly out of Laos.
One of the daughters of James Chao is Elaine Chao, the current US Sec of Transport. She is of course married to Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell. According to Senate financial disclosures, James Chao has effectively been bankrolling McConnell. James Chao was classmates and friends with former Chinese Premier Jiang Zemin.
Another daughter of James Chao is Angela Chao, who is the current Chairperson on the Foremost Group. She was briefly married to the head of Investment bank Lazard, Bruce Wasserstein. He died abruptly just 6 months after marrying Chao. She then married venture capitalist Jim Breyer, who was one of the early investors of Facebook. Needless to say, the Chao family is extremely powerful in US political and financial circles.
One of the other of the world biggest shipping companies is Italian MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company). There have been many large drug busts involving MSC ships - the 16.5 tons of drugs found in Philadelphia was a MSC ship. Interestingly, one of the MSC container ships that was busted carrying huge amounts of drugs was actually owned by banking giant JP Morgan. https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2019/07/15/italian-billionaire-couples-shipping-line-msc-involved-in-third-drug-bust-in-2019/
MSC also have high level political ties in Europe. The former Chief of Staff of French President Emmanuel Macron is Alexis Kohler, who had close family ties with the Italian owners of MSC. He was the former director of cabinet of Pierre Moscovici then of Emmanuel Macron at the Ministry of Finance. Once Macron was elected President in 2016, Kohler resigned from government and was appointed Chief Financial Officer of MSC. He is currently facing a corruption investigation connected with his relationship with MSC.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-macron-adviser-idUSKCN1J010S
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u/newworkaccount Jan 11 '20
I wish you had replied earlier in this thread so more people would see your reply - this is good info. Do you know how to format links on Reddit? Happy to help if not. I think people are prejudiced sometimes on here if you don't use Reddit's formatting.
Re: big banks owning drug shipping cargo ships...shocker!
HSBC laundered Mexican cartel money, and did business with Iran when it was under sanctions. For anyone that isn't aware, HSBC is the largest bank in Europe.
Coincidentally, of course, so did Citigroup...
JP Morgan Chase? Take your pick - they laundered for Bernie Madoff, and terrorists, according to Hong-Kong, and also engaged in systemic mortgage fraud, and more that I don't have time to link. So I definitely believe they are knowingly shipping drugs. They clearly don't give a shit about the rule of law.
And pretty much all big banks have things like this on their record - stuff that would literally get you or I executed for treason, or sent to federal prison with a true life sentence. Big money is dirty money, and dirty money is big money.
Edit: besides - these drugs don't ship themselves. Someone is knowingly packing it onto container ships - probably lots of someones, judging by how much is caught despite how little world-wide freight is actually checked.
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u/CyberpunkPie Jan 11 '20
8250 tons of drugs (that's almost 7.5 million kg)
What?
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u/DarkImpacT213 Jan 11 '20
His tons are imperial tons, not metric tons. (I think this was the origin of your confusion... or I hope :x)
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u/justalimkguy Jan 10 '20
Yuri Orlov: There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?
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u/AnimiLimina Jan 11 '20
This movie needs to resurface more often. Still underrated I feel.
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u/chambalexpress Jan 11 '20
Which movie is that?
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u/Jonjanjer Jan 11 '20
Lord of War
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u/bertoshea Jan 11 '20
Warlord
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Jan 10 '20
The BND is not the German Secret Service, it’s the German CIA.
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u/SpiderFnJerusalem Jan 11 '20
What's the difference?
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Jan 11 '20
Some in the UK would call it a secret service, but generally speaking the Secret Service typically refers to the American Secret Service which is an agency responsible for investigating currency crimes (like counterfeiting) and after their conception they began also protecting politicians.
Most english speaking countries would use the term intelligence agency instead of secret service now.
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u/PeteWenzel Jan 10 '20
Wtf is the secret service? Secret service is a synonym for intelligence service.
Americans...
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Jan 10 '20
I mean, the secret service has been around since 1865...
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u/darkslide3000 Jan 10 '20
Still, the term "secret service" is and has always been generally used to describe any intelligence organization, even before the USA decided to give its first intelligence organization that name. Your statement is like saying "the Bundestag is not the German parliament", because the UK already has a parliament that's just called "Parliament". Being unimaginative with your naming doesn't allow you to take away normal words from others.
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Jan 11 '20
Yikes
Ok, well every English speaking major power is in a group called the 5 eyes. The 5 eyes is a compact of intelligence agencies who call themselves intelligence agencies or “intelligence” for short. People who work for the CIA don’t normally say “I work for the secret service” they say “I work at Intelligence”.
I know that people in the UK sometimes refer to some of their Intelligence agencies as secret service, but its not exactly splitting hairs to say “hey everyone, the BND is not the organization in germany concerned with physical protection of politicians or investigations of currency manipulation as seen daily in every movie, its an Intelligence agency like the CIA.”
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u/darkslide3000 Jan 11 '20
I'm not the one splitting hairs here, you're free to call the BND an intelligence agency if you like, but you can't correct others for calling it "Germany's secret service" because that is just as correct an assessment. Just like MI5 is a secret service in the UK, the BND is one in Germany, it's a normal English word not bound to the specific agency in the US.
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Jan 11 '20
gasp Not ze Germans!
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u/DarkImpacT213 Jan 11 '20
I somehow doubt that only the Germans do stuff like this... just the BND is being a little... incompetent eversince the unification.
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u/morbidru Jan 11 '20
the weapons weren't german, and weren't sold by germany, their CIA just looked the other way by allowing a german shipping company to deliver the arms
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u/El-Arairah Jan 11 '20
"their CIA"
A German helped setting up the CIA, you guys were super late with your secret service stuff.
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u/morbidru Jan 11 '20
Im not German (or American?, not sure what you mean by "you guys"). I said "their CIA" to make it easier for uneducated Americans to understand what I was talking about, as nobody would understand what I meant if I wrote BND
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u/El-Arairah Jan 11 '20
Yeah, all good. I was Just adding a fun fact
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u/morbidru Jan 11 '20
Another fun fact, BND Headquarters is actually bigger than the CIA Headquarters, Langley.
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Jan 10 '20
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u/IslamIsWar Jan 11 '20
There are videos of ISIS terrorists out there (I think it was a VICE found footage documentary) walking around with German MG42 machine guns. Probably the BND meant to supply some 'rebel' group with weapons but that group ended up being the baddies.
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u/Roednarok99 Jan 11 '20
If we can't wage war, let u at least watch others have wars with our equipment. It's like watching porn.
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u/SatanicBiscuit Jan 11 '20
and now you know why germany and usa wanted so badly to capture victor bout..
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u/jeffrossisfat Jan 11 '20
dear allies, winners of ww2, please come back and clean up thoroughly. we need your help. start by blowing up the hofbräuhaus in münchen and then clean up all those bnd,mad,gsg9,bw,dpolg groups. after that you can round up the billionaires that profited from the weapons deals...they are the same as 1945...thyssen clan etc...the bahlsen family etc
and maybe next time hang all hardcore nazis like the "von Storch"s...you started doing it...then stopped and now their shitty daughter Beatrix is in a nazi group called AfD running for parliament.
come clean up again.
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Jan 10 '20
[deleted]
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Jan 10 '20
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States is the largest arms exporter, although Germany is in the Top 5.
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u/beneaththeradar Jan 10 '20
The US is BY FAR the largest exporter of weapons globally, followed by Russia and then Germany, France, and the UK.
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Jan 10 '20
I guess we can see the improvements. At least they don't wage wars anymore, they let someone else do the work.
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u/Mego2019 Jan 10 '20
Yeah, theres shop selling bad things. People dont have to buy it unless monkey
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u/spentmiles Jan 11 '20
Where are you going to get slave labor if you don't tear a few shitholes apart?
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u/AceholeThug Jan 11 '20
The Germans are most hypocritical two faced fucks on earth. If there was a group of people that genuinely believed their shit didnt stink, it would be the Germans.
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Jan 11 '20
And yet that ship sails in an ocean of american arms exports to terrible regimes across the world.
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u/coltzero Jan 10 '20
Note that this documentary was made by a German public broadcasting service