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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

The cartels have used Americans as mules since cocaine took off. Americans are less likely to be searched, and while more expensive to be bribed, this is usually better than getting the shipment lost.

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Not that expensive. This dumbass did it for the princely sum of 4000 pesos (~$220), then killed himself rather than face trial. He had 5 kids too.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/us/von-nukem-suicide-drug-cha...

The wrong way to think about bribery is as a calculated payoff. Instead it's a spur of the moment thing.

You are headed home, tickets already paid for, and then someone asks if you want to make a quick $200 real easy.

This isn't always how it goes down, but you can imagine how an impulsive person may over react to a monetary reward and thus accept very little compensation. If you run the risk assessment, you aren't going to take the deal!

I guess. I'd be instantly suspicious, but he doesn't seem like a person of good judgment to start with. It's sad that he didn't have the wit or the character to plead guilty and try to straighten his life out for the sake of his family.

> I'd be instantly suspicious

It’s their job to get extremely good at being less suspicious. The more rejections they get, the more they refine their approach, their appearance, their story, etc.

I try to avoid giving credit to my ego for not falling for a scam/con (yet!) when capitalism and evolution are both optimized for finding efficient workarounds for any hurdle. Given enough attempts and enough time, capitalism will corrupt anyone and everyone.

Having unprotected sex isn't particularly correlated with intelligence or self control. The opposite, in fact.

It says he trafficked 15kg of fentanyl. $220 is basically gas and per diem money. Allow me to present the conspiracy theory that this guy owed the cartels a favor for whatever reason, and the payment was purely enough to let him deal with the costs of performing it. This has the looks of a man who painted himself into a corner, rolled a bad dice roll, and then had no way out.

>It's sad that he didn't have the wit or the character to plead guilty and try to straighten his life out for the sake of his family.

That won't overcome the fact he now owes 15kg of goods to the cartel, and probably has no way to pay it, and he's staring down the barrel of being in prison full of people who have nothing but time to settle the debt. I think this guys death warrant was signed as soon as he got caught, and probably halfway written by the time he was even asked for the favor. Quite possible he did the best thing for his family.

Hmm, that's an angle I hadn't considered. Interesting points.

The offer could have been $220 plus his kids were given the opportunity to “live another year” by the cartel. You don’t know what other “incentives” existed. Just because someone appears stupid doesn’t mean they are: you lack the relevant facts to judge.

>The offer could have been $220 plus his kids were given the opportunity to “live another year” by the cartel.

It's more likely to have been $220 plus some sort of profit sharing. The cartels are probably smart enough to align incentives instead of an over reliance on violence where it can be avoided.

Might be stepping up efforts? Just came back to the US from Mexico (Yucatán) with partner and kids, had to make a drug dog walk (you walk at a steady pace as the drug dogs are exposed to you during the 10 meter walk) in the terminal.

I think that's been the practice for sometime now; we had to do the same thing at Puerto Vallarta's airport a few years back.

I had to do something similar in the Denver airport recently.

They're really stepping up. Last year they dragged me into a hospital in cuffs and told the doctors to "inspect" inside my GI tract. That was a better part of a day affair along with a federal warrant and the works. A dog never even alerted (and even verbally told so by CBP, although the warrant lied and said otherwise). They also have a network of hospitals with staff openly hostile to tourists, who are fine acting even without a warrant or consent and a complaint to the state board results in the medical professional boards telling you that a patient has no right to deny consent even without a court order.

uh, what? what was the lead up to this?

Few hours walking around in a border town and eating lunch from what I recall. When I crossed back there were a whole team of people working me over and HSI got involved. No idea what triggered them. When they found nothing they sent the debt collectors chasing me for the hospital bill, obviously that won't be paid so I look forward to the lawsuit.

edit: to note I don't know If I'm actually going to be sued, just will definitely find it humorous if they do so.

I would guess that the very temporary nature of your trip looked like you were just there to collect something and come right back. None of which justifies the subsequent outcome. Good luck in your lawsuit.

This almost sounds like a combo of bad profiling software that flagged you and then parallel construction using the dog as cover.

If you have the time and all, definitely start throwing lawsuits and hit hard in discovery.

How is the hospital bill your responsibility in this situation? That’s crazy pants and just evil

>How is the hospital bill your responsibility in this situation?

Exactly but on the other hand, if not his responsibility, could acting suspicious be a free GI check hack? Health coverage can be expensive in the US.

Hack methodology:

1. Sprinkle tiny amount of drugs on yourself

2. Go to border

3. Free GI check

4. Profit?

That's what the 2nd amendment is for

Not sure I understand, are you saying GP should've pulled a gun on the cops?

CBP can do whatever they want to anybody within a 100 mile radius of a border (maritime included) which is like, 70%+ of the US population.

Even though they’re complete fucking buffoons it’s a really good idea to not fuck with CBP, they get paid to fuck people up with impunity.

And elsewhere on order. Although Portland is within 100 miles, they were sent under a post 9/11 statutory authorization that would have enabled them to perform certain (not border/customs related) federal law enforcement actions anywhere.

An international airport qualifies as a US border too. Think about that for a minute...

Have had to do the drug dog walk the last few times I flew out of JFK. It seems to move lines much quicker and allows laptops, etc. to stay in bags going through the scanners. Think it's something we'll see more and more of, which is fine by me but they don't make much allowance for children who have no idea what is going on, in my experience (try telling two young kids that they have to walk side by side at a set pace and not touch the doggy)

Why are you fine with strong armed, authoritarian policies that target vulnerable populations while leaving the architects of death unharmed?

The problem with poisoned drugs was created by doctors, corporations, the police, and politicians. Cartel king pins, plus smaller "mom & pop shops" (~$10ks-millions operations) play their role, but the vast majority of people caught will be stupid and/or desperate smucks, who have done practically nothing.

These will be the people doing life sentences. The cartels leaders almost always get away (until maybe they die). The "mom & pop" shops I mentioned, often quite large in their own respect do get busted from time to time... however the majority of time in prison will be done by pawns, especially from these types of busts.

Then the government spikes the ball and does a victory dance, while most of society is "fine" with it... yet things consistently get worse. More violence, more dirty money, corruption, overdoses, etc.

Please don't twist my words. You know I didn't say anything of the sort and yours is a bad faith response. I will not engage.

You just did. You engaged. This is valid criticism, and not at all in bad faith.

Not sure that's a drug dog. More likely simply a dog trained to sniff explosives. I know this because I've been made to walk the dog walk while unknowingly carrying things I should not have been carrying. The dogs never suspected a thing.

Not all dogs are trained on all drugs. I once met a dog that was only trained on various substances cartels use to mask the smell of drugs.

I actually thought the economics worked out that lost shipments were kind of irrelevant. There was so much south of the border and so little (percentage-wise) needed to make it through to sate demand.

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