Flutterby™! : "plot"?

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"plot"?

2003-08-13 16:07:47.869974+00 by Dan Lyke 9 comments

So, lemme get this straight: The Russian cops ship a dummy missile to the American cops, get a single Brit to sign for it, and they get lots of press about about "breaking up a plot"? No, that's a "sting". And given that apparently this hapless "arms dealer" wouldn't have been able to get the missile without the Americans and the Russians cooperating on taking him down, it's also "propaganda".

[ related topics: Politics Law Enforcement ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: "plot"? made: 2003-08-13 20:30:02.218006+00 by: Dan Lyke

Okay, maybe I was hasty, two others were arrested on money laundering charges.

#Comment Re: "plot"? made: 2003-08-14 07:03:56.764195+00 by: dexev

I don't think you're being hasty -- the news blurbs were all over TV tonight: "Are terrorists using surface to air missles to shoot down commercial airliners?" If I hadn't read the NYT article, I would have thought there really was such a plot. I'm sure that many (most?) people do think that now.

Rep Schumer's quote at the end of the article made me laugh, though. Unfortunately, I think he's serious....

#Comment Re: "plot"? made: 2003-08-14 17:11:32.196156+00 by: ebradway

Hmmmm... You're a Indian descended Brit and you don't care much for Americans. Some Russian guy overhears you bad-mouthing the Yanks in a bar in Londan and tells you he has a bunch of arms he wants to unload and gives you a card. A few months later, you're in New York and after mentioning the funny Russian to some friends and showing off his card (quite a unique souvenir in these days), one of your more radical acquaintances happens to mention this to a real freak he knows who really wants to blow up some jet planes. The freak ends up knocking on your door and says he'd pay $10K per missle and that he wants 50 of them. You're beginning to think like the CIA... Hmmm... I can buy some weapons from country A and sell to country B and I'm not really violating a Congressional mandate because I'm not selling US arms to country B and I'm not giving US funds directy to country A... Woohoo! $500,000 will pay for another month's rent on my swank office in NYC. So you call the Russian and he delivers.

Little did you know that the Russian was an undercover agent. You just assumed that arms dealers met their suppliers in a London pub and that arms dealers were constantly scouting out new middle-men, kind of like a MLM. And it just so happens that the freak acquaintance is a US agent - something you'd never believe because according to the US press, the country is overrun with terrorists with large sums of money and no other way to acquire weapons than through wanks like you (terrorists never bother to shop the military surplus auctions where you can but supposedly destroyed military stuff by the ton and people have been known to build entire helicopters with weaponary from the junk - or the gun shows but if you look like a terrorist at a gun show, you'll probably get shot - just be sure to wear your Osama Must Die t-shirt).

So the US Department of Homeland Security calls Russia to alert them that they have an arms dealer trying to sell 50 missiles to some wank in NYC, the Russians start laughing and say that it's their agent doing the selling! At which point everyone starts laughing because in America, if both the supplier and the buyer were American agents, the case would probably get thrown out as entrapment. But because this is an international affair, the wank goes down!

And the money laundering? That's just the wank's buddies trying to help him figure out how he can spend $500,000 as a foreigner without drawing undue attention.

#Comment Re: "plot"? made: 2003-08-14 17:26:20.915565+00 by: Dan Lyke

Hmmm... The way you put it it sounds like the poor sod fell for a Russo-American version of the 419 scam.

That sounds even more plausible.

#Comment Re: [Entry #6426] Re: "plot"? made: 2003-08-14 17:46:03.3244+00 by: Larry Burton

ebradway wrote:

> selling! At which point everyone starts laughing because in America, if 
> both the supplier and the buyer were American agents, the case would 
> probably get thrown out as entrapment. But because this is an 
> international affair, the wank goes down!

It sounds an awful lot like entrapment regardless of it being an international affair. Still, it's very difficult for me to feel sorry for someone stupid enough to fall for all that.

-- Regards, Larry Burton

#Comment Re: [Entry #6426] Re: "plot"? made: 2003-08-16 16:21:03.414552+00 by: Shawn

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 12:24:11 -0400, Larry Burton wrote:

> ebradway wrote:
> 
>> selling! At which point everyone starts laughing because in America, if 
>> both the supplier and the buyer were American agents, the case would 
>> probably get thrown out as entrapment. But because this is an 
>> international affair, the wank goes down!
> 
> It sounds an awful lot like entrapment regardless of it being an 
> international affair. Still, it's very difficult for me to feel sorry 
> for someone stupid enough to fall for all that.

[meta]Okay, why did this post show up *before* Eric's, which it quotes?[/meta]

#Comment Re: "plot"? made: 2003-08-16 18:34:06.415204+00 by: Diane Reese

Um.... it didn't? Not on the version of the page that I can see, anyway...

#Comment Re: "plot"? made: 2003-08-17 05:40:52.221151+00 by: ebradway

Larry: it's part of an FBI plot...

#Comment Re: [Entry #6426] Re: "plot"? made: 2003-08-17 05:46:03.971551+00 by: Shawn

On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 18:36:03 +0000 (UTC), Diane Reese wrote:

> Um.... it didn't? Not on the version of the page that I can see, 
> anyway...

It does via NNTP. I don't have the posts any longer but Larry's was stamped 9:something AM and Eric's was 10:something AM.