Musty Money (Night's Black Agents)

I've been reading a lot about money laundering (yes, I have a day job, shocker, I know) and this little gem from The Bermuda Monetary Authority's Financial Intelligence Agency report Q3 2018 leapt out at me:

Three Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) were filed on the suspect activity of two Bermudians, who were on financial assistance at the time. Over a period of two weeks, the two Subjects attended the agency with a stack of “very bad and musty smelling BMD $20 bank notes”. The teller described that the notes had the appearance of being stored in a humid area. The stack of notes amounted to BMD$2,500.00 each visit. During the first visit, the Subject completed a Customer Detail Form, and provided a driver’s license as proof of identification. The agency accepted the notes and advised the first Subject that a cheque would be ready in five business days.

Five business days later, the first Subject returned to the agency where again a stack of musty smelling BMD$20 notes was produced in the same condition, which amounted to BMD$950.00. The first Subject received two cheques from the agency for the value of the damaged notes submitted. The notes tendered by the first Subject were then destroyed by the agency. This incident was closely followed by a second Bermudian, who also produced damaged BMD$100 notes of the same description for exchange.

The reasons for suspicion that were identified were as follows:

• It is known that gangs in Bermuda keep their proceeds of crime in cash and typically bury them until they are needed to fund further criminal conduct.
• The timing of these transactions along with the similarity in nominal value and description of the notes suggests that these transactions deal with cash from the same source, which is likely criminal.

Breaking Bad, Sony

When money laundering rears its ugly head in fiction, it's usually somewhere in the millions or squillions and some minor character speaks knowledgeably about placement, layering and so on. Sometimes shell companies and elaborate corporate structures are invoked, and people whisper about exotic, sun-soaked money laundering havens like Delaware, South Dakota and Alaska. 

However, as the FIA article points out, money laundering can happen on the micro as well as macro level. Never mind the squillions; what about the hundreds, the thousands? How do you prove that the wodge of cash you want to deposit is yours?

It's all the more important as banks and financial institutions, whether it's Bank of America or PayPal, conduct most if not all of their business electronically, and vendors accommodate them by introducing new practices that all but eliminate cash from the system. Tap your card against the terminal, and thank you for your patronage. 

Imagine trying to buy a car, even second-hand, with cash alone. It'd have to be a junker with more miles on it than God before anyone even considered taking cash-only. 

Imagine how many red flags you'd set off if you tried.

Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock

Time was stacks of musty cash meant someone found treasure, and quite often  worthless Confederate loot. Scooby Doo pulled off that old chestnut back in the 1970s, Chester Himes tried it, and there've been plenty of pulp writers who did the same. Dirt-smeared stacks of cash hidden in someone's basement often have an unusual history, or - as happened in the Bermuda example - are too damaged to be used as cash, which presents its own problems.

OK, let's start talking about gamification. 

Here we have a situation where a low-power Node, street-level most likely, has accumulated a chunk of cash it can't easily spend. Maybe it's ordinary currency, maybe it's out-of-date, maybe it's antique. I'm not sure what you'd do with a stack of French Francs, for instance, now the Euro's a thing; I think I'm right in saying the last date of exchange was a while ago. Presumably, if you found a suitcase full of granny's retirement fund in the attic and wanted to spend it, you can still hand over old Francs for new Euro, but I've no idea how you'd do that. Nor, I suspect, does your average street-level Node.

But it wants to spend that cash, so it tries to exchange it at a bank or credit union.

Red Flag

The agents, trawling for information that might lead to the next link in the chain, discover a suspicious activity report in the data they harvested from [insert financial institution here]. Seems that someone's been trying to bank odd-smelling notes in unusual amounts, and this someone's hit the official radar before, for a slightly different crime: robbing a blood bank. What's going on here?

Option One: the man with the money stole the cash from a Level One Node. This hopeless wretch - someone roughly on a par with the Dracula Dossier's Madman - has been shadowing the Node for some time, as they know it's linked to the Conspiracy and there's nothing this poor deluded soul likes better than vampires. Tracking him down will get the agents some useful intel about the Node.

Option Two: the woman exchanging the cash is one of several mules this Level One Node uses to launder its cash. It isn't a perfect system; in fact it's a bloody awful system, as proven by the fact that they have to use a petty criminal to launder their loot. However their only other option is to stash the money in their mattress, and that won't work forever. 

Option Three: the person exchanging the cash is a vampire hunter/Dracula Dossier Legacy or similar, who found it while following up other leads. They're possibly a little naïve when it comes to money matters but they aren't vampire-friendly; quite the reverse. However, the Node knows the cash is missing and has a pretty good idea who has it, so unless the agents intervene this potential friendly could find themselves in deep trouble.

That's it for this week. Enjoy!    

A Million Dollar Trouper (Night's Black Agents)

This week's post is inspired by a recent Guardian news article about the antics and jolly japeries of the Barclay family.

The brief version is this: concerned that their uncle Sir Frederick was blabbing just a little too freely about the family's business interests, and in particular about the sale of London's Ritz Hotel to Qatari businessman Abdulhadi Mana al-Hajri, the younger generation bugged the Hotel's conservatory to listen in on Sir Frederick's business conversations. Sir Frederick's version is that he had buyers lined up prepared to pay over a billion pounds for London's most famous hotel, as discussed in those recorded conversations. The Ritz sold for much less than that. The implication is that the younger generation, which has control over the family's complicated financial structure, sabotaged his attempts to get a better price. The younger generation seems to think Sir Frederick is talking a load of old cock to leverage his way into a bigger payout.

Truly, the rich are different from you and me.

For those of you wondering 'haven't I heard the phrase Barclay Brothers before,' Sir Frederick is one of the two billionaire Barclay twins who, like Colossi, bestride the British financial world while petty men walk about under their huge ... well, that's enough of that. They're the ones attempting to take over Sark's feudal government, who've fiddl ... managed their taxes for years by claiming residence in Monaco (for health reasons, claims Sir Frederick), and who made sure the Ritz paid no corporation tax in the UK for 17 years. In short, wealthy weasels.

It's not entirely clear why the younger Barclays would deliberately sabotage a business deal that would earn them more money. Were I writing this as fiction, one possibility occurs: the deal wouldn't earn the business more money, but the buyer would sling a big fat financial inducement to the person who swung the deal. Sir Frederick, not having any direct say in the family's financial affairs, wouldn't benefit directly from a business deal, beyond the usual, but hankers after that big fat financial inducement. Hence those business meetings at the Ritz. As the family network wasn't getting any more cash no matter who bought it, the younger generation might be perfectly happy kicking old uncle Freddie in the statisticals if it meant a) he wouldn't get the B.F.F.I., and b) he'd keep out of the family's business in future. Game of Thrones, really, but with lawyers and bribes rather than stabbing and bribes.

However it did make me think about Night's Black Agents, and Nodes.

One typical version of the National or International level Node is the Corporation, or the Wealthy/Influential Individual. In Dracula Dossier terms, Klopstock & Billreuth, Bankers, or the Petroleum Executive.  These are the entities or people who can get things done, who by virtue of their own power/authority can affect and even direct the policies of small countries or nations. They have outposts in several different places, and luxurious homes in other places - Monaco, say. Often they're treated as monolithic or singular entities, but every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. Far from being singular, the Petroleum Executive, say, will have a flock of hangers-on, employees, family. Klopstock & Billreuth, having more working parts, will have an even larger flock.

These people will notice if the Node does something out of character, say because it's being influenced by outside powers. The Conspiracy doesn't care about balance sheets so it might order the higher-ups at K&B to do something that doesn't benefit the bank but does benefit the Conspiracy. Or it might tell the Petroleum Executive to falsify reports on prospective oil fields. The people close to them, but not directly touched by the Conspiracy, will notice this. They may try to do something about it. Like the younger Barclays, they may get very reckless. They may plant bugs, or hire people to plant bugs for them. Put surveillance on mobile phones, track the company car with GPS - all the kind of things that sound or look cool in a TV show but often end up in court in real life, possibly with substantial damages attached. As happened to the younger Barclays.

With that in mind:

Niko, My Cousin

The agents become aware (High Society, Law, possibly Cop Talk or via a contact like the Journalist) that a scandal is about to break. Someone attached to a suspected Node has been caught planting surveillance equipment in the Node's luxury Monaco townhouse. Apparently this has been going on for at least a few months, but it only recently came to light when that someone - Nic Bellic, the Serbian fiancée of the Node's son/daughter - was caught replacing one of the bugs.

According to Nic, the intent was to protect the fiancée from the Node's questionable business dealings. Apparently the trust fund was being drained, for reasons Nic doesn't fully understand. Nic thinks it has something to do with the Node's business partners, but isn't sure of the details.

Currently Nic is under lock and key in one of Monaco's high-end hotels. Lawyers are said to be circling, and the fiancée is dithering between the Node and Nic.

The Agents will want Nic's data. So does the Conspiracy. The question is, where is it? Does Nic have it in the hotel room? Is it in Nic's lawyers' safe? Does the fiancée have it?

The Conspiracy will also want to silence everyone involved, but in Monaco that's a tall order. The recorded murder rate has been 0% per 100,000 people since 2007. Even in 2001, the high-water mark, the murder rate was 3% per 100,000. There are more police per capita here than anywhere else on the planet, and cameras all over every street, public place, and high-end hotel corridor. An actual killing will be difficult to pull off. The Conspiracy's used to planting snipers on rooftops, but this is more a 'death by natural causes' situation. It would be much, much easier if this happened outside Monaco, but none of the main players seem all that keen to leave the fleshpots.

Enjoy!

Sand and Conflict Antiquities (Night's Black Agents)

So how does the Conspiracy get its money, anyway? It takes vast sums of cold hard cash to keep those combat choppers and armies of mooks on the payroll. Not every vampire is like that ultimate trustafarian, Dracula, with stacks of gold bullion stashed away in the dusty caverns under daddy's castle. Some of them have to work for a living; but what do they do, and what kind of payout can they expect?

I'm going to discuss two possibilities here, both ripped from the headlines: sand smuggling, and conflict antiquities.

Conflict antiquities is a topic that's been in the news frequently of late, due to its links with Isis, and the conflict in Syria. Briefly, in conflict zones organized bands of looters strip antiquities sites of anything valuable and portable, sending it to the antique shops of Europe for a quick buck. The process is helped by the traditional, mercenary attitude of collectors and dealers, a characteristic that has provided fiction with many memorable antiheroes. Most dealers don't inquire too closely into the antecedents of the items they sell, and the collectors care even less than the dealers. At the moment, profits from the trade are funding terrorist groups, but in the past it's kept many a crime lord and would-be dictator for life in clover.

Incidentally, in case you were about to argue that at least the antiques are saved for posterity, rather than destroyed, it's worth bearing in mind that the profits from each 'saved' antique go to fund the activities of the same people determined to destroy those same antiquity sites.

Religious fanaticism won't be denied, but even the fanatics are willing to bend a point to keep the movement in funds. The money's too good to resist; items flow from the conflict zone to nearby intermediary markets in, say, Turkey, before making its way to the West. It's organized looting on a massive scale. "Every day we are getting calls about Syrian gold, Syrian mosaics, Syrian statues," says one antiquities dealer. "Damascus is being sold right here in Amman, piece by piece."

Arguably the Conspiracy has a slight advantage over the ordinary looter, in that some of its members may be old enough to remember where all the best antiquities sites are. In any case, wherever the Vampires fit in the chain, it's a cinch that they're making a mint. The interesting thing about a chronicle of this type is that you can set the scene nearly anywhere, from a Middle Eastern marketplace to an oh-so-exclusive antiquities dealer in, say, Rome, or Bonn, or London. You're probably talking about several Nodes worth of the Conspyramid, from the original looters out on the sharp end, to the people organizing transport, to the vendors, and possibly also one or two of the more highly-placed collectors.

Now we've talked about that, let's talk about sand.

It's big business. Everybody needs it, and there isn't enough of it. Construction, manufacturing, technological development; it all comes, ultimately, from sand dredged up from river beds and beaches. Fresh water sand is best; you don't want to be fighting salt corrosion from sand impregnated with the stuff. Desert sand's no good, as you need it to have those rough edges, allowing it to bind together.

Ecologically this is frequently a nightmare scenario.Wisconsin's sand rush is not without its cost. "Your clothes are full of it, you can’t roll your car windows down," says one Wisconsin native, living near the Oakdale sand mines. "The breathing part of it isn’t good. You can just feel it in your throat, feel it in your nose." But that's in the United States, where you can, occasionally, oppose an industrial development on environmental grounds. Places like India, on the other hand, where there are few rules and little will to enforce them, are another question entirely. There are over a dozen nations heavily involved in illicit sand mining, and again, there are indications that profits from these scams flow back to, among others, terrorist groups.

From a Conspiracy perspective, sand lacks the sexiness of antiquities smuggling, but it's a lethal trade, worth a fortune, and might appeal to technologically-proficient vampires looking for raw materials to build their sinister devices. Or who just want to build a city in the middle of nowhere. Construction materials aren't cheap, after all.

As with antiquities, the most useful element of sand smuggling is that you can set the story pretty much anywhere. Once again there's the blasted, gang-run danger zone, where life is cheap and bribes frequent. Even if there is an actual authority, you can bet that the cops and government types will not be on the characters' side. Then there's the transport arm, and finally the delivery site, where the product is then divided up and shipped off to wherever it's needed. That could be Washington DC, or it could be Dubai. Or anywhere else in between, really; the choice is yours.

That's it from me. Enjoy!

Bush League

Extra Credits has been an excellent video series about the game industry, which I've followed since its debut on the Escapist. Recently EC left the Escapist due to a dispute over money. I'm not going to rehash that argument here. I don't have all the facts at my disposal and I doubt it would matter if I did, since both sides are burning with righteous indignation right now and neither willing to concede a yard of ground. Trench warfare didn't work out so well the last time it was used, but every time lawyers get involved it seems both sides start digging.

However it intrigues me (in a morbid look-at-the-car-wreck way) that the dispute is over non-payment of money owed. Judging by some of the twitter responses this may not be the first time that's been a problem. Now, I have a dog in this fight, as I've written for the Escapist before and hope to do so again. That dog may be small and puny, but it has four legs and fleas: it's a dog.

They're not the only company I've written for. I've done a little for Ars Magica and a lot more for Call and Trail of Cthulhu, among others. No, I'm not going to tell you who pays late and who on time. That'd be wrong of me, and childish to boot. Any discussion along those lines is between me, the other fella, and my bank account.

However the Escapist debacle reminded me of a forum discussion I had on YSDC about NDAs and their use by pen-and-paper RPG companies. My position was, I didn't see the point in anything as official or as restrictive as an NDA when the subject of the agreement was as trivial, in the grand scheme of things, as an RPG product. A licensed property, perhaps; something technologically complex, perhaps; something worth a lot of money, perhaps. The average monograph fits none of those categories. At that rate of pay, you're looking at just a touch over $0.01/word. You don't pay rent with that cheque. The Horror Writers Association suggests (in their membership requirements) that the minimum professional rate is $0.05/word, which is not a rate that all of the RPG companies I have done business with have paid. Of course Chaosium's a bit unique in that their monograph system has the contributor doing all the work, and there's always the chance they might get more if the thing 'goes gold', to borrow a term from a different gaming industry. But low pay is a fact of life in the RPG biz. The one piece of advice everyone involved repeats again and again is 'don't give up the day job.'

A few things came out of the NDA discussion, some of which I agreed with and some I did not. Yet some of them seemed to suggest a mentality I've come across a couple times before: "if you want to play in the big leagues, you have to play by our rules."

I'm pretty sure the big leagues can afford to pay more than $0.01/word. I'm also pretty sure the big leagues can afford to pay on time. The Penguins, the Pan MacMillans, the Times, they're the ones in the big leagues. Even they screw up, but I doubt they make a habit of it. Down here in the dirt, we play bush league stuff.

Now, I don't mind the minors. I see it as a proving ground. I expect one day to move up to the majors, if I'm good enough, and I constantly work towards that goal. I like the Escapist. The people I've done business with there, particularly Susan Arendt, are good people. I'm sorry to see them in this mess, and I'm sorrier still that it had to be Extra Credits, a series I admire. I think this is a situation that could have been avoided.

However I do wish one thing: that we all stopped pretending this is the big time. It's not. This is scrabbling in the dirt, praying that the ump is cross-eyed enough not to notice our screw-ups. That can still be a hell of a game, and it demands skill, but it is not the majors.

Maybe it never will be, but that shouldn't stop anyone from trying to be professional. From bush to big isn't an impossible gap, but it demands a certain commitment to standards, on both sides.

Again, I'm sorry it had to be Extra Credits, and I'm sorry it had to be the Escapist. I wish everyone concerned the best of luck.