Aftermath... The Watchers

Aftermath The Watchers

I have to deal with some of my people people over the phone, and I have to deal with them myself . In such a situation, I like to use a voice-over-IP service through my anonymizing network, and exit to the PSTN in a variety of places.

Hello?

I say into the microphone, This is Knuth. How is our friend doing? I have a slightly different set of voice modulation settings for each person I must speak to.

Bobby says, He spent the money, gave it to a girl for some documents. Did he do what he was supposed to? Bobby wasn t too bright. Bobby isn t a mouthpiece, he s a watcher. In fact, he s one of my few watchers who is permitted to interact with the talent in any way. Dex should be expecting some level of surveillance, so if he cares to look, he should be able to spot Bobby checking on him.

I question further, How about his mail and phone calls? Bobby also isn t bright enough to intercept an Internet connection.

Bobby says, He got a bunch of packages at his pickup spot. Not a lot of phone calls.

I asked, And has he met any new people? Gone out much?

Bobby says, No, not really. He went to a club one night. No new people. Good, right?

I conclude, Very good, Bobby. You should be contacted soon by our associate with information on how to finish the job. I believe you will be picking up a package from Dex.

Bobby tries to interject, Mr. Knuth, can I ask Click.

I hang up on him. No Bobby, you can t.

Of course, Bobby isn t the only one keeping an eye on Dex. Dex has another watcher, one who Dex doesn t get to see, and Bobby doesn t know about. Naturally, Dex s friend has been bought off.

Of most use to me in this case is the individual who is monitoring Dex s Internet usage. Dex is a little bit of a special case, he s very important to my operation. He will be in control of a great deal of my proceeds (though, not all of it, despite what he may believe.) I can stand to lose up to 75% of the funds outstanding.

It is very important that everyone know their parts , as I will not be able to personally supervise on the critical couple of days when Dex will actually make the transfers. I will be traveling. Each of my money men has someone assigned to them to make sure their life is ended and that they take the blame, should they stray and screw me. If any of them were to look, they might find an alarming number of trails leading back to them. If they perform well, those trails will be made a little fainter. And, of course, they will receive their payments.

There are several potential ways the plan might not go off. First of all, they might try and double-cross me. They might try and take a little too much of the money. They might say a little too much. The money itself isn t the issue. It s virtually guaranteed that I will achieve my target sum. The issue is loyalty. If they can t stick to the deal, then they aren t loyal. If they can t keep their mouths shut, then they aren t loyal. They get to pick if they want a punishment or reward. In an extreme case, I have some contingency plans that could take over for the missing money man and retrieve most of the funds.

There are potentially other problems, which I will not fault the team members for. If they do their jobs and deliver the funds, but they are intercepted, I cannot fault my team member. Some of that is bound to happen, and has been planned for. In fact, I am counting on it. On or about 0-day, approximately 1 billion US dollars should make an unauthorized shift. I need to net $180 million of that. Anything beyond that amount will be left behind. The banks will be grateful to have as much as an 80% recovery rate. No, they won t be satisfied without all of it, and won t give up looking. But some of the urgency may be abated.

Another potential problem is with the form in which the money is delivered. In some situations, I won t be able to touch it. If an account trail is compromised, that money will be left. If it has been converted to a form such that sale of it would be noticed, I can t touch it. In particular, there are a number of physical goods that I cannot traffic in. These include art, artifacts, jewelry , precious stones and metals, property, weapons, drugs, and large quantities of currency.

Strangely enough, much of the goods that are serial-numbered, vehicles, electronics, appliances, etc are relatively safe. The grey markets for these goods are well-established, and the numbers are all replaced .

The problems with the items I can t trade in are one of two things: Either the goods are watched too carefully by law enforcement (drugs, weapons, currency), or the item is too easily recognized. For example, art, artifacts, jewelry, stones, and property are all unique items. The canonical example; can you imagine trying to fence the Mona Lisa?

Precious metals, stones, and jewelry are all known, sometimes by proper name , by the dealers you would want to sell to. If you had a high-value piece of unique jewelry, even if it were not particularly famous, all the dealers know when it has been sold. They live on this information; it sets their prices. They publish books about these, so they can set prices.

Plus, the plain simple truth is that a jewelry dealer won t buy from anyone else besides another dealer that they know. They have absolutely no interest in destroying their reputation over a stolen piece or counterfeit bought from someone that they don t know.

So, my team members might acquire some equity that is not of use to me, but I will not fault them for it. I will pay them, and say thank you. They needn t know too much detail.

Dex s mouthpiece shall carry out my wishes from this point on, until such a time as I can take receipt myself.