alt Hacker NewsI don't think it'd be difficult for the CIA to charter a cargo plane from somewhere in the USA without any questions being asked. They used to be very involved in the air freight trade. Guns don't move themselves!
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MSFT_Edging • today at 12:23 PM
They still own several air freight companies!
Yes, I agree. CIA cargo flights out of U.S. military bases and private airfields probably happen all the time. My point was that if the guy's scheme to get the gold issued involved a cover story of flying the gold on such a cargo flight to some general or warlord somewhere, I can't imagine the normal process is "Ok, we'll deliver a pallet of >600 pounds of gold bars to your office desk."
The CIA must have people who securely transport illicit things like pallets of gold, RPGs, explosives, etc from a wherever they are warehoused to airfields for secret cargo flights. So, I was puzzled by how the culprit circumvented what I assume would be the normal delivery channel and took direct possession himself.
The reality may be more depressingly banal than clever clandestine deception. The guy was probably just the senior person in charge of approving dispersal of the CIA's slush fund 'petty cash' for illicit bribes and payoffs. And, incomprehensibly, there was no process for reviewing the approver's approvals, so he just wrote up his own paperwork and approved delivering it to himself in whatever way he found convenient. Hell, maybe he just had them deliver it to his house.
I guess that's the kind of stupid stuff that can happen when you combine "need to know" compartmentalized secrecy with massive bureaucracy. People just do what the paperwork says and don't ask questions or care.