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Six arrested after 'Dutch torture chambers' found
- jacquesm 6y agoRotterdam is one of the largest transshipment points for containers in the world and is also one of the largest drugs transit points for Europe. Crime there is relatively heavy compared to other dutch cities. https://www.erasmusmagazine.nl/en/2019/11/14/why-there-are-record-cocaine-busts-in-the-port-of-rotterdam-again-and-again/ https://www.erasmusmagazine.nl/en/2019/11/14/why-there-are-r... The largest bust this year iirc is 2000 KG in a single container from Latin America, street value well over 100 million, decoy was a load of bananas.
- colechristensen 6y agoOff-topic, but it's hard to get the right feeling about the valuation given in drug busts. They say 100 million, but nobody actually lost that much money or paid that much money, and the drugs will just be replaced. The "wholesale" value of the drugs at that port may well have been 1/1000th of the quoted street price or less. You get the impression that they like showing off big numbers, but it's difficult to be convinced that it ultimately makes a big difference, or even a positive one.
- darawk 6y agoThat's definitely the case. They always quote street values, which is ridiculous. But 2000kg is still a lot.
- PedroBatista 6y agoIt's not ridiculous because it's the "real" total value of the goods, which is what matters more than to know if the "owner" would receive X of Y.
- colechristensen 6y agoNo, the real value is the wholesale value at the port. What someone might pay to be able to pick up that amount at that place, or alternatively the marginal price i.e. what it cost to get the goods to that port. Is the “real” value of a field of corn ready to harvest the cost of the seed? the market price per bushel? the retail price of the tens of thousands of boxes of corn flakes? The value of anything accumulates with every action that is done to it and every piece of capital involved. A wholesale good at port is in the middle of that process and has not had all of its end value added yet.
- jacquesm 6y agoThey do mention it is 'street value', so it is properly qualified as far as I'm concerned.
- catalogia 6y agoI think this whole conversation is missing the forest for the trees. What matters is that it was worth enough to motivate torture. Quibbling over what number to put to that is missing the point.
- jacquesm 6y agoThe torture probably factors in on deals worth a couple of percent of that particular one.
- colechristensen 6y agoI knew this and the first thing i said was “off topic”, but i do think that quoting the street value exaggerates the effects of the bust and the pattern of communication distorting the reality in public announcements is worthy of debate. And yes, you can distort reality by telling the truth when you choose irrelevant facts for your main message. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
- 6y ago
- alasdair_ 6y agoAgreed. For example, a kilo of cocaine in Los Angeles is around $17K. It's around double that in many other cities. Call it $25K as an average "street" price in major US cities (higher in those further from major trafficing routes). That gives a value around half of the amount quoted. To me, it seems like the police break everything up into half-gram prices and then add all those up. This would be like investigating the theft of 1000 gallons of water from a tap and then adding up how much the cost of that water would be if it was all converted to 250ml Evian bottles at retail.
- jacquesm 6y agoWell, it's street value so that's retail, though obviously if you are the owner of 2000 kg of cocaine you won't expect to make that much on it. Regardless, the amount here and it's value is so large that you can bet people would be more than happy to kill for it, it is no coincidence that this torture setup was discovered near Rotterdam. Even if the 'markup' is a factor of two. And that particular bust only stands out because of its immense size, 1200 and 1500 kg busts are relatively commonplace. The big question is how much of it gets through.
- celticninja 6y agoIf you consider that a 2000kg bust will have little to no effect on the retail price of cocaine you can assume that what gets through is a lot more.
- jacquesm 6y agoSafe bet.
- PedroBatista 6y agoThese "valuations" are important because they put a number on the whole "chain of value". Of course nobody would paid 100 million for that shipment, just like they didn't paid 80 million for the drugs. But you sure can bet if those drugs were bought and consumed, around 100 million would change hands ( total ), 10 million more 10 million less.. it's an estimation.
- oillio 6y agoThe bust doesn't change the demand at the market. The producers will provide as much as the market demands, taking into account the expected losses along the supply chain (losses such as confiscation). This only increases the cost of the suppliers. Which will be passed on to the consumer. As others have said, the war on drugs can only increase the price, and temporarily disrupt supply. I think it has been conclusively proven they are not capable of increasing the price above what the customer is willing to pay.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoIf they catch 5% of the market cocaine, then those 100 million would not have changed hands because if they didn’t catch those 100million worth of cocaine that cocaine overhead would never have been shipped. It’s not like people would suddenly start consuming more cocaine if police would stop seizing it.
- PedroBatista 6y agoThey would, just like they'll consume less if prices go way up. It's a relatively common occurrence these "shortages", but all of this to a point, people wouldn't consume triple the amount if there was 3x cocaine available. No one wants the streets to be flooded with cocaine, and I mean - no one - There's a reason why cartels are called cartels.
- elorant 6y agoJust because there are huge profit margins doesn't mean that there aren't people who were relying on pocketing the street value, or something similar. Whoever can move such vast quantities of drugs obviously employs hundreds of people who expect to get paid.
- colechristensen 6y agoThey also have a pipeline for delivering such quantities regularly and factor in loss to law enforcement just the same as retail prices in “shrink”. It is doubtful that a bust of that size is anything more than a regularly expected inconvenience. And honestly, reductions in supply means you can raise you prices and quite believably come out ahead. The war on drugs definitely makes the drug business more profitable.
- tomcooks 6y agoI think that if I were the head of a police department I would want to educate (or indoctrinate, depending on your view) citizens on the amount of money that drug cartels evade from taxation
- 082349872349872 6y agoI had heard that there are parts of Rotterdam where the politie patrol in groups of five. At the time, I'd thought of their safety, and guessed those must be hard neighbourhoods indeed. But after reading https://local.theonion.com/corrupt-policeman-worried-about-working-with-partner-wh-1844309860 https://local.theonion.com/corrupt-policeman-worried-about-w... I wonder if another aspect may be because there are so many drugs transiting through, and while it's relatively easy for two people to be crooked together, it gets fairly difficult for five.
- jacquesm 6y ago> I had heard that there are parts of Rotterdam where the politie patrol in groups of five. Citation?
- 082349872349872 6y agoOnly oral, from a visiting dutchie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVfiWfoDsrM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVfiWfoDsrM shows pairs on patrol, but working closely enough they reinforce quickly for arrests. kijk 4 min 5 s (bereden politie can screen more effectively than fietspolitie, but I guess one goes with what one has on hand) Looks like your border patrol is much less relaxed than ours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy-dHaIuKdw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy-dHaIuKdw
- Doxin 6y agothe royal marechaussee aren't border patrol. They fall under the military and only get involved in serious crime. Your average smuggler would get handled by the police.
- mercer 6y agoThey do all sorts of things, including border patrol stuff. > The RNLM performs the following duties: > <stuff> > - guarding the national borders (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Marechaussee#Present_KMar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Marechaussee#Present_KMa...)
- the-dude 6y agoStrange there are no pictures. Here is some footage : https://www.nu.nl/281820/video/politie-geeft-beelden-van-brabantse-martelkamer-vrij.html https://www.nu.nl/281820/video/politie-geeft-beelden-van-bra...
- birdyrooster 6y agoLots of dutch and then at the very end a proper, "fuckin' hell"
- 1123581321 6y agoI would not want to finish my life in there. It's sad to think how many people around the world may currently be in something like that.
- jacquesm 6y agoAt a guess this was a V2, and V1 still exists and operates.
- hatmatrix 6y agoI suppose on this thread we should be wondering how encrypted chat (that can also be wiped/self-destructed) can be decoded?
- departure 6y agoBelieve it was due to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23711867 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23711867
- lowmemcpu 6y agoThat discussion took place on HackerNews a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23711977 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23711977
- superhuzza 6y agoSounds like some kind of malware was distributed to the phones via compromised EncroChat servers. I wouldn't want to be one of the EncroChat employees/distributors right now. Their client base seems pretty dangerous, and probably pretty pissed off right now. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/07/police-infiltrate-encrypted-phones-arrest-hundreds-in-organized-crime-bust/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/07/police-infiltrat...
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- jakub_g 6y agoInteresting video at the bottom: the Android devices that boot like normal devices, then you can reboot into a shady mode; and in shady mode, when the phone is locked and you unlock with "special" PIN, the phone goes into destroy-all-data mode.
- brian_herman__ 6y agoWe should make this for regular people to use!
- draw_down 6y agoBut you have to think of the children!!
- himlion 6y agoInteresting that so many fellow Dutch people being surprised "that kind of stuff can happen over here". They seem to forget we're the main worldwide exporter of XTC and a huge distributor for other drugs.
- AQuantized 6y agoI don't think people would be surprised for the Netherlands to be associated with drugs, but would be more so for violent crime.
- luckylion 6y agoWhich in itself is surprising as the drug business is very much associated with violent crime.
- himlion 6y agoI should have made it more clear I indeed mean the association with the violent crime. the sentiment I've heard a lot is people see the drugs as a business and the violent, ruthless sides of it are something that mostly happens in Latin America like you see on "Narcos".
- mercer 6y agoInteresting. Nobody I know is surprised by this stuff. Maybe it's because we're in the Randstad area and aware of the strings of liquidations that have been happening in Amsterdam? Not to mention the recent high-profile arrest of Taghi who grew up near Utrecht.
- jacquesm 6y agoTo your point: https://www.nu.nl/binnenland/6056224/politie-ontdekt-drugslab-in-gelders-herwijnen-drie-mannen-aangehouden.html https://www.nu.nl/binnenland/6056224/politie-ontdekt-drugsla... More and more Latin American criminals directly involved here as well. If anybody is still surprised about this they haven't been paying much attention the last decade or two.
- 6y ago
- tibbydudeza 6y agoWe have vicious gangs here that control the drug trade but they are happy to take potshots at each other and when there is a serious disagreement they take out each others leadership. But this kind of brutal violence like a torture chamber and the stuff that you see in Mexican drug cartels (ISIS type of debauched executions) is on way another level. It is actually bad for their business you would think.
- mytailorisrich 6y ago> It is actually bad for their business you would think. No, this is a way to establish a reputation so that people don't even try to screw you. It's good old terror, not very subtle but effective. When you deal with 'bad' guys and have no legal recourse for anything it is rational to use violence as a way to make others 'play straight', and being very harsh actually minimises the instances where violence is needed at all.
- walshemj 6y agoIts also a way if you go full Templario death cult you become a problem that is dealt with by military force.
- bilbo0s 6y agoA French friend of mine, long ago in college, was actually on Interpol's list of wanted criminals for a while. He slipped into the US, (have no idea how), and has lived a crime free life here ever since. One thing he told me after living here in the US for a while was that Americans tend to believe violent crime in Europe is lower than violent crime in the US because they can easily compare the homicide rates. Whereas people like him know that you don't compare murder for murder, you compare murders in the US, to "missing" people in Europe. His sense was that there was actually far more violent crime in Europe at the time, just far fewer living witnesses. The discovery of this "shipping container" kind of "jibes" with that long ago street-level assessment.
- jacquesm 6y ago
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoThat's stomach churning footage of those chambers. Have we always been this evil, or are we becoming something new?
- the-dude 6y agoWould you rather be pulled apart by four horses?
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoI know that's a rhetorical question, but I would personally choose being ripped apart by horses than spirited away to a torture chamber and tortured to death.
- the-dude 6y agoHow about rats?
- function_seven 6y agoBut keep asking yourself the similar rhetorical questions until you land on something that's hard to choose between. The methods of torture devices centuries and millennia ago are just as horrifying as what you see here. Crucifixion for starters. Brazen bull. Breaking on the wheel. Etc. No, this isn't new. What is new is that this is more rare than it used to be. (At least, I think/hope it is. I might be wrong). We just need to continue on that path.
- flir 6y agoDunno. Are they duck-sized?
- austinprete 6y agoTorture chambers are nothing new, unfortunately. While still completely disturbing, if anything I’d say this setup was relatively mild compared to what you might’ve seen in medieval times or the Inquisition.
- jandrese 6y agoThe EncroChat bust has proven so profitable for police it makes you wonder if it wasn't a setup the entire time. Some agency creates a service marketed specifically for criminals, waits a bit for users to sign up and start using it, then "oops we had a design flaw" and all of the criminals who bought the service are scooped up in the aftermath.
- jacquesm 6y agoIt wasn't, if it was then Encrochat would not have warned its users they had been compromised on Jun 13th.
- jandrese 6y agoThe jig was already up at that point, and it gave the entire thing a veneer of plausibility.
- jacquesm 6y agoSure... well, let's just say that if and when the founders of Encrochat turn up in small pieces I wouldn't be surprised at all and that could simply have been the one shot they had left at hopefully getting out of this alive. Pissing off a very large number of people that have zero problems with killing your and/or your extended family is a career limiting move if there ever was one. Sleep with the dogs, wake up with fleas. Or not wake up.
- KorfmannArno 6y agoI'm not saying that I know whether it was or wasn't and yet the warning doesn't prove that Encrochat wasn't a police setup.
- jacquesm 6y agoSuch theories should be accompanied by at least a little bit of evidence. 'doesn't prove wasn't' is trying to prove a negative, which is impossible.
- ed25519FUUU 6y agoHonestly, if the police are going to out themselves as having cracked the encryption of a major crime tool (thus making it worthless in the future), stopping the usage of custom-built torture chambers is a pretty good reason to do it.
- jacquesm 6y agoIt was blown, if not for that they would have been happy to continue the operation. Once the criminals figured out they had been compromised the operation was effectively over, Encrochat alerted their users to destroy the devices. After that it is obvious there would be a mop-up operation.
- say_it_as_it_is 6y ago800 arrests. That's quite a syndicate. The torture chambers are probably the tip of the iceberg.
- Scoundreller 6y agoMore terrible things brought to you by the criminalization of drugs. This doesn’t happen in the coffee or sugar business.
- doitLP 6y agoExcept it used to...You named two of the largest slave crops in history.
- oillio 6y agoAlso look into the banana industry. It is absurd the price that has been paid to make bananas as cheap as they are in the grocery store.
- Scoundreller 6y agoBananas aren't a laborious crop. If labourers' salaries were dramatically improved, there'd be minimal retail price impact. The root cause is they grow and ship well from places with crap worker rights/alternative employment.
- typhonic 6y agoIt wasn't always that way. The sugar industry in the Americas was heavily tied to slave trade.
- Scoundreller 6y agoMost industry in the Americas was heavily tied to the slave trade. Individual freedoms helped fix a lot of that without the sky falling.
- sdinsn 6y ago> This doesn’t happen in the coffee or sugar business. Uhhh, are you joking? Slavery is still found in these industries to this very day. Organized crime too- for example, cartels in Mexico have moved to extort Avocados from farmers because it has better margins than drugs...
- aaron695 6y agoThis reeks of fake. Normal mix of media and police increasing the busts importance. I would guess the 'sound proofing' is to hide drugs. The scapel and shears were for gardening. And the dentist chair, both a scary real life tool and common movie prop was about just that, being scary. Or they were bored and had a dentists chair. This quote isn't even tied to this gangs bust, but they included it just to mislead you. "Threats detailed on the site included acid attacks and chopping off limbs"
- Udik 6y agoHalf thought the same. Why would a criminal gang need a torture chamber in a container? Isn't any basement (and old chair) good for that? And why multiple ones, how many people do they need to torture exactly at the same time? Is there a booking system in place like for meeting rooms? One possibility is that they're props, good to give a good scare to those who might think of scamming the criminals.
- mercer 6y agoIf you're a hardened criminal, why would you go through all the trouble of setting up a torture chamber and not really want to use it!?
- vmception 6y agoRotterdam ports seem like the sketchiest place in Western Europe. It really comes across as a den of pirates but with modern buildings and. So many traders with phantom product and other bullshit, a huge useless blacklist of LLCs that people can just spin up anywhere in the world at any time. And a torture chamber in the port because the "encrypted chat" everyone was using was not encrypted anymore?
- whataboutist 6y ago>And a torture chamber in the port because the "encrypted chat" everyone was using was not encrypted anymore? The containers were located in a rural area. Read the article.
- knodi123 6y agoSo why wouldn't a chamber like this just be delivered, and then watched? It feels like the dutch cops arrested somebody for the crime of transporting a torture chamber, and the people who were actually planning to use it get off without a hitch.