China International Fund, A little RL evilness to inspire your games Options

[CanRay]

Proof for that?

Oh no, I'm not getting in trouble again!

[Grinder]

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Backgammon]

One interesting aspect of the article may not be so much that a corporation is pillage a country, but exactly HOW that is being done. The ties going back to Soviet days, building relations during war time, bringing into the fold ministers, bypassing governements by paying off the secret police instead... that's all juicy stuff to build NPCs and plots around. Plus that big boss that uses many different names (like, seriously, that's James Bond shit), how the corporations making up the syndicate aren't actually owned by an umbrella entity. That's the real pay data.

[Seriously Mike]

The last bit (independent corporations owned by a group of unofficially connected businessmen) sounds pretty much like Aztech's operation in LA. Also, "bypassing governments by paying off the secret police" - it's not like that. In third-world bush kingdoms secret police pretty much IS the government, and if it's not secret police, then it's the powers behind the throne - powerful businessmen, tribal leaders and the like. One example: nine years ago, there was a major fuck-up in Congo involving an intelligence agent from my country. In short: the dumb schmuck tried to rip off THE Congolese tycoon. Not "a" tycoon, but "THE" tycoon, with a capital "THE" - Nyembwe Kazadi, a close friend of late president Laurent Kabila and trusted advisor and protector of the new president, Kabila's son Joseph. Now, here's how it happened:

The guy was our consul and charge d'affaires in Congo, responsible for pretty damn everything going between Congo and Poland. He's got a brilliant idea of creating a fake company just to secure a multi-billion oil contract - however, in order to drill for oil in Congo, foreign capital has to go into joint venture with state-owned companies. So, our schmuck, after feeding some unbelievably shaky bullshit to the Congolese government and getting a large Polish company, Petrobaltic, to back it up, ended up in a business with Nyembwe Kazadi's company, Cohydro. And all would be fine and dandy if Kazadi didn't want to call our schmuck's bluff.
Here's where the fun starts. Kazadi managed to confirm that Petrobaltic was a straight shooter, but despite trying everything he couldn't find any confirmed info about the fake company. So he asked Petrobaltic's president - sadly, after our schmuck warned him (officially, using his intelligence connections) that Kazadi is "a fraud and a blackmailer". So Petrobaltic's boss ignored Kazadi, who then got an undoubtedly brilliant idea of going to Poland and checking things out firsthand. The problem was, he needed a visa. Now, go back to the beginning of the paragraph. Yeah, there. Guy who was trying to rip him off was also the Polish consul and of course denied him the visa. Unluckily for our guy, Kazadi was a persistent son-of-a-bitch and managed to get the visa from a Polish consulate in a different country. I guess you already figured out the shit is going to hit the fan in a minute.
And splat, here it does! Kazadi was stopped at the airport by the Border Guard, who were warned (officially) that he was "a fraud and a blackmailer" - it took the intervention of our Ministry of Foreign Affairs to un-fuck the situation. So Kazadi went to a couple of meetings, sadly none of them with Petrobaltic, and then decided to go back to Congo. Before the departure, however, he received info that he would be arrested as soon as he touches the ground, but he disregarded it and returned to Congo, only to be arrested for treason. But, considering that he is THE Congolese tycoon, his security detail managed to fend off the Congolese secret police at the airport and hide Kazadi long enough for him to contact the president. President Kabila, seeing a potential coup d'etat, arranged a meeting with Kazadi and the head of secret police, demanded to know what exactly went down. Turned out, Kazadi was to be arrested for espionage, more exactly - spying for Poland. Who supplied the secret police with this info? Yes, you're correct, our schmuck the consul. He even managed to pass it as official info from the Polish intelligence agency. Kazadi lost his shit and decided to get to the bottom of all this. Took him some time, but he eventually did figure out who and how wanted to shaft him and Congo.

However, the Polish part of the deal is so confusing that even the journalist who wrote about it isn't exactly sure who would profit from it (because the consul was obviously a small fry), but suggests some names of powerful local businessmen with political connections. That and weird operations by people from the Polish intelligence agency, aimed at taking over some state-owned companies.