Alright, so lets talk.
You're a foreigner, a white man, coming to an African country to buy a "diamond mine" to establish a legal trail of paperwork as someone who is importing gemstones from their own
1)First, you have to register a limited liability company.
Whether its a foreign business registering for domestic business, or you're incorporating a new corporate identity.
That has to be done, company officials registered, fees paid, tax palaver settled.
Paperwork acquired.
2) You have to acquire a likely plot of land for your "mine."
This is either government land, community owned land or private land. Assuming something modest, say a parcel of land 5x5 km.
The transfer has to be recorded, regardless.
So commercial property, registered with the government, possibly at different levels of govt, from local to federal.
Paperwork acquired.
3)You then need a mining permit.
Back to the appropriate ministry; probably Solid Minerals or Mining, depending on the country.
Hope you dont need to go to the Environmental Ministry as well for permits from them as well.
Permits acquired.
4)Now you need to settle the locals. The people on the ground who may have been previously using that land, the ones who will make a fuss or draw attention if they arent settled, the people who will provide early warning if people come sniffing around.
This is the largest group of people, and cheapest per capita.
No paperwork, but this step is crucial.
5)Now thats settled, you're dealing with establishing a paper trail for getting the stones out of the country.
You need to file fake production output forms with the Mines/Solid Minerals Ministry(bribes), tax documents from Finance(fees + bribes), get an export permit and pay export duty (fees + bribes) from Export/Customs. Might have to deal with Environment as well. Thats all paperwork you want copies of.
I dont even want to consider how you get the stones into the country in the first place before you can export them without having them held up for ransom at customs periodically. Or just seized.
At each level of this, you're dealing with multiple people who have the details of this cross their desk, and who have to be settled financially. Even if you're only paying one person, that person will often have to spread the love around to get acquisence.
Especially at the local level. I wasnt kidding when I said something like this would involve hundreds of people in the know.
And if at any point in this some other local political figure decides to horn in, or the people you were previously working with get replaced, your costs go up. And one honest person can potentialy blow the entire thing up.
Furthermore, most of those bribes are recurring costs.
This is all on the Africa side, not the US Customs side, which has its own issues.
At the end of all this, after that expense and trouble? You've taken something that was previously totally legal, and in the process of shenanigans made enough of a paper trail to make yourself liable for prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, with fines up to 2x the total benefit from the bribes, and imprisonment for up to five years
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - Wikipedia
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What Is the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)? Antibribery Aim
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) is a U.S. law that prohibits the payment of bribes to foreign officials to further business deals.
And then we have to try to do damage control.
Civil forfeiture is principally wielded against people with lots of cash and little legal recourse.
Smalltime and mediumscale drug dealers with lots of cash on hand, no apparent legal source of income and an unwillingness or inability to fight in court. Poor or unbanked people who had cash at home and ran into a corrupt police force.
More recently, foreign dictators and their families with credible accusations of embezzlement and both houses and bank accounts to seize. And most recently, marijuana stores in states where its been decriminalized, but federal rules still applied and the police department were still intent on playing fuckfuck games and
US citizens with papertrails and seriousface legal teams on retainer dont have to deal with civil forfeiture.
Anyone who is capable of fighting for their money is generally too much of a hassle.
Even known criminals with front businesses generally require law enforcement to try criminal forfeiture after proving a crime.
Landsat 7 is 15 m panchromatic.
Digital Globe had 2 successful imaging satellites launched between 1999 and 2001 with sub-1m resolution.
DigitalGlobe - Wikipedia
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