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Smuggling
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. There are various motivations to smuggle. These include the participation in illegal trade, such as in the drug trade, illegal weapons trade, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, exotic wildlife trade, art theft, heists, chop shops, illegal immigration or illegal emigration, tax evasion, import/export restrictions, providing contraband to prison inmates, or the theft of the items being smuggled. Smuggling is a common theme in literature, from Bizet's opera '' Carmen'' to the James Bond spy books (and later films) '' Diamonds Are Forever'' and '' Goldfinger''. Etymology The verb ''smuggle'', from Low German ''smuggeln'' or Dutch ''smokkelen'' (="to transport (goods) illegally"), apparently a frequentative formation of a word meaning "to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wildlife Smuggling
Wildlife smuggling or trafficking involves the illegal gathering, transportation, and distribution of animals and their derivatives. This can be done either internationally or domestically. Estimates of the money generated by wildlife smuggling vary, in part because of its illegal nature. "Wildlife smuggling is estimated at $7.8bn to $10bn a year, according to the U.S. State Department. The U.S. State Department also lists wildlife trafficking as the third most valuable illicit commerce in the world." The illegal nature of such activities makes determining the amount of money involved incredibly difficult. When considered with illegal timber and fisheries, wildlife trafficking is a major illegal trade along with narcotics, human trafficking, and counterfeit products. Products demanded by the trade include exotic pets, food, traditional medicine, clothing, and jewelry made from animals' tusks, fins, skins, shells, horns, and internal organs. Smuggled wildlife is an increasing glob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illegal Drug Trade
The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through the use of drug prohibition laws. The think tank Global Financial Integrity's ''Transnational Crime and the Developing World'' report estimates the size of the global illicit drug market between US$426 and US$652billion in 2014 alone. With a world GDP of US$78 trillion in the same year, the illegal drug trade may be estimated as nearly 1% of total global trade. Consumption of illegal drugs is widespread globally and it remains very difficult for local authorities to thwart its popularity. History The government of the Qing Dynasty issued edicts against opium smoking in 1730, 1796 and 1800. The West prohibited addictive drugs throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Beginning in the 18th century, British merchants from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Trafficking
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extraction of organs or tissues, including for surrogacy and ova removal. Human trafficking can occur within a country or trans-nationally. Human trafficking is a crime against the person because of the violation of the victim's rights of movement through coercion and because of their commercial exploitation. Human trafficking is the trade in people, especially women and children, and does not necessarily involve the movement of the person from one place to another. People smuggling (also called ''human smuggling'' and ''migrant smuggling'') is a related practice which is characterized by the consent of the person being smuggled. Smuggling situations can descend into human trafficking through coercion and exploitation. Trafficked people are he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soviet Computing Technology Smuggling
Soviet computing technology smuggling, both attempted and actual, was a response to CoCom (Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls) restrictions on technology transfer. History Mainframe successes Initially the Soviet Union focused on mainframe computing technology, particularly the IBM 360 and 370. Between 1967 and 1972 much effort went into reverse engineering what they "acquired." Their first IBM-like machine was based on a 360/40 smuggled in via Poland. The second Soviet-built machine was from a 370/145. Their focus subsequently shifted to super-minicomputers. Failure in 1983 to import a VAX-11/782 did not stop their efforts. "Reverse-engineered and copied Apple IIe parts" brought microcomputers to the Soviet Union; it also brought computer viruses too. IBM PC compatible computers were also smuggled in. Production of Iron curtain mainframes, at one point, was estimated to be 180 per year. VAX failures The failure of the Soviets to acquire a VAX-11/782, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diamonds Are Forever (novel)
''Diamonds Are Forever'' is the fourth novel by the British author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. Fleming wrote the story at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, inspired by a ''Sunday Times'' article on diamond smuggling. The book was first published by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom on 26 March 1956. The story centres on Bond's investigation of a diamond-smuggling operation that originates in the mines of Sierra Leone and runs to Las Vegas. Along the way Bond meets and falls in love with one of the members of the smuggling gang, Tiffany Case. Much of Fleming's background research formed the basis for his non-fiction 1957 book '' The Diamond Smugglers''. ''Diamonds Are Forever'' deals with international travel, marriage and the transitory nature of life. As with Fleming's previous novels, ''Diamonds Are Forever'' received broadly positive reviews at the time of publication. The story was serialised in the ''Daily Express'' new ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goldfinger (novel)
''Goldfinger'' is the seventh novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series. Written in January and February 1958, it was first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 23 March 1959. The story centres on the investigation by the British Secret Service operative James Bond into the gold smuggling activities of Auric Goldfinger, who is also suspected by MI6 of being connected to SMERSH, the Soviet counter-intelligence organisation. As well as establishing the background to the smuggling operation, Bond uncovers a much larger plot: Goldfinger plans to steal the gold reserves of the United States from Fort Knox. Fleming developed the James Bond character in ''Goldfinger'', presenting him as a more complex individual than in the previous novels, and bringing out a theme of Bond as a St George figure. This theme is echoed by the fact that it is a British agent sorting out an American problem. In common with his other Bond stories, Fleming used the names of people he knew, or knew of, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illegal Immigration
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, from poorer to richer countries. Illegal residence in another country creates the risk of detention, deportation, and/or other sanctions. Asylum seekers who are denied asylum may face impediment to expulsion if the home country refuses to receive the person or if new asylum evidence emerges after the decision. In some cases, these people are considered illegal aliens, and in others, they may receive a temporary residence permit, for example with reference to the principle of non-refoulement in the international Refugee Convention. The European Court of Human Rights, referring to the European Convention on Human Rights, has shown in a number of indicative judgments that there are enforcement barriers to expulsion to certain countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illegal Weapons Trade
Arms trafficking or gunrunning is the illicit trade of contraband small arms and ammunition, which constitutes part of a broad range of illegal activities often associated with transnational criminal organizations. The illegal trade of small arms, unlike other organized crime commodities, is more closely associated with exercising power in communities instead of achieving economic gain. Scholars estimate illegal arms transactions amount to over US$1 billion annually. To keep track of imports and exports of several of the most dangerous armament categories, the United Nations, in 1991, created a Register for Conventional Arms. Participation, however, is not compulsory, and lacks comprehensive data in regions outside of Europe. Africa, due to a prevalence of corrupt officials and loosely enforced trade regulations, is a region with extensive illicit arms activity. In a resolution to complement the Register with legally binding obligations, a Firearms Protocol was incorporated int ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Border
Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders can be established through warfare, colonization, or mutual agreements between the political entities that reside in those areas; the creation of these agreements is called boundary delimitation. Some borders—such as most states' internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and completely unguarded. Most external political borders are partially or fully controlled, and may be crossed legally only at designated border checkpoints; adjacent border zones may also be controlled. Buffer zones may be setup on borders between belligerent entities to lower the risk of escalation. While ''border'' refers to the boundary itself, the area around the border is called the frontier. History In the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contraband
Contraband (from Medieval French ''contrebande'' "smuggling") refers to any item that, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold. It is used for goods that by their nature are considered too dangerous or offensive in the eyes of the legislator—termed contraband ''in se''—and forbidden. So-called derivative contraband refers to goods that may normally be owned, but are liable to be seized because they were used in committing an unlawful act and hence begot illegally, e.g. smuggling goods; stolen goods – knowingly participating in their trade is an offense in itself, called fencing. Law of armed conflict In international law, contraband means goods that are ultimately destined for territory under the control of the enemy and may be susceptible for use in armed conflict. Traditionally, contraband is classified into two categories, absolute contraband and conditional contraband. The former category includes arms, munitions, and various materials, such a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correctional facility, lock-up, hoosegow or remand center, is a facility in which inmates (or prisoners) are confined against their will and usually denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as punishment for various crimes. Prisons are most commonly used within a criminal justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial; those pleading or being found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment. In simplest terms, a prison can also be described as a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for a crime they have committed. Prisons can also be used as a tool of political repression by authoritarian regimes. Their perceived opponents may be impr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Excise Tax
file:Lincoln Beer Stamp 1871.JPG, upright=1.2, 1871 U.S. Revenue stamp for 1/6 barrel of beer. Brewers would receive the stamp sheets, cut them into individual stamps, cancel them, and paste them over the Bunghole, bung of the beer barrel so when the barrel was tapped it would destroy the stamp. An excise, or excise tax, is any duty (economics), duty on manufactured goods (economics), goods that is levied at the moment of manufacture rather than at sale. Excises are often associated with customs duties, which are levied on pre-existing goods when they cross a designated border in a specific direction; customs are levied on goods that become taxable items at the ''border'', while excise is levied on goods that came into existence ''inland''. An excise is considered an indirect tax, meaning that the producer or seller who pays the levy to the government is expected to try to recover their loss by raising the price paid by the eventual buyer of the goods. Excises are typically impo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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