The official, identified as Alexander Protopopov, the acting deputy chief of the federal prison service, had presided over an alleged racket that involved the dismantling of a large segment of public highway. About 7,000 concrete slabs of paved road were carted off and sold to a private company in 2014 and 2015. The heist might have cost the Russian government about $80,000.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/14/russian-official-suspected-of-stealing-30-miles-of-road/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_wv
There's an underground market for concrete slabs? And 7,000 of them are worth only $80,000?
Quote from: wanderer2575 on January 15, 2016, 11:14:06 PM
There's an underground market for concrete slabs? And 7,000 of them are worth only $80,000?
No, but there is a market for concrete slabs. Three middlemen from now, the final buyer won't have a clue from where the concrete originated.
The low price might reflect the poor exchange rate in Russia presently. That notwithstanding, any fencing operation will result in lower "street prices" against the "real price", to cover the risk exposure taken on by the various middlemen.
Nice to know that there are countries where the politicians are even more audacious than they are here.
Overall, US politicians aren't really all that bad, especially because we have regular elections to vote them out.
They would shape up even more if the voters actually voted out the bad ones!
Reminds me of copper thefts here in the US. IIRC, there have also been several cases of steel bridge thefts too here in the US and Europe where the thieves would sell and turn the steel bridge into scrap. Though I guess the stolen steel bridges would be replaced by mostly concrete UCEBs.
Only $80k for a theft that involves 30 miles of road and 7000 slabs. I would think that this would cost billions of U.S. Dollars or billions of EU Euros im not sure about the final number though.