Word: middlemen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...them belong to the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, which condemns the sale of exotics to hunting ranches. Even unaffiliated zoos might be reluctant to wade into the canned-hunt market, but many do so unknowingly, selling overflow animals--often products of too successful captive-breeding programs--to middlemen, who pass them into less legitimate hands. The crowding that can result on the ranches leads to animals' being killed not just by hunters but also by diseases that occur in dense populations...
Mama San won't budge from $1,000. There's the food she's paid for, the clothes, the makeup and the condoms, not to mention the middlemen's fees. At $1,000, she says, she is making nothing. She taps out the figure in Thai baht on a calculator and holds it up: 43,650. You won't get a pair of 14-year-old Burmese girls for less in this town...
Done. We shake hands. Tip and Lek have been sold. Again. This time to Jonathan, the photographer working on this story, and me. Mama San is not worried about finding replacements. "Their mothers or the middlemen bring them to me," she says. "There are always fresh ones...
...That notification comes from middlemen like Mat, who are present at the initial meetings, then take over the ordering and delivery, working through the several criminal syndicates that control the region's flow of illegal arms. Due to the sensitivities and dangers involved, only one syndicate actually buys arms for the radical groups. Because the profits for the transactions are so high, official sources say, and al-Qaeda is still apparently able to command significant funds, non-Muslim criminals - some of them outwardly respectable businessmen - are a key part of the process. "The syndicate is based in Malaysia," says...
...runs into the bar, kneels in front of Mama San and begins to bow and chant, a good Buddhist girl in smudged makeup giving thanks for her freedom. Mama San laughs, flattered by the display of supplication. She isn't worried about finding replacements. "Their mothers or the middlemen bring them to me," she says. "There are always fresh ones...