The other
story that caught my eye was the allegation that Carlos Ghosn used an elite
private security firm to rescue him from Japan. I have already outlined the
security in place around his apartment. What I failed to mention two days ago
was that I'm sure that all sorts of listening devices were installed to monitor
any sort of conversations that he had with whoever.
A number of different countries have
private security firms. The quality of firms and their personnel ranges from
elite and brilliant former intelligence officers and top former special
operations soldiers down to rowdy thugs who barely made it through their tour
in the military. To make a long story short, these firms are employed to do
work that is extremely-dangerous or so dirty that governments do not want to
risk civilian and military personnel in such operations. These are operations,
that if they fail, governments can claim that they had nothing to do with it.
The alleged extraction of Ghosn from
Japan, is quite simply, like breaking a prisoner out of a maximum-security
prison. If the operatives had failed to extract Ghosn, they would be looking at
prison sentences between 4-10 years for attempted escape. If some Japanese
security personnel had been injured or killed, the prison sentences would go up
or they would be facing the gallows in Japan.
Very few private security firms would
take such an illegal assignment. If they did, they would charge a huge premium
of up to $30 million US. I doubt that Ghosn had that sort of "spare
cash" sitting around. Most of his assets were impaired by various legal
actions.
Any firm undertaking such an assignment
would face an additional huge obstacle. A number of countries including the US
spend a fortune on signal intelligence intercepts. Agencies like the US
National Security Agency and their Australian, British and Israeli counterparts
are constantly monitoring the airwaves for suspicious messages and phone calls.
Israel even has the capability to "crack" encrypted phone, email, and
WhatsApp messages. One mistake in a phone call, email, or messenger text would
have blown this plan wide open. The Japanese authorities would have been
alerted. If the private security company was based in the US or had contracts
with US government agencies, they would be subject to civil and criminal
prosecution in US District Court for mounting such an operation.
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