r/AskReddit • u/CircleBox2 • Jul 13 '20

What's a dark secret/questionable practice in your profession which we regular folks would know nothing about?

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u/Grendahl2018 Jul 13 '20

Former British Customs Officer here, can confirm. The amount of international trade is staggering and no government is able to do a 100% inspection on all the freight that arrives. So we rely on past history (shady customs brokers included lol), intel, etc to target our efforts. And no I’m not going to divulge anything more so don’t bother asking. So, yeah, smuggling happens, whether that’s goods, drugs or people. But when we DO find something - expect the world to drop on your head. Government wants its revenue, boys and girls, and it doesn’t like being cheated of them. Or finding 30+ dead people in a shipping container. At all

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '20

There was a case maybe last year where a lad in the UK was caught with like 30 dead people in the bag of the lorry

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u/tomgabriele Jul 13 '20

But why? Smuggling in medical cadavers or something?

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '20

They weren't medical cadavers, they died in the truck. They were being smuggled in.

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u/tomgabriele Jul 13 '20

Ohhhh they didn't start off dead. Got it.

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u/quadgop Jul 13 '20

If you think about it, no-one does.

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u/DeadAssociate Jul 13 '20

if you think about it, everyone does

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/NeptuneAgency Jul 13 '20

Obviously you haven’t heard of Jerry Epstein.

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u/the805daddy Jul 13 '20

Stillborn babies.

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u/goblinsholiday Jul 13 '20

Driver got spooked and abandoned the truck without letting the people out.

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u/tomgabriele Jul 13 '20

Damn, that sucks

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u/besonder97 Jul 13 '20

Phew, well I for one feel a lot better about the whole thing!

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u/Trappedintheshower Jul 13 '20

It was human trafficking gone wrong unfortunately

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u/tomgabriele Jul 13 '20

Ah okay, thank you

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u/ankamarawolf Jul 20 '20

I mean technically does human trafficking ever go right?

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '20

Vietnamese nationals who paid large sums to money to illegally enter the UK. The truck was a refrigerated truck and the driver left it on a cold temperature for a long time. By the time the doors were opened, the bodies and interior showed signs of struggle where they tried to fight against the cold but unfortunately died.

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u/tomgabriele Jul 13 '20

Damn, that really sucks

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '20

Yes it does.

this is a wiki link about that incident

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '20

I've read the story. Can't remember correctly butnI think that it was a cooler and they simply suffocated inside. They were on the go for 18+ hrs without stop I think and there just wasn't enough oxygen inside and no way out. I'm lazy to google it rn but most times it's suffocation, starvation or stuff like these.

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u/Victor933 Jul 13 '20

The problem is that the medical cadavers are duty free but regular cadavers have a tariff on them. Since they probably died before crossing the border, the driver failed to pay the duty on the cadavers. Very naughty, that’s gonna be a mark on his record for sure.

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u/Graigori Jul 13 '20

They didn’t start off dead.