Before wave of train thefts, Union Pacific laid off some of its police force

Re:Before wave of train thefts, Union Pacific laid off some ... by 8f2ab37a-ed6c on Wednesday January 19, 2022 @09:39PM (#30003731)

People kept making that point in SF about the sub-$900 CVS shoplifting rampage until they found out that the whole thing was run by organized large-scale crime rings. Those fine folks in charge of operations are not very likely to be suffering of much of anything, but you could argue that they are taking advantage of the homeless crisis to recruit foot soldiers for their enterprise.

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Re:Before wave of train thefts, Union Pacific laid off some ... by Lammy on Wednesday January 19, 2022 @10:02PM (#30003933)

> but you could argue that they are taking advantage of the homeless crisis to recruit foot soldiers for their enterprise.

https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont... "Over the course of the investigation, $1,874,633.65 was seized from the defendants’ various bank accounts."

Yeah, if a two-million-dollar crime organization is supposed to be some "gotcha" then let's compare their possible ratio of crime-boss versus street-thug pay to the ratio of Silicon-Valley-engineer TC versus Tech-CEO TC. Do yours first :D

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Re:Before wave of train thefts, Union Pacific laid off some ... by techdragon on Wednesday January 19, 2022 @10:17PM (#30004060)

Not really sure in this case, but it’s worth remembering that just as people organise into groups and hierarchies for other things like business and politics, so too do they organise for crime.

While organised crime is demonstrably capable of engineering situations beneficial to their ongoing criminal endeavours… it’s important to remember that the organised crime rings involvement may just be an emergent property of crime being allowed to happen enough that the people involved in it begin to organise.

Of course the situation may devolve from that point but the organising force coming from within before being co-opted is still reflecting a different situation than one where the whole endeavour was started and run by some kind of gang/kingpin/mafia to begin with.

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