Order only: Business

[alt_sirius]

A while back I mentioned that I'd learned the identity of my 'stalker' and that he'd made some claims I wanted to corroborate before passing it all on to you lot.

Well, I've confirmed some of what he has to say. I wanted to report this earlier but it just never seemed the time.

The thing is, I'm not sure that it makes any difference. I knew Sabola was involved in some more shady dealings - he's a smuggler, after all - so it's not too surprising to learn how involved and in what other trades besides our relatively simple transactions. Still, I don't think it's right to keep this information to myself, not when the Order ought to know what our ventures are helping to fund.

I knew that Sabola made his name in the heroin and opium gambit. He also has a small interest in arms deals. Repackaging Muggle foodstuffs as if they're wizard-made is, of course, his 'legitimate' business cover. What I didn't know until recently is that he has some business in human traffic. Mostly Russia and China, some third-world too.

I don't know if we can afford, right now, to change anything in our arrangements. If you want me to pursue another source, I think now that I've been trading with him for a while, I may be able to go round some of his suppliers - but it would be dangerous. On the other hand, there may be a way to replicate his operation without any of his people involved - also dangerous, and much more expensive, since I'd have to recruit people here to help run things. I couldn't manage it all on my own. That's what was so attractive about Sabola's operations in the first place: He already has his network and all his packaging, labels, etc., all set up.

But I understand if the Order feels it can't continue to do business with a man who engages in a kind of slave trade so similar to the system we're trying to undo there on your side of the wards. We can pull out altogether. Of course, Moony's shop would likely go under in that case, though from the sound of it, maybe he wouldn't mind if it did. I mean, it's not like we're clearing a great deal of dosh for the Order, with all this - mainly it's keeping me busy and it provides some service to British wizards who can afford what I'm able to import to you. But I can't say we're making great loads of Galleons for our operations. By the time Sabola gets his cut, and we pay off any officials who seem fairly constantly to want bribing (three agents just last week, when the restrictions went up!), well ... there's not much left that isn't earmarked for the next shipment.

So you see it's rather a thorny problem. I've been wrestling with it for a little while now. I even spent some time as Padfoot to try to straighten it all out. (Minerva, I think you'll understand what I mean.) Have to say, hearing all the dire news from inside, the disease and the Ministry and now Xeno and seeing Reg wanting to talk to me - it all doesn't help me be able to focus much. So I spent most of yesterday as Padfoot, just thinking. It's made a few things clear, but not the whole of what to do next. It is certainly clear that, no matter what the current crisis is for you, you've also got the right to be part of this decision.

So. What do you want me to do? (And please don't say 'Whatever you think is best, Sirius' because that's not why I'm asking. And it won't be the least bit helpful. I don't have to remind you lot that my track record in deciding what's best isn't exactly full of Snitch-catching, match-saving plays.)

Comments

[alt_sirius]

Thanks, Poppy, and you're right. I see I've explained poorly. You're probably all wondering why I even brought it up for debate.

And you've got the right of it, in a way. Well, first off, I should explain that I'm saying 'Sabola' but really it's not even him, directly. Not his people. It's a different arm, run by someone else, though Sabola provides some of the transport as part of his other shipping. So when I say Sabola, I'm simplifying. They're really associates of his, and he makes a portion of the profit from the ventures, based on the space they use in his ships and planes and so on. It's important to understand that this is far from his primary line of business.

Now, most of the people that this organisation moves are trying to get out of situations frighteningly similar to the camps. They live in poverty, famine, even religious oppression. The difference is that these men are no philanthropists to move them and expect nothing in return. They pay a fee to be smuggled, mostly to the United States or Canada. They enter as illegal immigrants. Some of them have family there already who pay their transportation fee, but many don't have that luxury. That's when the organisation makes them work off their debt.

There are a few ways they can do that, and a few more obvious than others, but at that point, it's often a matter of convincing someone else to take the journey, or something similarly desperate.

It's not like the camps. And it's not even as if the money he makes off his spice operation is connected to the human smuggling, since as I said, as far as the Muggle authorities are concerned the spice sales are perfectly legal, so he takes care to keep it mostly separate.

The thing is, we knew Sabola's business was illicit. It's not surprising that he's into arms deals and drugs, and from there, the rest is a relatively small step. But it's not like muggleborn and muggle slavery the way Voldemort has made it for you lot.

[alt_kingsley]

Sabola's been a good source for you though, right, Sirius? He's not slipping you shoddy product or shorting your shipping manifests or anything?

To be blunt, the Order needs money. What's more, it needs cover so that we can slip the restricted items we need through, hidden within a steady supply of legitimate items that are in demand (by the likes of Narcissa Malfoy and her sort) and hard to obtain. Sabola's our best source for that sort of thing. I'd be reluctant to give him up, for a scruple over something he's not even directly involved in anyway.

[alt_molly]

But those scruples matter, Kingsley! We can't associate ourselves with people guilty of participating in something like that.

[alt_kingsley]

Does that mean you're going to make Arthur start sleeping out in the chicken coop, Molly? After all, he's guilty in participating in "something like that," too, isn't he?

[alt_molly]

What!? Oh, that's not fair, Kingsley!

[alt_kingsley]

Of course it's not. It's bloody unfair, Molly, and I'm sorry about that, my friend.

But that's my point. This is a siege, and it may become an all-out war. People have to do ugly things during war, things like dealing with people like Sabola. Arthur does them every day, and then he comes home to you, and you don't turn him away, do you? And why is that? Because you know he doesn't want to do it, and because the only reason he does it is to keep him in the position where he can do work for the Order. And it's important work, Molly. You know that. It's because of Arthur that we've rescued most of the kids here at the sanctuary. It's because of him that we've been able to get help to the Sherwood band, and they're helping, too. Every month, they're rescuing a few more.

None of that would happen if Arthur wasn't willing to go into that office at the Ministry and do things that I know he hates to do.

[alt_poppy]

I'm afraid I have to take Kingsley's part on this. I know that I've lost all objectivity on this point, Molly, but the fact is that everyday in this school, I have to recommit myself to a demon's pact I made long ago. I tell myself that my best role is to stay the course, do nothing rash, serve the children and staff here as well as I am able, support Minerva to the extent I can, and wait. If I were not persuaded that there is a reason to wait, to save my life now in order to give it more effectively later, I would not suffer Amycus and Alecto Carrow to torment the students and servants here as they have done and continue to do.

I am as deeply compromised as any, and so you must weigh that fact as you consider my advice. It is my opinion that if Sirius tells us this smuggler, Sabola, is the best source for items we need or will one day need, then we should take out our metaphorical quills and add one more codicil to the Order's pact with our peculiar devils. And we should carry on with it.

[alt_sirius]

Kingsley's making the point I've been trying to make, Molly. Perhaps a little more strongly, but still: we use other people's corruption all the time. Every time I pay off an official or send in bicorn powder, we're crossing a moral line. But we're doing it in the cause of something good.

It's not casting an Unforgivable Curse, though. And I know it's not a justification, but the human traffic side of things will continue whether or not we profit (indirectly) from it. Without men like Sabola it'd be five times as hard to get flour, sugar, chocolate, even coffee into the country. And it'd be much, much harder to get anything more restricted in, as well.

[alt_frank]

well just be bloody careful. and don't get so far in bed with him that you can't crawl your way out again.