Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalzazz
I'm not sure how well marked vests are. My experience with thrust vests is they lack serial numbers and for inventory purposes are marked with a sharpie.
The government Does Not Like mysterious spending of money. Buying a keyboard, ink cartridge or bag of flour outside of the normal supply chain requires the moving of heaven and earth
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We may consider Heaven and Earth moved, as unknown to the employee whose part you play, the government has authorised almost $50,000 in various other 'black' outlays of cash in connection to this operation. Of course, getting more is still like pulling teeth, whereas much more expensive things, like UAS flights, are easy to get, because they don't make accountants unhappy.
But, yes, the fact that no one likes to have to fiddle the books is one of the reasons why these vests need to be as cheap as is practical, without actually not working. Easier to hide $400 than $1,200.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalzazz
If they are like thrust vests I'm used to, they eventually start to wear out, so the agency notes them as worn out, has a couple people destroy them and witness the destruction, and orders new ones per their TOE
So pick out two vests from inventory, file they were damaged/worn out, then witness there destruction but instead of destroying them just redact the inventory numbers etc
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Ah, you mean the previously issued vests? That could work, I just have to find out what they were issued before...
Even so, as the actual reason the boss wants this kept secret is that the operation may be entirely illegal and he doesn't want any paper trail leading directly to
him, it's still possible that some poor flunky will be ordered to do something that ensures that in the worst case, he can be fired for misapprehension of funds, with anything he says losing all credibility.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kalzazz
I would find that much more believable as a discrete off the books way of making vests happen then prying 1000 bucks off a credit card in straight cash
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No one is getting $1,000. That would be a disappointment and you don't want to be a disappointment, do you? I thought you were a dedicated, resourceful employee.
If you could keep it down to under $500, that would
great... mmmkay?
Another possibility is buying the vest from police impound stores or the federal equivalent, assuming that apparently undamaged body armour that is not active evidence in a crime suffers the same fate as seized automobiles and other things do with the government here, i.e. sold at auctions that appear to care only about receiving money and sometimes even forget to check any identification if you pay in cash, putting down almost any name you like for the transfer papers.
Buying something in the name of an entirely fictional company would be easy to do here, at least, as despite the theretical possibility of looking it up before processing the sale, I've never seen them do it if they've already gotten paid.