[Icelander]

Originally Posted by adm

At the store level it will make cash buying slightly less suspicious, but is more likely to get noticed by the ATF on the background check. A bunch of sales to the same ID, as opposes to a single large one will likely look more suspicious. Have sufficiently good fake IDs, and, based on your other statements, a soon to be dead Leonard Carillo, making several small purchases may work better. Another thought, some people will stock pile arms now thinking that they will become illegal later. Stockpiling the same model for part swapping will make sense.

Yes, I believe that the executives acting as handlers for Mr. Carillo were more concerned about raising a red flag by having his name show up at multiple gun stores in one day than in one anomalous purchase that he would not be in a position to answer questions about.

They are at least hoping that the fact that Mr. Carillo neither has any police record nor any public connection to their firm, beyond having done business with them (as many others have) will insulate them. Ideally, they'd want Carillo's purchase to be regarded as unremarkable, as if the police do not recover the actual firearms, it is not necessarily a given that an unsolved shooting in Houston or Galveston should automatically be linked to Dallas.

Of course, if said 'shooting' actually is a firefight involving maybe ten people or so, then that will become an investigation so sprawling that probably all gun purchases within five hundred miles and at least the last month will be at least checked out briefly. But in the absence of any evidence linking the shooting to Dallas, let alone to Eldorado or to Mr. Carillo (who really has no connection beyond the existence of his debt to Eldorado), it may well be that many other transactions are much more suspicious and warrant more investigator hours. Or so the Eldorado executives are hoping.

If Carillo can contrive to die in a way that does not call for an extensive homicide investigation and will not cause anyone to suspect foul play, the odds of this go way up. Which is why a man who will ask the PCs to call him Raul will be calling in a marker to arrange for Carillo's exit, stage right, without undue fanfare. After all, Carillo is demonstrably depressed, in the process of separating from his wife, drinking heavily and has expressed suicidal thoughts to more than one acquaintance and friend.

It is strange that he should purchase many firearms before committing suicide (as all the evidence will show conclusively, no matter how much suspicion there is), rather than just the one gun he used, but without him around to answer questions, perhaps that mystery will never be solved.

Originally Posted by adm

Firearms owners that stray into the "gun nut-survivalist-militia types" can be very odd about using credit cards or checks. IF the store has a large clientele of the right sub-type, they might not look twice if you paid in gold or silver bars. They are also more likely to be the "no questions asked type".

Well, Eldorado Commodities would very much prefer to pay in gold, as they always have a surplus they haven't been able to procure proper origin paperwork for yet and selling it to legitimate customers would therefore be complicated and might lead to questions.

Essentially, gold they've obtained entirely illegally, especially if this illegality involves connections to organisations likely to subject to federal forfeiture, RICO investigations and/or the freezing of accounts related to enforcement of FIAA or designation as a terrorist organisation or a DTO made the target of an international investigation, is worth far less to them than the market value of gold by weight, because selling it without leading to an investigation of their purchase methods and possible connections to the aforesaid criminal enterprises requires either forged paperwork or using straw sellers, more or less a variation of money laundering as it applies to gold as a currency.

But while paying in gold might save them money, one does wonder whether saving maybe 20-30% of the cost of the weapons is worth the extra scrutiny that paying in gold at a gun store would probably invite after the events are over and police start investigating. Of course, if none of the Eldorado executives who were awakened just before dawn and had to arrange for the purchase of the weapons that very morning had $30,000 in cash on them (or accessible immediately and without leaving a paper trail), they might have had no choice.

Eldorado Commodities absolutely does do illegal business in cash, sometimes, but presumably they avoid having more unreported cash around than they need for standard operations, as they are generally more concerned with not having anything around that might be used by police or financial regulatory authorities to open legal proceedings, if they should obtain a search warrant of the offices or homes of executives, than they are with street level criminal enterprises.

Basically, their partners in California are the ones who operate within criminal subcultures, compete with cartels and employ gang members. Eldorado merely buys gold and other commodities mined or otherwise obtained without the requisite paperwork and permits, mostly from various more-or-less criminal sources in Bolivia and Peru, and changes the origin of record so that it is easier to sell without running afoul of various financial regulations and anti money laundering agreements between nation states.

Some of the commodities they deal in, primarily shipments with all paperwork in order, come through Houston, from ports in Colombia and, until a few years ago, from Venezuela. Other shipments come through California and are transported by land to Phoenix, Arizona*, and Dallas, Texas. From there, they travel to buyers in the US, after any paperwork that is required is cleaned up.

Until now, the California partners' connection with Eldorado has been exclusively in the realm of providing security and logistics for shipments of gold and other commodities transported by ship from Peru or Chile and perhaps in some cases reported on cargo manifests in a discreet manner designed to avoid embarrassing anyone with public attention. For which they have been compensated by a share in such shipments and several companies registered in California, Chile or Peru have also received fiduciary considerations.

The California partners operate more classically as a franchise of the traditional criminal interests for the Andean partners which are the source for most of the gold and other commodities, but the executives at Eldorado deal only with those back in South America concerned with the financial side, not the operational one.

The clients coming in at noon to handle Eldorado's unforeseen problem are those who handle tough negotiations with distributors for personal entertainment consumables that come from the Andes, as well as disputes over business share with other interests in the same field, such as Mexican or Colombian firms. They also handle community outreach among immigrant communities from back home and the collection of entirely voluntary contributions for mutual support and security.

*Where Eldorado Commodities has a subsidiary office and warehouses.

Originally Posted by adm

Depends on how the nervousness comes across, make the right statements about liberal gun control at a store that caters to the above mention "gun nut-survivalist-militia types", and they may not tell the cops what they know even after a spree shooting.

Somewhat ironically, Leonard Carillo is a lifelong Democrat and has views on gun control and gun registration that are probably viewed as liberal by many Texans, though perhaps less so in large cities than in rural areas.*

On the other hand, he has rather higher Fast-Talk than he does Finance skill**, so he evidently was able to sell some variation of his cover story, even though his nervousness caused him to leave rather more clues, in the form of truth mixed with his lies, than the executives at Eldorado would prefer.

*Though he is most likely within the median range for the US as a whole.
**Along with the Overconfidence he has bought off (and exchanged for Debt, lower Wealth and a side of Chronic Depression and Guilt Complex), probably the source of some of his current problems. He's still Impulsive, evidenced by his spectacularly unwise decision to agree to this scheme.