[MH] Underground Fights in a Tourist Resort in the Caribbean?

[Black Leviathan]

This is sadly really feasible.

Living in Hawaii, a United State, with an active public police force, I was constantly astounded at the very illegal stuff that was constantly going on just out of sight in the sugarcane fields; drag races on private property, underage parties with drugs, large-scale drug operations, unlicensed porn shoots. Islands are big places with small populations and police forces tend to concentrate on what goes on at the resorts.

If you're on an island territory of a developing nation , on private land and out of plain sight, you can get away with a lot. You could send town cars to the local resorts and pick up guests to come out to the secret bloodspoort arena tent, have unlincenced betting, sell cocaine, rent girls, rip tags off mattresses. If you're a rich landowner with friends at the resorts the police aren't going to cross you without a reason. And the Resort security will deliberately not look into what you do unless a guest dies at your little events. The only things you have to protect yourself from is injured fighters who want to become whistle-blowers and reporters trying to spy on your events for an expose'. Vette your guestlist for the fights and don't allow unannounced guests. Make sure you leave room in the shallow graves for the fighters that lose and any reporters your security goons find trespassing on the grounds.

[AlexanderHowl]

The best way to get around fighter complaints is to provide them with basic medical services and an injury bonus. If you agree to pay $1,000 for a lost finger to $100,000 for a lost life, you will have people willing to risk death (especially if they are from Cuba, Haiti, or even Jamaica). You are probably making enough on the side from your cut of the drugs and prostitutes to justify the expense.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The best way to get around fighter complaints is to provide them with basic medical services and an injury bonus. If you agree to pay $1,000 for a lost finger to $100,000 for a lost life, you will have people willing to risk death (especially if they are from Cuba, Haiti, or even Jamaica). You are probably making enough on the side from your cut of the drugs and prostitutes to justify the expense.

Well, the money itself is no problem, but in general, the weakpoint of supposed secret conspiracies usually lies in the difficulty of laundering large sums of money.

Paying the money legally creates an electronic trail to whoever is ultimately responsible, which is less than desirable. Paying in cash is not only rather inconvenient from a practical standpoint, but also likely to lead to problems for surviving fighters. I imagine quite a lot of hospitals would raise eyebrows at people trying to pay for extensive reconstructive surgery in cash and numerous cases of it would probably be relatively easy to link.

I realize that there is no way to keep such an operation effectively secret forever, but I'm not sure that paying out that much to injured fighters is any less likely to lead to ultimate discovery than simply having them disappear, especially if you can have someone of similar ethnicity, size and build use their passport and any credit cards to take a short trip that ensures the last sign of them is in another country.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

This is sadly really feasible.

Living in Hawaii, a United State, with an active public police force, I was constantly astounded at the very illegal stuff that was constantly going on just out of sight in the sugarcane fields; drag races on private property, underage parties with drugs, large-scale drug operations, unlicensed porn shoots. Islands are big places with small populations and police forces tend to concentrate on what goes on at the resorts.

If you're on an island territory of a developing nation , on private land and out of plain sight, you can get away with a lot. You could send town cars to the local resorts and pick up guests to come out to the secret bloodspoort arena tent, have unlincenced betting, sell cocaine, rent girls, rip tags off mattresses.

If you're a rich landowner with friends at the resorts the police aren't going to cross you without a reason. And the Resort security will deliberately not look into what you do unless a guest dies at your little events. The only things you have to protect yourself from is injured fighters who want to become whistle-blowers and reporters trying to spy on your events for an expose'. Vette your guestlist for the fights and don't allow unannounced guests. Make sure you leave room in the shallow graves for the fighters that lose and any reporters your security goons find trespassing on the grounds.

I imagine that there would be an offshore holding company that owned the land and the glitzy resort. But yes, effectively, whoever was ultimately responsible would have private security and resort staff especially chosen to allow a wide variety of illegal activities.

Essentially, the desired outcome would be an island where the laws of whatever nation state nominally claimed jurisdiction applied only theoretically and in actual fact, law enforcement only visited after asking for an appointment, very politely, and wouldn't dream of looking anywhere they were not wanted.

Most importantly, customs and border control would need to be extremely perfunctory, so that fighters, some selected sex workers and various recreational chemicals could arrive by boat without the need for any paperwork. Are luxury yachts customs inspected when they arrive at private docks and if so, where in the Caribbean could one reliably and discreetly purchase excemption to such hassles?

[AlexanderHowl]

Illegality is in the eye of the beholder. Bribes can shut down political and law enforcement investigations quite easily outside the developed world, and most people are willing to sell themselves for very little. As for tracing the money, that only works if someone has jurisdiction within the nation where the money transfers are occurring.

When you are talking about an illegal bloodsport operation, there are multiple streams of revenue. First, the ticket sales themselves. Second, the Internet streaming on the dark web. Third, the hotel accommodations. Fourth, the prostitution. Fifth, the drugs. Sixth, blackmailing clients who kill the prostitutes. If you have expenses of $4 million per week, you only need 1,000 visitors spending $5,000 a week on tickets, accommodations, prostitution, and drugs to make a 25% profit, which is a quite modest expense for the wealthiest 0.1% (around 2,500,000 households globally, most from the developing world). Any money that you make from streaming and blackmail is just a cherry on top.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Illegality is in the eye of the beholder. Bribes can shut down political and law enforcement investigations quite easily outside the developed world, and most people are willing to sell themselves for very little. As for tracing the money, that only works if someone has jurisdiction within the nation where the money transfers are occurring.

Actually, while jurisdictional issues can slow financial investigations, in the modern world, they don't stop them. Plenty of people whho've never actually stepped foot in the US to commit a crime there have had assets frozen or made part of RICO cases.

Not to mention that whoever is behind this fears that banking confidentiality regulations won't actually prevent potential enemies from accessing banking records, once they find some to access. After all, not all analysts work for law enforcement agencies or worry about warrants and bribes or coercion can serve to open up servers just as well.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

When you are talking about an illegal bloodsport operation, there are multiple streams of revenue. First, the ticket sales themselves. Second, the Internet streaming on the dark web. Third, the hotel accommodations. Fourth, the prostitution. Fifth, the drugs. Sixth, blackmailing clients who kill the prostitutes. If you have expenses of $4 million per week, you only need 1,000 visitors spending $5,000 a week on tickets, accommodations, prostitution, and drugs to make a 25% profit, which is a quite modest expense for the wealthiest 0.1% (around 2,500,000 households globally, most from the developing world). Any money that you make from streaming and blackmail is just a cherry on top.

While the operation hopefully doesn't actually lose money, no one would ever do this simply for profit. The risk-to-reward ratio is ridiculous, compared to either legal investment or financing drug importation into Western countries.

The only reasons to do something like this is if you're a villain in a cheesy movie or there is something supernatural going on. Real crime is much less elaborate or interesting than this.

Also, you are not going to find a thousand people a week that are prepared to risk the potential PR and legal fallout of being an accessory to murder, let alone over fifty thousand people a year that would be remotely trustworthy to be discreet about this. Try one or two orders of magnitude less.

However, no one there is spending money merely by the thousands. The exclusive clientele should be of a kind that makes bets in the hundreds of thousands and millions per fight.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

However, no one there is spending money merely by the thousands. The exclusive clientele should be of a kind that makes bets in the hundreds of thousands and millions per fight.

There's a psychology issue here. What gives them the interest in specific fights to be betting so much? That needs some degree of interest in the sides, or rivalry with someone who matters to them. The rich and important in today's world don't tend to be people who throw away vast sums on a whim. They do it to count coup on their rivals.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

There's a psychology issue here. What gives them the interest in specific fights to be betting so much? That needs some degree of interest in the sides, or rivalry with someone who matters to them. The rich and important in today's world don't tend to be people who throw away vast sums on a whim. They do it to count coup on their rivals.

Well, I'm assuming that only the most psychologically deviant or aggressively decadent people would want to witness actual gladiatoral combat to the death and that these people might see in such bloody contests interest that mere sporting contests no longer held.

The audience will consist of deeply suspicious people, each with their own shady connections, questionable sources of income and perverted appetites and the PCs should have ample reason to suspect each of them of secretly being behind the whole sickening shebang for vile reasons of their own.

And yes, obviously, there will be powerful interpersonal rivalries among that exclusive club of people who are simultaneously outrageously rich and utterly morally bankrupt. If the PCs don't get caught in the middle of a tawdry spat between a Russian oligarch's harpy wife and a cartel boss' beloved child bride, what is even the point?

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Also, you are not going to find a thousand people a week that are prepared to risk the potential PR and legal fallout of being an accessory to murder, let alone over fifty thousand people a year that would be remotely trustworthy to be discreet about this. Try one or two orders of magnitude less.

Supportive reality check: there have been News Corp tabloid reports about a company offering sex parties somewhere in the Caribbean with a starter price on the order of 1,000-1,500 USD/customer-day. It was moved from Columbia to "a drug-friendly island" after the organizers offended the locals.

They have PR people with a knack for social media and tabloids, they are avoiding anything drastically illegal, and they still get tens (not hundreds) of johns for each party. I don't trust tabloids, but that strikes me as plausible based on my bohemian life in the swingin' New Country, because just like most people can get their vicarious violence kick at mostly-safe contact sports like hockey or MMA, most people can get their sex drugs and rock and roll kick through a swingers' party, a rave, or a weekend date with a couple of sex workers in a nice hotel in the nearest big city.

[AlexanderHowl]

Plenty of wealthy people travel to Southeast Asia for child prostitution, and they usually do not fear discovery by their peers or prosecution for their vicious crimes. They hire morally and ethically challenge people to procure their victims and, if need be, to take care of the evidence afterwards. The local authorities do not blink an eye when they fish out the corpse of an unnamed child from a nearby river as long as the proper bribes were paid and as long as the child was not related to someone important.