Flatus_Diabolic t1_j6k9olg wrote on January 30, 2023 at 10:42 PM

Reply to comment by DevoidHT in Millions of computer chips from Dutch manufacturers wound up in Russia: Report by the01crow

Greed isn't always the reason.

Iran, NK, Russia, and lots of other heavily sanctioned countries just create front companies overseas to buy the goods they need.

I knew a guy worked for a company waaaay back in the day that sold a couple of supercomputers to a Western European company that did meteorological simulation.

A few months later, the feds were crawling all over them because those computers had inexplicably ended up in totally different country and were being used for nuclear weapons research.

I guess, maybe in the excitement to make a big sale, someone didn't do their due diligence as well as they should have, but this front company wasn't exactly a couple of post office boxes and an empty building somewhere, either.

It had all the relevant legal paperwork and finances to say they were legit, everything checked out, so why not sell to them?

killerhurtalot t1_j6l7l06 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 2:45 AM

Sounds like greed to me. That's just a feature of capitalism...

When you have the resources of nation states, you can easily make shell companies to buy whatever you want.

Just look at how the US bought most of the titanium used for the SR71 blackbird from Russia lol.