Remember those absolutely stupid anti-drug ads right after 9/11 which had people saying that they helped a car bomber, a hijacker, or some other terrorist because they bought some drugs and that money went to fund the terrorists? Nobody swallowed that crap, because they knew it wasn’t true. It turns out, however, that if you bought a Chiquita banana some of your money did go to terrorists!
Apparently, the terrorists are responsible for most of Columbia’s cocaine exports and have committed some of the worst massacres in the country! So put down the banana, you drug pushing terrorist lover!
The article is a bit unclear. The mob runs “protection” rackets and shakes down businesses. Is this what happened to Chiquita? Quite frankly, if a Colombian group known for violence were to ask me for money because, “it’d sure be a shame if something happened to your nice bananna trees” I’d likely pony up the dough.
I would be surprised if other companies did not pay protection money in many other parts of the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was simply thought of as the cost of doing business.
That’s how it read to me, as well. Will they start hitting up Mom & Pop businesses in Brooklyn because they agree (or else) to contract out their garbage pickup to the Corleone family?
$5 million to paramilitaries for “Accident Prevention” payments, $25 million to the DoJ for “Dealing with Terrorists” fines. Protection rackets are a standard business expense everywhere.
“For just 20 cents a day, you can have a banana AND help fund terror training camps in Guatemala, which will get indigent revolutionaries off the streets…”