If you did have a legitimate reason for wanting to ship something valuable to countries with reputations for semi-corrupt governments and bureaucracies, how do you go about it and make sure the merchandise gets to where it is supposed to go vs being cherry picked and stolen at customs or during mail delivery?
Deliver it personally?
I recall that about 1990 the Indonesian government contracted out the entire customs function to speed the delivery of goods and prevent pilfering and demands for bribes. Some investigation had shown that foreign firms did not like doing business in their country because of the red tape and bureaucratic delays associated with getting goods in and out.
I assume the private firms like UPS have solved this problem, but I have no personal knowledge. In a lot of cases, the government itself may restrict some of this technology. Not sure if there are too many restrictions on computer equipment exports nowadays, except maybe Iran and N. Korea. Used to be some crypography exports outside N. America were prohibited. Cuba is pretty hostile to the concept that its private citizens should be able to get on the internet.
In short, you cannot make sure of anything. All you can do is protect yourself. Most carriers offer “Declared Value” coverage. Others will offer DV or “All Risk Insurance.” The latter will cost a bit more, but the coverage is far more extensive. DV can work well when a shipment is lost or completely destroyed. Reimbursement for damage, on the otehr hand, is problematic.
DV is not insurance. It simply raisese a carrier’s Limits of Liability. With either you’ll need to prove the shipment’s value with receipts before reimbursement.
PS: Some domestic airports/cargo terminals (JFK & Miami come to mind) are just as risky from a theft perspective, to go through as many foreign destinations.
I’m pretty much in agreement with SanDiegoTim: declared value and hope for the best. As I work for an outfit whose employees travel internationally quite a lot, I’ve had good luck occasionally arranging hand-carriage by someone trustworthy, but that may be difficult for others, for obvious reasons, and would of course be no guarantee against confiscation at entry.
I’ll just mention that the risks don’t have to be to/from third world countries. The outfit I work for is headquartered just outside Paris. Personnel in the States are assigned company laptops that are purchased and configured in the company’s home country, then shipped to the relevant country by air express. Recently two computers were shipped over to the US office and and when they arrived, it turned out they had magically transformed into a couple stacks of printed office paper in the carefully-sealed original shipping boxes. Since the printing on the papers was in French, we presume that the theft occurred before they even left the departure airport.