It's not rocket science...or is it?
After 9/11 I was assigned an investigation engendered by the Dept. of State, (Office of Defense Trade Controls), because a quantity of a precursor chemical for making solid rocket propellant was shipped out of the country without license and the fear was it might end up in the hands of our enemies in the Middle East where it could be used for nefarious purposes and put our troops and allies at further risk.
I had occasion to contact some actual rocket scientists at NASA to fill me in on how many SCUD missiles could be propelled with the quantity of chemical which had been smuggled. Turned out it was in the hundreds.
Long story short, my partner and I traced the shipment from Ohio to FL where it boarded a Maersk container ship, (unmanifested), ultimately bound for Brazil.
We flew down to Sao Paulo and in concert with Brazilian judicial police traced the shipment. I had to enlist the assistance of a well known three letter agency, you know who I mean, to get the Brazilian gov't to buy into that I wasn't interested in embarrassing them or creating an international incident, (though they were not on the list of nations entitled to receive the chemical), but wanted to ensure it didn't end up being transshipped to our enemies.
In the end, we were able to confirm they were using it in the middle of the Amazon for their own aerospace program. (Responsible parties and entities in the U.S. were indicted and pled.)
I thought of this because of the "what do you do for a living" thread...and it made me remember one of the cases I worked on before becoming a self-described "has been".
Pardon an old man's random rambling.
