Remembering...

 

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Martin Niemöller

The End of the Subscription Era is Coming

 

Um artigo interessante, de um blogger norte-americano, num momento em que pelo menos dois dos três grandes grupos de Media, em Portugal, estão à beira da falência: a Global Media e o grupo SIC.

I’m not just talking about streaming platforms, which have been biting the wallet for years, or newspapers and magazines, which have simply migrated their long-term models to a new digital era. No, I’m talking about everything. Beer, insurance, cinema: just three of the crazy subscriptions that I’ve currently taken out.
This move stems, obviously, from the collapse of digital advertising and the decline of the high-street. These are two related trends, which have had an enormous impact on the way that product purchasing works. 

Media enterprises — whether that’s Netflix or the New York Times — cannot rely on advertising revenue to underwrite their costs, and, similarly, the rise of online retail has made the expense of doing IRL business prohibitive. And so, rather than going to a local bottle shop for my craft beers, I have them sent to me once a month. And where product is not available on subscription, those businesses use subscriptions to incentivise loyalty: just look at ASOS Premier, which puts the fast in fast fashion.
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I’ve got this far in the piece without even mentioning the cost-of-living crisis and the commensurate reduction in households’ discretionary spending. How much are you spending now on eating out, compared to pre-pandemic levels? How much are you spending on wine? How much are you spending on toilet roll? How much are you spending on perfume? How much are you spending on dog food? How much are you spending on newspapers? How much are you spending on porn? If the answers to any of those questions is anything other than “less”, well done you (and please take out a paid subscription to my newsletter).
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Nick Hilton - Aug 30, 2023 (Medium Daily Digest)

Portugal Fighting Back Against Rising Tide of Cocaine

 

Portugal has seized records amount of cocaine from South America in recent months, underscoring how the country is regaining its place as a significant drug entry point and transit hub.

From January to mid-August 2022, Portugal has intercepted over 14 tons of cocaine, with a street value of around 700 million euros, according to an interview by newspaper Diario de Noticias with Artur Vaz, head of Portugal’s National Unit for the Fight Against Drug Trafficking (Unidade Nacional de Combate ao Tráfico de Estupefacientes).

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From 2018 to 2020, Portugal was either in fifth or sixth place in Europe in terms of cocaine seizures. And 12.5 tons of cocaine were already seized from January to June 2022. That is an increase of over 20 percent from the total amount seized in 2021.

Organized crime in Portugal

Portugal became a destination for several thousand emigrants from diverse locations around the globe (particularly Eastern Europe, Brazil and the former Portuguese territories in Africa - the PALOP countries). With the development and modernisation of the economy within the globalisation process, corporate crime, financial crime, and corruption are increasingly important issues.[16]
According to the World Economic Forum's 2019 Global Competitiveness Report, Portugal ranked 9th best out of 141 countries for level of costs imposed on businesses by organised crime.[17] According to the 2021 Global Organized Crime Index, Portugal received a score of 4.55 for criminality, and 6.46 for resilience, ranking 117th, and 29th out of 193 countries globally, 24th, and 21st out of 44 countries in Europe, and 5th, and 2nd out of 8 countries in Southern Europe.[18]
The Galician clans, particularly the Los Charlines clan, have been major players in illicit drug trafficking, primarily involved in smuggling cocaine and hashish from Colombia and Morocco into Portugal via sea routes since the 1970s.[19][20]
Various groups of the Italian Mafia have been known to be active throughout Portugal since at least the 1980s. The Camorra is known to be active in Porto where it is involved in the business of fake designer fashion merchandise. Calabrian organised crime group 'Ndrangheta has been involved in drug trafficking, as well as money laundering specifically through the tourism sector.[21]
Organised crime groups from former Soviet states have been increasingly active in the Iberian Peninsula since the 1990s, especially after the fall of the USSR.[22] In 2016, members of a Russian criminal gang led by Alexander Tolstikov, with ties to the Russian mafia, were caught running a money laundering operation using the Portuguese football club U.D. Leiria.[23][24] By 2019, members of the Georgian mafia had committed over 370 burglaries throughout Portugal.[25] 

In 2021, two members of the Montenegrin Kavač clan, which is responsible for money laundering, extortion, and smuggling cocaine from South America into Europe, were arrested in Portugal after living and operating discreetly in the country for nearly one year.[26]
Since the 2000s, Mexican drug cartels including Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas, and the Gulf Cartel, have been establishing their presence in Portugal. Of these three, the Sinaloa cartel has evolved to become the one with the most dominant presence in the country, where it is involved in drug trafficking and money laundering. The group's primary modus operandi is smuggling cocaine of Colombian origin into Portugal, with the aid of corrupt officials and businessmen; The smuggling operation is overseen by Joaquín Guzmán's two sons Iván Archivaldo, and Jesús Alfredo. 

Once in Portugal, only a small amount of the smuggled cocaine remains in the country; The majority is transferred to partners with whom the Sinaloa Cartel has alliances, including Portuguese, Brazilian and Russian drug traffickers, who then distribute the drugs throughout the rest of Europe to command higher prices.[20]
In the 2010s the presence of Brazilian organised crime group First Capital Command (abbreviation "PCC"; Portuguese; Primeiro Comando da Capital) in Portugal was confirmed for the first time by Portuguese authorities.[27][28] A federal report by the Brazilian government revealed that there were at least 43 members of the group involved in drug trafficking known to be operating in Portugal, the highest number of any country in Europe.[29] First Capital Command has had a working relationship with 'Ndrangheta since the 1980s to export drugs from Brazil to Europe, where 'Ndrangheta then takes over trafficking and distribution operations throughout the continent.[30]

Praising Hitler

“Are Jews endowed with humanity?”

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“The Jews hates everyone who is not Jew (…) Jews are enemies of all those who are not, and seek to do them all possible harm. Maybe that was the reason why Hitler wanted to annihilate these damned people.” These quotes were taken from an article published in February 1988 in the Portuguese Islamic magazine Al-Furqán, edited by Yiossuf Adamgy. The author of the article, Aminuddin Mohamad, is a former spiritual adviser of the Portuguese Islamic Community of Lisbon (CIL). At the time, Mr. Karim Abdool Vakil was the president of CIL.

O judeus não são seres humanos

 

Is Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization a Failure or Success? The Answer Isn’t So Simple

In this article, Wharton adjunct professor of management and senior fellow at Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management Gregory Shea breaks down the unraveling of Portugal’s controversial drug policy, updating prior insights into organizational change from a case study in his book with Cassie Solomon, Leading Successful Change: 8 Keys to Making Change Work.
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n 1999, Lisbon carried the moniker of the “heroin capital of Europe.” Consequential diseases such as HIV infection reached an all-time high in 2000, with 104.2 new cases per million people. A multi-partisan party coalition backed sweeping and coordinated change. Portugal redefined the problem of addiction and correspondingly envisioned a very different approach to addressing it compared to other countries, an approach that de facto followed the change model presented in Leading Successful Change.First and foremost: Portugal defined addiction as an illness. Second, Portugal eliminated the distinction between hard and soft drugs. Third, Portugal concentrated on an individual’s unhealthy relationship with drugs and the likely accompanying frayed connections between the addict, others, and the world at large.
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By 2018, Portugal’s number of heroin addicts had dropped from 100,000 to 25,000. Portugal had the lowest drug-related death rate in Western Europe, one-tenth of Britain and one-fiftieth of the U.S. HIV infections from drug use injection had declined 90%
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The number of Portuguese adults who reported prior use of illicit adult drugs rose from 7.8% in 2001 to 12.8% in 2022 — still below European averages but a significant rise nonetheless. Overdose rates now stand at a 12-year high and have doubled in Lisbon since 2019. Crime, often seen as at least loosely related to illegal drug addiction, rose 14% just from 2021 to 2022. Sewage samples of cocaine and ketamine rank among the highest in Europe (with weekend spikes) and drug encampments have appeared along with a European rarity: private security forces.

Criminality in Portugal - The Organized Crime Index

 

Portugal is primarily a destination country for human trafficking, with labour exploitation being the most prevalent form of this crime. However, it also plays a key role as a transit country, particularly on the Latin America route, predominantly from Brazil to Europe. Cases of human trafficking are believed to be significantly under-reported. Most of the minor victims are boys from Romania, who are primarily exploited for adoption, labour exploitation, domestic servitude, begging or sexual exploitation. 

The majority of adult victims are men from developing countries, particularly African countries. In this context, Portugal usually serves as a transit country for the West Africa route in which victims obtain fraudulent documents before moving on to other European countries where they are frequently subjected to sexual exploitation. The continuance of human trafficking in Portugal is enabled by inadequate victim identification, the ongoing illicit practices of temporary employment and recruitment agencies, and the pervasiveness of false promises made to victims. Transnational criminal networks, particularly those from Eastern Europe, are the main players involved in this activity, and both domestic and foreign actors profit from it.

Human smuggling is also a prevalent criminal market in Portugal. People from countries in Southern Asia, such as India, Nepal, and Bangladesh, and Eastern Europe, such as Romania, Moldova, and Bulgaria, as well as Latin America and West Africa, are increasingly smuggled into the country to be exploited in various sectors, mainly agriculture and hospitality. 

Criminal actors, including domestic and transnational networks, use sea or air routes as transit platforms. Balkan criminal networks use national airports to convey people irregularly into Portugal. The El Jadida–Faro sea route is used to avoid controls carried out by Moroccan authorities and the Canary Islands are increasingly being targeted along the West African route. A significant rise in document fraud connected to border controls has been detected.

Historically, the extortion and protection racketeering market has been pervasive in the country, especially in the north, usually involving biker gangs. However, recent evidence has been scarce and major events related to this crime are no longer common. Nevertheless, extortion is still occurring in the country and the latest reports indicate the moderate involvement of foreign actors too.

in Organized Crime Index