Chapter 625

As the weather became hotter and hotter, the weather in Xiang Yalan also became sultry.

In a factory on the edge of the rainforest, a large number of people gathered; they were working.

There were many women here; they were indigenous residents living in the surrounding area, employed by the gangs behind these factories, completing work such as bottling and labeling alcohol here.

In the corner of the factory, there were huge wine barrels, each with a switch and something like a pointed faucet underneath.

The women sat around rows of pointed faucets; after the wine bottles were arranged neatly, they were handed to them through a special tool.

They only needed to insert the pointed tip into these wine bottles and then open the valve.

Amber-colored wine would quickly fill these wine bottles, and then they would be handed to the person next to them.

The person next to them would put a sealing cap on these wine bottles, then press it tight with a special machine, and then push the lever.

Under the action of the lever, the force was amplified, and those bottle caps were forcibly pressed onto the wine bottles, ensuring it wouldn't leak out.

Immediately after, these wine bottles would be placed on a conveyor belt, and they would be sent to more women behind, who skillfully pasted the wine labels on the wine bottles.

As long as it wasn't too crooked, even if it was slightly crooked, it was acceptable.

These wine bottles with labels would finally be at the end of the conveyor belt and be packed into wooden boxes by another group of women.

Subsequently, they would also grab the straw beside them and fill it between these wine bottles to ensure they wouldn't collide and break during transportation due to shaking, etc.

Finally, each wooden box would be nailed with iron nails and then sent to the trailer to be stacked neatly.

When it gathered a certain quantity, the trailer would leave, send it to the port, and then load it onto the ship.

Finally, these smuggling ships would quietly dock somewhere in the southern coastal area of the Federation two days later and transport the alcohol inside to the land.

This was the whole process of smuggled alcohol from bottling to arriving in the Federation.

It sounded simple, but doing it wasn't that easy.

The sultry environment in the factory made almost everyone unable to stand it; some slightly older women even went topless.

From time to time, higher-level staff from the winery would come over with water pipes to rinse the workers' bodies with cold water, ensuring they wouldn't delay the progress of work due to heatstroke, etc.

In the room on the second floor of the factory, a guy in a floral shirt looked through the window at the scene of constant production in the factory, a satisfied expression appearing on his face.

"Others only think they are bottling wine, but we all know that it's actually money."

A Xiang Yalan local standing by the window turned around and looked at the others in the room; he didn't look like a character to be trifled with.

Just by maintaining a calm state, he gave people a fierce feeling.

"The federal people are very right; money can grow in the ground, it just depends on how you find it."

He had a shiny, oily slicked-back hairstyle, covered in hair wax; even if the fan was turned to the maximum, it couldn't affect his hair in the slightest.

He walked back to his beautiful chair and sat down; behind him, there was a very interesting enlarged wine label.

In a field of crops, two women with local ethnic characteristics were holding two large bundles of wheat, their faces revealing simple smiles; in the distance in the wheat field, there were also people working with their heads down, as well as two granaries.

It had a very nice and easy-to-understand name, "Harvest."

Harvest blended whiskey had decent sales in the Federation; its price wasn't high, and its flavor was somewhat unique.

In the process of making whiskey, they added some sugarcane juice, which made the finished wine relatively sweet, accompanied by the special sweet scent of sugarcane; some people liked this whiskey with a slight sweetness.

The wine produced before would definitely sell.

But as more and more gangs started brewing wine, the competition became increasingly intense.

A year ago, his wine sold well without any wine labels, and now, he not only needed wine labels but also needed to compete with other gangs.

After all, what flowed out of the wine barrel wasn't wine, it was money; this was the case for every gang in the Xiang Yalan region.

Trademarks helped cultivate consumer loyalty; this was what some expert he spent money to hire said.

"That... what...", he looked at the others in the room, "the guy who let us go to New Jincheng."

"Lanse family, Boss."

He nodded, took out a silver cigar case, took half a cigar from it, and put it in his mouth.

"That Lanse family said let us go and talk to them; what do you all think?"

Lanse let all the gangs in New Jincheng release this information to those smuggled alcohol suppliers: from now on, if you want to sell alcohol in New Jincheng, you must go through the Lanse family.

If anyone dared to sell alcohol privately without contacting them, then New Jincheng's alcohol market would be closed to them forever.

New Jincheng's alcohol consumption capacity was one of the best in the southern region; if they lost New Jincheng's market, sales would definitely decline.

Declining sales meant he would earn much less money, and in order to sell wine to further places, he needed to bear greater transportation costs and risks.

The news had been back for several days, and some people didn't take this Lanse family's threat to heart.

Although Xiang Yalan was very poor, the population wasn't small at all; there were plenty of gunmen here willing to take risks for a few hundred or a thousand dollars.

If the Lanse family really annoyed them, they would send gunmen there to teach that "Mr. Lanse" how to communicate with Xiang Yalan people.

But some people also thought that the Lanse family wasn't necessarily joking.

The five major families had all been ended; perhaps this family really had the opportunity to decide whether their alcohol could enter.

The room was very quiet; after a while, the only person here who had graduated from high school spoke, "We can arrange for someone to go over and see, see how they plan to say it, how to do it."

"If their plan has no loss for us, I think we can do it."

"But if their plan will damage our interests, then we won't care about them."

The big Boss nodded and pointed at the high school student who spoke with the lit cigar, "You go..."

Since the Federal Coast Guard started using gunboats, the risk of smuggling directly to the coastline had become increasingly large.

At the same time, the Navy would be stationed in New Jincheng, along the entire coast of Lika Lai State, and even in some surrounding coastal areas; the difficulty of smuggling ships pulling cargo would become increasingly large.

This was obvious; if the Navy couldn't even discover some smuggling ships and couldn't stop them from docking, then what if the things these smuggling ships were transporting weren't alcohol, but explosives or something?

So it could be foreseen that wanting to send goods to New Jincheng would definitely no longer be a simple thing.

Smuggling ships pulling cargo directly wouldn't work, so what to do?

Customs!

"... The problem you mentioned indeed exists.", Jack sat next to Lanse and gave an affirmative answer to the statement Lanse just mentioned about "some customs officers might have contact with smugglers."

"Before, those smuggled wines rarely went through customs, but now, the quantity and proportion of alcohol smuggled through customs are increasing."

"Customs is not the Hazardous Materials Bureau; we won't destroy those wines immediately after getting them, which gives some people the opportunity to manipulate them from within."

Smuggled goods are detained at the port; after being detained for a period of time and people don't remember this matter much, they are transported out, and then they tell the higher-ups that they have been destroyed.

This kind of thing is very common in customs, just like some other smuggled goods.

Even some smuggled goods that no one comes to "pay the bill" for, the officers will still secretly take them out and handle them.

After all... the waste after destruction can't be sold for much money, but if these things aren't destroyed, that's money.

Who can have a grudge against money?

Including Jack himself, he would also participate in this kind of thing.

It's just that before he was an officer, now he is an official, and he needs to sign for the destruction of some categories of goods.

He not only needs to sign but also needs to supervise the destruction work; if they don't handle Jack, then this category of goods can't be "recycled."

Besides this part of the income, there is also a part of the customs clearance fee for commodity exports.

However, this part is relatively small; for example, now the federal government prohibits the sale of sensitive materials to the Dantra military alliance.

But capitalists who really intend to sell things over there won't be stupid enough to declare transporting sensitive materials over there directly, but will use a third party or even a fourth party as a springboard to send sensitive materials around the world and then to the Dantra military alliance.

So relatively speaking, the economic gain from this part is not much.

"I did some things recently, hoping to reorganize the smuggled alcohol market in New Jincheng and even the entire Lika Lai State."

Lanse took the last puff of the cigarette, inserted it into the ashtray, pressed it down two or three times, and then threw it away.

"I hope customs will stop trading with those smuggling groups or gangs and not let a single bottle of wine flow into their hands."

Jack thought seriously for a while after listening, "I will detain all the wine that goes through my side, but I'm not very good at negotiating with others about the ones that go through their side."

"After all, this involves quite a bit of income; many people need to rely on this to maintain their current lives."

Lanse shook his head, "You misunderstood my meaning; I said detain them, not let you destroy them."

"Before, you sold them to certain merchants, sold them to certain gangs."

"No problem; now, sell them to me, at your previous prices."

"Doing this is safer and more efficient."

"Talk to your colleagues."

"If someone feels this proposal is inappropriate...", Lanse laughed, "give me his name."

"I will convince him."