The Blackmarket… For Sand

this was gonna be a fun one about people stealing sands but it's like no mafia murders [Music] welcome everybody to business blaze where we learn business see things together I was reading online about sand and it sounds like the most boring thing in the world but I promise this interesting I had writer Steve put together some notes on the sand mafia we're gonna go through it we're gonna learn about it together it's gonna be fun well let's get into it the title of this video sounds like a Star Wars movie but is actually you know just as a side note there I've never seen Star Wars I mean I saw one Star Wars like back in the 1990s they were like rebroadcasting the old Star Wars movies in the theater it was the one where they run they ride like flying motorbikes through the forest that's all I remember from it it was kind of dull the size of this video does sound like a Star Wars movie I guess it does let me know in the comments but it's actually rather serious most people's experience of sand is scraping it off their feet when they come home from the beach but there is a secret battle for sans taking place around the world which is increasingly spilling out into the open likes and clever Steve Dan's maybe lying around not doing very much but the reality is it's vitally important to our development as modern human beings of course I know where we're going take concrete for example which is mixed with SADS no concrete no buildings and obvious okay I see the connection but you wouldn't be able to see out of those buildings without glass windows and of course I know this you know there sans goes into glass they heat up sound super hot then it goes invisible and they make glass at least that's how I've assuming it works indeed the screen you're watching the song might have glass on it like Gorilla Glass or whatever so yes sans does have a surprisingly big influence on 21st century life indeed unfortunately our supplies of this premier precious commodity are running out so how is that even possible with vast stretches of sand out there like deserts and endless be I mean whenever you see endless beaches is that alright but at least I can like see the amount of Sam's that is available the Sahara Desert you can see that space it's big the answer is simple cool it's human greed of course it is humans just as we've destroyed the rainforests for wood and made millions of monkeys cry I actually looked this up millions of monkeys cry over palm oil bar the facts here little bonus fact as we go through this episode monkeys do cry but it's only to clean their eyes in fact we are the only animal that cries because of sadness kind of sad in itself though basically we are buying up sound like this no tomorrow we need it for construction not everyone is doing it legally gali though I guess this is gonna be our mafia connection a thriving black market has emerged in recent years amazingly this led to the theft of an entire beach in Jamaica in 2008 ten feet deep trenches were dug overnight at Coral Springs Trelawney a complex operation involving 500 truckloads clean-looking white sands the sort found in Jamaica is higher so this is Jamaica I guess Trelawney I didn't know that is highly sought after this white sand is highly sought of course it's what we've seen like you know desktop backgrounds they always want that white sand not yellow okay so this brings us to an important point about sand theft and that's only certain types of sand are being targeted okay so now we get into the actual important bits desert sand is plentiful yes there is the Sahara but it's totally unsuitable for business purposes you're probably wondering why can't you put the sand in a skyscraper or simply put is because it's too silky for concrete how it bends at the desert I feel like I must have been to the desert and you do touch it it's very soft okay that makes sense they the grains are two rounds after being eroded by the desert winds the best kind of sand is close to water ocean floors and riverbeds are plundered for the high quality stuff which is grittier and I guess the Meeks makes it like a better binding agent for concrete no exactly sure how concrete production works someone wants to enlighten me in the comments that would be awesome or I suppose I could just giggle at the people stealing the sand some rather nasty individuals in fact there's a criminal organization in India known as the sand mafia oh my while his name might sound silly it does their activities have serious consequences Business Insider described them in 2018 saying and this is a quote from Business Insider the interconnect this interconnected group of businessman drivers and criminals use their influence and if that fails violence and that's not a quote from business if that's a quote but the the swear the swearing was all me and murder to keep the sands flowing illegal sound generates 2.3 billion dollars a year employing 75,000 of India's impoverished to die for sand in rivers divers work 12-hour days diving up to 200 times and making only $15 a boatload many suffer from bleeding ears and headaches deaths and drownings go unreported I watched a little short documentary on YouTube about this if I can find it again when I'm uploading this video I will link it to below if this is as crazy as it sounds you have these Indian dudes these poor Indian dudes you've got on these boats and they die they swim to the bottom with buckets then they scoop sand into it and then they bring those buckets up to the top how are there not machines doing this and yeah these guys get super messed up from it it's really it was really sad I'm laughing but it was a really sad documentary and these guys they're not doing well and they make basically no money yet $15 a boatload these were these are not small boats that were in this documentary who's what proper size I mean not like shipping containers but you know boats for many people with humanity getting through billions of sand per year the rewards for criminals are huge yeah it's like 2.3 billion dollars despite attempts by world governments regulate the situation it continues investigating sand theft is dangerous business and many people put their lives on the line tracking down those missing grains say yeah you don't mess with the Mafia even the sand mafia apparently that's crazy it doesn't actually say Steve Earle's and say if people have been killed wait no it kind of does right people with their lives on the line oh yeah and there's little thing about people getting murdered oh this was gonna be a fun one about people stealing sands but it's like no mafia murders so much sand is being scooped up by Ganz gangsters but where is it going that's where things get tricky when the beach in Jamaica was spirited away experts were sent in to conduct forensic tests on Perret potential locations that it could have ended up so the sand was taken from a multi-million dollar resort developments now where did they offload the sand well actually they sent it to two other resorts they're forensics teams they investigated and they founded another resort suspiciously colored patches of sand on their grounds basically what they're done is they're taking the really nice sand from that beach and then then sprinkled it on top of their resorts like less nice and so I looks good people's like instagrams Wow the results in question they said that they bought the sound in good faith I guess they didn't ask too many like where'd you get this and legally things become even more complicated when you factor in institutional corruption it's alleged police can police colluded with criminals to take the sand and distributors it is Jamaica it's probably not the least corrupt current is is probably not like Iceland or Finland or one of these super uncorrupt countries is it despite going through a high-profile police investigation launched by then Prime Minister Bruce Golding no one was found guilty of the crime the culprit slips through everyone's fingers like sand well done Steve away from this gritty underworld sand mining in general is damaging the environment by removing sand from the ocean floor for instance you take away microorganisms and disrupt the food chain and because the bottom of the ocean is actually a rock covered by a layer of sand the missing grains are replaced by sand from the shore and that goes on as that goes on the shore line starts dwindling that makes sense I was thinking you know if you really need this like ocean sand why not just go out to the middle of the ocean and take it from the floor now we know surely if you take some stuff out of like that Marianas Trench or whatever it's gonna be fine but I guess like over a really long time it's not gonna go well nature finds a way to sustain itself but the removal of sand by humans hands human hands has caused entire islands to disappear okay this isn't a joke is it that land is shoveled up and it's used as building materials around the world so you ever knew that not all of this goes into a cement mixer is also bought in order to expand territory I've heard about this Singapore is the planets biggest importer of sand and people have noticed its cosine is getting bigger they're literally making their country larger this is super fascinating I remember as a kid not related to Singapore but in the UK after they dug the Channel Tunnel which is the connection between the UK and France like underground they used the rock or whatever that they're drilled through to expands the coast of the UK and I went there and is like this little nature park I went there with my gran and walked around it was really nice I guess that Stan wasn't stolen but Singapore is this you know Singapore's like a city Singapore a city-state I think it is I it's really small and they don't have much land so they expand it by dumping more sand in the sea super interesting anyway you thinking this is very sad it is you might be thinking I live away from the coast I am so how does it affect me I wonder well the crisis is closer to home than you think it may be your actual home the stuff that gets between your toes is increasing in price and that's a bad news for property owners Vince paisa author of a 2018 book the world is a grain this is a quote I believe this is one of the reasons the housing prices have gone up so much it in pretty much all of America's big cities because the price of sand has quintupled in the last 30 to 40 years and one of the critical inputs when you're building a house of course is sand to the concrete and that's true like I've mixed the concrete before I think I did it with my dad when I was a kid don't wory your building but mixing concrete I think the majority is like sand and water and then the cement powder itself is actually a smaller part of it so you can see why this works major cities could not exist without concrete and glass we know that for sure so if the sand situation isn't sorted out quick we might be living in VIP we might be living very different lives alternative sand is in development using ingredients such as sawdust or ground glass but we're going to need to take major action to prevent a tidal wave of money washing away on natural supplies forever sawdust I heard was an amazing binder I did a video I think it was on my today I found out channel about pike reefs which is basically ice and sawdust mixed together which makes this insanely strong concrete-like substance they tried to build like an entire battleship out of it it's a crazy story if I can find my video about there which I should be able to do but I done like a thousand of them I will link to it below it's a good watch and that's it bonus fact time it's one of the sandiest places on earth yet Dubai couldn't use its own sand for its developments where it's a desert thing we learned this right after using up their marine sand constructing an epic playground for the wealthy they had to turn to Australia to finish the job topping up their sand bank balance mind you they could afford it they could device pretty rich it's crazy this is one of those things that you think has to be a myth right that Dubai in the desert imports and but there you go does it and now you know why now for another bonus fact when of each goes missing in Jamaica some wealthy and powerful people get involved not just police or politicians but royalty because Jamaica is part of the British Commonwealth the crown was drawn into the saga maybe these criminals didn't realize but they're messing with well them as where the Queen of England sort of but only like in name is like if I don't know for a fact but I assume here if it's Commonwealth when you go to court you face you know it's always criminal versus or and Regina which stands for the Queen so I guess in Jamaica maybe they have the same thing so but it's like when you know John steals something from someone's house and goes to court and it's like John and Regina he's not really messing with the Queen per se did I get it it's pretty clever alright that sounds I think that last page is just sources which I will link to below and that is the sand mafia I hope you found it interesting this is a new channel if you got suggestions for me also leave those in the comments below if they're good suggestions if you vote them to the top I'll have something written and then we will learn it together because that's what we do on this channel and I'll see you next time

Channel: Business Blaze

Views: 112,465

Rating: 4.9371848 out of 5

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Id: vgreCWg4f8o

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 26 2019