PRI Chapter 20: CIA, I Really Want to Make Progress

[Angelina Castro]

[Identity: CIA Senior Agent]

[Rating: 55 (Level A)]

[Loyalty: 30 (Initial Value)]

[Skills: Advanced Driving, Intermediate Marksmanship, Intermediate Disguise, Intermediate Judo, Expert-Level Network Technology]

[Weakness: Likes cosmetics]

"What the hell?" Lind was very surprised after reading the panel.

At first, seeing A-level, he thought the system had malfunctioned. But after seeing "agent," he felt the system was more like cheating on him.

How the hell did he draw an agent?

Of course, even if she was an agent, she wouldn't betray him. Rather, it was like he was cuckolding the CIA.

But why would an agent come to prison to work as a secretary?

Lind thought about it and suddenly relaxed his brow.

It didn't seem like a bad thing...

If he could contact the CIA through Angelina, wouldn't that be perfect!

After all, the Mexican drug trafficking organization Gulf Cartel was now eyeing the prison covetously, so why not find a big brother to lean on?

Although even if the CIA knew about the drug organization's intentions, they might not necessarily take action, but what if they arrested Osiel in advance? Wouldn't his crisis be resolved!

Of course, the prerequisite was that the CIA wouldn't pursue Lind's various harsh exploitation in the prison.

But honestly, this kind of thing really didn't need to worry him, because all the major private prisons were basically the same, just competing to see who had the lower bottom line.

There were plenty of people sending prisoners to plantations to pick cotton, and he didn't see the CIA stopping them.

As long as it wasn't treason or selling national intelligence, mere corruption and exploitation, fleecing some government wool, the CIA was too lazy to care.

After all, Agent Smith also received quite a substantial benefit fee from the government every year.

If he could connect with the CIA through this line, he might be able to settle many shady dealings with money.

They probably wouldn't refuse the opportunity to take benefits either.

Everyone needed to make progress!

Thinking of this, Lind was delighted and quickly called his old drinking buddy Jimmy.

This guy's father was a media tycoon in Texas with extensive connections and resources.

"Jimmy, do me a small favor."

"What? You were kicked out of the house?"

"You fucking dared to sleep with your stepmother? Are you crazy!"

"Fine, then come to my place."

After hanging up, Lind was speechless about Jimmy's behavior.

This guy really had terrible sexual preferences. It was one thing to go after mature women, but he actually set his sights on his own stepmother.

The key was that you should do it secretly.

Fooling around in a room at a banquet and finally getting caught in adultery by his father and his business partners.

This really stirred up a hornet's nest.

His father beat him half to death and imprisoned him at home.

He had barely managed to escape.

After receiving Lind's call, he agreed to find connections to post recruitment information for George.

However, in exchange, Jimmy planned to come to the prison to stay for a while in a couple of days.

Lind shrugged, expressed indignation at the decadent lives of American tycoons, and agreed to Jimmy's request.

Of course he could stay in the prison, but he'd have to pay!

After sleeping alone in the villa for one night, Lind set off directly back to the prison the next day.

After handling some routine affairs, Lind interviewed several more guards.

They were Cole Hamilton, a C-level guard who was good at fighting and had been a boxer, and Hahn Baker, a D-level guard who was good at marksmanship.

Currently, including the ones he had just interviewed and approved, there were a total of 10 ordinary guards in the prison.

But among them, only 1 was C-level, 3 were D-level, and the remaining 7 were all E-level.

The D-level guards were Carter, Cohen, and the newcomer Parker.

Lind wanted to replace them all with D-level or above guards, but after thinking about it, it was too extravagant.

Too many high-level guards would actually be a big burden on the prison's personnel expenses.

After all, capable people always charged higher prices.

Since the prison didn't currently have profitable business, Lind had to abandon this idea.

Instead, he created a completely new tier system.

Lind planned to divide the guard team into several different levels, from junior to senior: E-level, D-level, and C-level.

Currently, B-level and above guards could serve as supervisors, but when there were more guards in the future, B-level guards could only be team leaders.

Only A-level guards could be section supervisors.

As for S-level and higher, he wouldn't consider them for now.

Even if he drew them now, Lind estimated he couldn't afford to hire them.

A prison that could only hold 300 prisoners was really too small.

The first thing he needed to do next was to use Avery's connections to apply for military orders from UNICOR (Federal Prison Industries) in the name of the state Department of Corrections + Border Prison, turning the military helmet blueprint into cash.

Besides this, he also planned to apply for some low-cost commodity orders.

For example, masks, T-shirts, gloves, desks and chairs, crates, and other items. These things had extremely low production costs and didn't require spending big money to build production lines. You could just buy one that other factories had eliminated.

The only problem was that profit margins were also relatively low, mostly around 20%, mainly relying on economies of scale to make money.

But Lind's Border Prison didn't have that many prisoners.

Therefore, after calculating the costs and profits of these items, Lind finally decided to purchase a headphone accessory processing production line.

Headphone wires and plastic shells were very cheap, and the technical threshold was low.

As long as he hired a few technical instructors and several senior workers to teach the prisoners basic welding and assembly, production could start immediately.

Moreover, military headphones had very expensive procurement prices. Headphones that cost less than $5 to produce sold for over $15.

Lind found this price profit outrageous and wondered how much kickback Agent Smith was taking.

But even accounting for kickbacks, the prison could still earn over 50% profit.

So Lind decisively contacted Avery to have him help connect with Federal Prison Industries.

Soon, Federal Prison Industries called.

After simple information inquiries, Federal Prison Industries informed Lind that they would send someone in January to audit Border Prison's management and production capabilities.

At the same time, they told Lind that if he wanted to stably obtain military orders, he'd better join the ACA and get certified.

Thanks to their reminder, Lind realized that Border Prison hadn't joined the ACA yet.

ACA stood for American Correctional Association. It was both an industry association and a national prison regulatory agency.

Only by meeting ACA standards could you obtain ACA certification.

This certification could help prisons gain advantages when facing lawsuits from prisoners regarding cruel punishment, lack of medical care, and other issues.

"Since the prison passed ACA certification, how could it punish prisoners?"

Although this logic was complete bullshit, it was indeed what American prisons most commonly said to judges in court.

Moreover, when CCA went public in 1986, they also said, "The company's facilities practice ACA standards and reduce the number of civil litigation cases."

In fact, one of CCA's founders, Horton, was originally the chairman of ACA, and he had been actively promoting prison privatization.

Lind was well aware of these matters. Although he was very indignant (envious) about these guys' abuse of public resources for private gain, since he planned to make money, he naturally had to go with the flow and join their ranks.

As long as he joined the ACA, he would have an endorsement, be able to receive military orders, and then make big money through the prisoners.

So Lind didn't stop for a moment. Within a week, he visited multiple factories and finally settled on the headphone production line.

What he ordered included an injection molding machine, an SMT pick-and-place machine, an AOI inspection machine, an acoustic testing machine, and an automatic packaging machine.

These were all essential equipment for producing headphones, totaling $400,000.

However, Lind definitely couldn't come up with that much money at the moment, so he took out another bank loan.

After all, when you had many debts, you didn't worry about more.

Border Prison was a quality asset, so the bank wasn't afraid that Lind couldn't pay back the money.

A week later, the production line began formal installation.

Border Prison's factory area finally had a use.

While waiting for the production line installation, new employees and a new batch of prisoners also arrived at the prison.

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