Learning My Own Importance

Again, the shell trade, I guess that's what this rambling on...is, mostly, all about. The obsession started way back when we'd first run away to the deserted beaches of S. Baja. Marcia and me, damn we were in such great shape then, us laying on warm sand, alone, at a secluded cove by name of San Fernando. Red, orange and deep purple pieces of sea polished shell lay there scattered all about at the tide line. We loved the colors. After collecting small sack full I told Marcia of my intent to find a way to work with, make a unique piece of ornamentation to hang around her lovely neck.

My fascination with spiny and purple oyster increased as I discovered how others, southwestern Indians, mostly, had learned the art of working this jewel- like material. The richness and depth of those colors sunk deep hooks into me. An impartial observer, watching my movements generated by these, might, at times, have considered me...gone "mad!"

There they were, laying by the thousands, on beaches close to our long-time, old camp there where we'd moved in at a place called San Cosme. In my first wild fling, I organized the collection of more than twenty thousand. And then, with a string of dumb luck, I moved these all up to the U.S./Mexican border, me intending to take them across. Oh how nieve I was of the way things worked in Mexico back then.

Because I had no Mexican export permit, this load of shells, roughly nine metric tons, couldn't make that crossing. However, my luck was that I did have a place to hold them in storage, while I dabbled with numerous scams in attempt to obtain needed Mexican papers. Ha! I stumbled down lots of blind allies, encountered my share of dead ends.

You might think that nobody would give a rip about tossed-ashore shells, like I once did. Eventually, if you dug into this, you, like I had to, would find yourself dead wrong. The shell business, long before I stumbled in, had been on going there in Mexico. Like any form of commerce in that country, bureaucracy had found a way to cut itself in.

After the fact, I discovered that one needed a shell collection permit. And one of these could only be obtained from the Mexico City, top office, of like their Fish and Game Department. Foreigners couldn't have one so this meant a Mexican front man was needed, someone that I had no trouble at all finding.

Alejo, Chayo and Martin, all the adult males loosely involved with me, filled out and filed all the needed paperwork, sent it off through the channels that wound their way towards the Mexican capital...and waited. I don't know how many times, at the local level, the starting point, these gentlemen checked into the progress of their applications. I only know for sure that this was mostly wasted effort. Forget it! The lesson learned by me was that nothing moves in Mexico from the bottom up.

Without someone with a recollectors permit to buy from...there was no way that I could legally buy shells. Without a sales invoice from someone with such authorization, there was no way one could apply for export documents. I beat my head against this rock wall for some considerable while trying to solve this riddle, mostly to no avail. "David! You have to understand that there's this shell business Mafia," this was pointed out to me by Efren, a Loreto shell dealer who'd been at it for considerable while. He was having great trouble with export papers right then, himself; long lasting problems.

What is meant by the term "Mafia" in Mexico is not how someone from the States would perceive it. They're not talking of organized crime, per say. It's more like a loose-knit group of individuals who've got the right connections. Now that I know many more of the players I can't describe them as criminal types, or bad guys. Not in anyway. They're just Mexican businessmen, functioning in Mexico...the way the game is played.

In Mexico, business information is held very closely. Secrets. Nobody easily gives away their contacts. It's not that I was searching full time. No. I wasn't. Just poking around, experimenting with one stratagem, then another. Almost five years past before I experienced serious breakthrough. A chain of almost accidents, perhaps, explains my progress better.

Those shells still sitting close to border weren't an up-front, priority issue. Rarely did they ever pop into my thoughts. I guess you could say that rather than trying to play shell games strictly legit, I'd developed some rather tangential stragities...these allowing me to continue to play, trade and associate with Indians, and learn the true nature of what I was dealing with.

Soon after our arrival down on Baja for the '01-'02 winter season, Chayo, my right hand man in regards to most attempted shell escapades, informed me that those stored shell were starting to cause a problem for gentleman who owned storage area. I won't go into how or why because a full explanation would eat up too much time and paper. Suffice it said that there's this problem that had to be solved.

What to do with nine tons of shell?

I still had not discovered a satisfactory way of moving them north of border. I tossed around the idea of cutting them, sorting out the good material, disposing of the waste. Most shells aren't all good. The vast majority have more waste than what's usable. In reduced volume it seemed I'd have an easier time getting shipment across.

On the Mexican side, what I had was practically worthless to me. On the U.S. side, because of an incredible rise in price, due to scarcity, these pieces then, if not like gold, certainly had par value with silver. I talked up my cutting idea with Marcia and Chayo, whipped up some enthusiasm. Marcia consented and Chayo was game.

So it unfolds that Chayo, along with a cousin assistant, gets sent to La Gloria, a suburb of Tijuana, to cut up and grade what was stock piled there. Chayo's straight country boy. For both he and his cousin this was a world expanding experience, to say the very least. I was infermed at the time, because of severe sciatic nerve pain I simply couldn't travel well. By cell phone and from our secluded camp, I was able to monitor progress and do simple trouble shooting, but very little more.

While in La Gloria, Chayo was introduced, by my friend Isias, who'd been storing these shells for me, to a gentleman who claimed he could move resulting pieces across.

I'd learned to be skeptical regarding such things by then. At first I didn't put much credence in what Chayo was telling me. Yeah, sure...I heard such boasts before. I'm thinking Chayo's, perhaps, gullible, easily taken in. I remember relaying this info to Marcia but not being excited in the least about this contact. What the hell did Chayo know? Supposedly this was some old man.

Through further long distance phone calls to La Gloria I started ta come around. What Chayo was telling me started to add up. "This man is sure he can move those pieces?" I questioned repeatedly. "He can do this legally, can get the export permits?"

"Si. Si. Si." Chayo was convinced that the character he'd been talking to was legit. Supposedly this gent shipped shells all over the world. Supposedly he was a big power in the abalone trade. But these weren't abalone, I pointed out. The export papers had to be "species" specific, did he understand that?

"Si. Si." The old man knew this all. Whatever kind of shell I wanted to move, he could get them out.

"Whatever kind?"

"Si!"

Of course this old man wanted to be paid for his services. Ha! What I offered others, by the ton, $1,000. U.S. per, hadn't moved anything yet. Chayo asked what I'd be willing to pay, this with me knowing, almost, how many kilos of pieces we were talking about right then: Approximately three metric tons.

So Marcia and me, we talk this over around the campfire...in our usual manner. We'd given not one thought towards moving these shells prior to sending Chayo to cut them. Certainly we hadn't budgeted either for that cutting or other related expenses.

Chayo's description of what they'd cut was glowing. At the present value, I think that in my eyes ya might have detected big dollar signs. We decided to try and strike a deal for cross border movement: $400.00 U.S. per ton. We'd start low. We could move up considerably if we had to. Next phone contact with La Gloria I relay this decision. I was in no particular hurry and didn't expect a response as fast as one came back.

Chayo'd offered this character $300.00 U.S., per ton and paid on the other side, and he'd gleefully accepted it. Chayo's just a kid, really, but he understands Mexicans, their needs, better than I do. I'm generally too much of a Santa Clause. I was elated. Nine hundred bucks to get all that to side where market was red hot, why, this was nothin' at all. "You say this guy can move any kind of shell...for $300.00 U.S.?" I found myself questioning. His answer came back as a resounding, "Si!"

So now I start thinkin'...what the hell! Fer a measly $300.00 per ton, why not make a bigger, better load of it? In a warehouse in the city of Constitucion, owned by the same Isias from La Gloria, we had roughly a ton of abalone that had set there gathering dust for a number of years already, also. And then, there close by at San Cosme we still had about 600 kilos of purple oyster that Chayo had been cutting for me there. And then I was really interested in owning a quantity of lion paws, a shell I'd recently become infatuated with, too...

Another conversation around campfire, at martini time, is needed to get Marcia to go along with newly hatched scam. My list now exceeds six metric tons. "So what if it sets us back another couple grand!" My expansive argument went. "With that kind of weight! Just think of what fun we could have with them Indians!" I do my best sales pitch, Marcia doin' her part by finding holes in my scam.

She asked sensible things like how we were going to get the abalone and purple oyster, and now lion paws, up to the border. Hell, how was I even going to get the lion paws? And what were they and all this extra shipping going to cost? Details, details.

A snap!

In my explanations and estimates I found my self getting more and more convinced that this was only way to go, even if it was going to stretch our pocketbook some.

Chayo and cousin had been away for a month on that first assignment. This had been the first time since he'd married Alejo's lovely daughter Maria, they've been married for about four years now, that they'd experienced such a separation. Their little daughter Mari had suffered her fathers absence to the extent of breaking out with emotion-cause skin rash. I let a full week slide by before I laid out the possibility of another mission for the lad.

We both knew where the lion paws laid in considerable quantity. I speculated that Chayo could round up what I wanted for the outrageous price of $600.00 U.S. per metric ton. This was my price to Chayo for him going and orchestrating the whole deal. What he'd have to pay for them was his problem. Two tons, bagged and ready for shipment north, and he got $1,200. laid in his hand. I speculated that he could buy these lion paws, from a guy named don Mario, a shell Mafia member in good standing, for two to three hundred a kilo. I figured the operation to take a maximum of three er four days. The thoughts of him making another $600.00, past the small fortune he'd been paid for work at La Gloria (about $4,000. U.S.), was more than sufficient to whip him into action. We handed over $200.00 in expense monies and "Varoom!" he was off...this time in his own little carro, him takin' wife and daughter along.

We'd arranged to have phone contact. Between 8:30 and 9:AM, and 5:30 and 6:PM, we'd turn the cell phone on; something that we rarely, almost never do. He's only to call me if there are problems. No calls at those appointed hours I took as only good news. Days slid by without that contraption sounding. No big deal.

Migel, Alejo's youngest son shows up mounted on lathered horse. He's got a hand written message from Chayo's sister, who lives in Agua Verde, addressing Guadalupe with message for me. Essentially it said call Chayo at don Mario's, who's number we had.

So I do get through to don Mario, and I get low down on type problem Chayo's experiencing. (Only that he was broke and needed money sent by telegraph. Not much: 200 bucks. Which does get sent fastest way possible to him.) And I'm under the impression that he'd transacted business with Don Mario, especially since he's using him as a go-between. And although I never did get to talk to Chayo there, I get the distinct impression that every thing's moving along as planned, albeit somewhat slower than what I'd originally thought.

Eventually, mission accomplished, Chayo and family do return, and we finally get the blow-by-blow of what went down, something considerably different that what I'd assumed it would be.

First, he couldn't call us from that distant location, because there was a different phone system in place there than the cell system we were hooked up with. Mexico. Two, non-compatible, competing systems. Second, he'd not purchased shells from don Mario, but gone and collect two tons at the garbage dump, where, according to him, there were mountains to chose from. This essentially putting all that $600. per ton in his pocket. I hadn't told him how he had to do it.

Then after bypassing don Mario, the only hombre in that entire area with permits to handle shells, he'd had the nerve to use him as our go-between. Then he'd sweet talked don Mario into an open ended "factura," that we'd need to move the abalone and purple oyster to join with the two tons of lion paws. And he'd gotten a commitment form don Mario to give him further facturas to move all that to La Gloria.

I'm somewhat flabbergasted with the blank factura with don Mario's letterhead printed upon it. This was a logistics problem that I hadn't figured my way around, quite yet. Let me explain just a little bit about the importance of this document:

Simply put, a factura is a numbered business receipt. Only by having a legally registered company can you get the printed, consecutively numbered receipt books. Facturas are the means by which the Mexican tax collectors get into, supposedly, all business acts. Ten percent of all legal transactions go straight into government coffers. You just don't move cargo up and down the highway without one. And I know from first hand experience (when I'd moved those nine tons to La Gloria) that at all military or judicial police road blocks, you will be asked for your factura. And in a round-about way I'd gotten a factura to cover that load, this by paying 10% tax on a ridiculously understated, fictious price. For a small tip, this had been arranged.

This open-ended, fill-in-the-blanks factura was a new one on me, a possibility I'd never considered.

Almost immediately I smell something amiss. My thinking went like, here's this don Mario, whose got the shell biz pretty much under lock and key for a considerable coastal area, knowing that the up-start Chayo has just gone around him, in essence cut him out in his home territory; and, too, he's willing to cough up important paper work to move the deal along.

From my long time experience in the north American fur trade, this felt to me like some sort of a set up, a trap. Seriously I worried some about this. I pictured those abalone and purple oyster pieces meeting up with the two tons of lion paws, only to be gobbled up when this Mario character drops a dime on the deal. Just a word to local authorities, whom he had to know, and, poof! The whole deal's up in smoke. I'd had ample reason to look long and hard at deals that seemed too good to be true. Oh, boy. Hadn't I.

Chayo helps dissuade me from most of my misgivings, though.

Email: david@dondavidonbaja.com