Archive for category Bounties

Fish And Game: Trout Fishing Bounties In Idaho!

May 18

Posted by Matt in Bounties, Fish and Game, Idaho | No Comments

The reward breakdown is: 300 of the tags are worth $50 each; 200 are worth $100; 50 are worth $200; 20 worth $500; and 5 are worth $1,000 each.
The competitive aspect is that the tags are invisible to the eye and can’t be detected by a standard metal detector. In order to tell whether a fish is a winner it must be killed and brought into the Idaho Falls Fish and Game headquarters to be checked.
Because the rainbow trout is a sport fish, it cannot be wasted. Anglers can keep the meat and turn in the head if they desire, or they can turn in the whole fish…….

Every lake trout of any size and rainbow trout more than 13 inches long harvested from Lake Pend Oreille pays $15.00!

Talk about cool? Fishing trout and collecting a bounty for your effort? lol It doesn’t get any better than that! Plus you get to enjoy the meat and you only have to turn in the head for verification.

So for you anglers out there that are looking for a good trout fishing vacation, try out the South Fork Snake River or Lake Pend Oreille in Idaho. Read both ads for bounties below if you are interested and definitely check out the video they made about why they are doing this. -Matt

IDAHO FISH AND GAME UPPER SNAKE REGION NEWS RELEASE
Idaho Falls, ID
Fish And Game Offers Bounty On Rainbow Trout
Date:March 29, 2010
Contact:Gregg Losinski
(208) 525-7290
Since 1982 Idaho Fish and Game fisheries biologists have been monitoring the numbers of the different types of trout in the South Fork Snake River outside of Idaho Falls.
This monitoring has tracked the effects non-native rainbow trout are having on native Yellowstone cutthroat trout populations. Rainbow trout can interbreed with cutthroats and produce fertile offspring. The resulting generations of hybrids become more and more like rainbows, and less like cutthroats.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bounties, Fish and Game, fishing, Idaho, Lake Pend Oreille, South Fork Snake River, trout

Bounties: The Truth About Geronimo…And Usama Bin Laden, By Benjamin Runkle

May 8

Posted by Matt in Books, Bounties, History, Letter Of Marque | No Comments

The original Geronimo campaign and the hunt for bin Laden share plenty of similarities. On May 3, 1886, more than a century before a $25 million reward was offered for information on bin Laden’s whereabouts, and almost 125 years to the day before the al-Qaeda leader’s death, the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a joint resolution “Authorizing the President to offer a reward of twenty-five thousand dollars for the killing or capture of Geronimo.”

Excellent little article about the comparisons between these two manhunts. But what is really interesting to me is that back then the President was authorized by congress to issue a bounty for the killing or capturing of Geronimo. So does that mean that a bounty was paid to the members of Lt. Charles Gatewood’s small five man party that sealed the deal on Geronimo? Mind you that this party was composed of ‘two Apache scouts, an interpreter and a mule-packer’. Not bad for such a small team, and it reminds me of the effectiveness of the small teams required for the capture of UBL.(on a side note here, no one has been awarded the millions in bounties that UBL had on his head)

Which brings me to my next point. It is not the size of force or intelligence apparatus, but the quality and effectiveness of such a thing. In both cases, it was not a large army that was able to find these guys and put them away. It was small teams. And in both cases, these teams were tipped off to the location of their guy by a local or a detainee. So what does that say?

Could this indicate that small companies or units are more capable of finding people, than large cumbersome armies? I think so. I also think that bounties can work, if they actually support a vibrant ‘offense industry’. The bounty for Bin Laden did not support the kill or capture by companies or individuals, and only depended upon an individual to come forward with a tip. That’s if they would come forward. If a company was tasked with finding and capturing/killing UBL or any of the other leaders, then they too could use a bounty system to get their information locally. Or use whatever means, based on the guidelines and laws of a issued license.

The other point I wanted to make is how long and how costly this manhunt has been. According to this author in the Atlantic, the total time for the hunt of UBL was 15 years at a cost of 3 trillion dollars. I cannot even imagine what 3 trillion dollars looks like, but I do know what cost effective is. This hunt for UBL was not cost effective, and I definitely think that there is another way to go about this task. Not to mention the lives lost in this long war.

Finally, there is the question of violating a country’s sovereignty in order to go after an individual(s). We definitely crossed Pakistan’s border with military force, landed on their territory, killed UBL and several others, and took materials from this compound. All of these acts were done without the permission of Pakistan, and I am sure it will have it’s repercussions.(logistics for Afghanistan come to mind) But my point is that the US authorized this act at the highest levels. So the US has now set a precedence and has deemed this a necessary act for national security. I agree and applaud the President for making this move, but the US must also consider that Al Qaeda is still operating and still out there.

It will take many raids, and many small teams to reach all of these groups and violate the sovereignty of many countries out there in order to accomplish what we just did in Pakistan. If such acts are this important to the national security of the US, then I do not see how issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal to private industry to help in this endeavor would be considered that much more of a stretch? Or we can continue to spend trillions of dollars on large scale military deployments in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, violate those country’s sovereignty with large scale occupation, all to find these people? Something to think about when talking about waging war efficiently and using the right tool/strategy for the job.

On a side note, Benjamin Runkle has put together an excellent blog to coincide with the topic of his book called Wanted Dead or Alive: Manhunts from Geronimo to bid Laden. I have put his blog in my RSS reader, and this is an area of study that everyone should take a look at if they are interested in the method behind ‘finding’ bad guys.-Matt

The truth about Geronimo .. and Osama bin Laden
By Benjamin Runkle
May 6, 2011
“Geronimo!” That was the call that went over the command net on May 1, indicating that Navy SEALs had found their man. And that code name for Osama bin Laden has angered some Native Americans, who have demanded a formal apology from the Obama administration.
Their complaints are understandable, but misguided. The code name doesn’t denigrate the Apache war captain, a hero to some students of Native American history, through comparison to the Saudi terrorist leader. The similarities are not in the men themselves but in the military campaigns that targeted them.
In May 1885, Geronimo led the breakout of 120 Chiricahua Apache from the San Carlos Reservation in what is now Arizona, creating mass hysteria in the American Southwest. The Chiricahua had legitimate grievances: Civilian “Indian agents” were corrupt and consistently cheated the Apache on their rations, while the land the tribe had been given was almost worthless for farming but still encroached upon by miners. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Benjamin Runkle, Blogs, Books, Bounties, Geronimo, History, letter of marque and reprisal, Usama Bin Laden, Wanted Dead or Alive

Call To Action: Colorado Senate Bill 11-186 Will Free Criminals And Spell The End Of Private Bail-Vote No!

Apr 28

Posted by Matt in Bounties, Call To Action, Colorado | 2 Comments

In the past I have written about the effectiveness of offense industries, and specifically bounty hunting. The strength of the private bail industry comes from the profit motive of the act and from them having incentive to get their bail money back if their client runs, and that is a good thing. These men and women work hard in this industry and earn every penny they make doing a dangerous service that benefits us all.

What Colorado is trying to do here is to ruin private enterprise, and expand the size of government through another means of capturing revenue. Meanwhile, if the bail industry is destroyed by this greedy government program, who will run after the criminals that run? The police? Hell, they can’t even keep up with the current warrants in that state.

At the bottom of these articles I posted the contact information for all the state Senators in Colorado. Take your pick, or write them all, but either way, tell them to vote no on Senate Bill 11-186. -Matt

Dog The Bounty Hunter Fighting Bill That Would Free Criminals
Apr 26, 2011
Duane “Dog” Chapman isn’t just busy yanking criminals off the street — he’s fighting the politicians trying to put them back on the street!
Dog is leading the fight in Colorado against a state Senate bill he and the bill’s critics say will put bail bondsmen out of business — and flood society with criminals.
“This time I’m not barking. I’m here to take a real bite out of crime,” Dog told RadarOnline from Colorado. “I’m here to stop tax funded bonds ?and return bail bonds to the private sector where it belongs.”
Authorities in Colorado on Tuesday will convene to vote on the divisive Senate Bill 11-186, sponsored by Democratic Sen. John Morse and Republican Rep. Mark Waller, both of Colorado Springs.
The bill would put into play a deposit bond, which would grant pre-trial services to offer bonds to incarcerated defendants.
Here’s how it works:
If the accused cannot can’t get bonded out by a private bail company, the court will make one available to them. Once the judge sets bond, the defendant would be able to pay up to 15 percent of the amount.
Under this system, 50 percent of the revenue would go to the court fees for the service. If the defendant is found not guilty, the other 50 percent would be returned to them. If they are found guilty, whatever funds are left would be given back to them.
One former lawman who operates his bail bonds company out of Colorado Springs, told KRDO -TV that if the bill is passed into a law, hundreds of people in his industry will be out of work.
Not only that, but who is going to chase down the criminals who don’t show up to court. Dog the Bounty Hunter told RadarOnline.com: “This state has hundreds of thousands of warrants! no Bounty Hunters ? Ha, not,” he scoffed in a warning. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: bail bondsman, bail industry, Bounties, bounty hunting, Call To Action, Colorado, Dog Chapman, Senate Bill 11-186

Bounties: The US Congress Paid $100 Per British Prisoner Captured During War Of 1812

Apr 7

Posted by Matt in Bounties, History, Letter Of Marque | No Comments

1814, March 19. The $25 for each prisoner captured by private armed vessels of the United States to be $100 hereafter. $200,000 appropriated.
(What cost $100 in 1814 would cost $1025.20 in 2010.)

Now this is interesting, and I found this nugget of information in the Spirit of 76, Volume 6 edition. Did you know that the US Congress authorized a bounty system for British Prisoners during the War of 1812? Apparently back then, the British had captured a ton of American prisoners during that war. The reason for that was because there were hundreds of American privateers involved in the war that went after the enemy, and many of these privateers were captured during operations. These privateers were not as experienced and as professionalized as the Royal Navy back then, and suffered the consequence of being ill prepared.

Another problem that popped up in the war was that many of these American privateers had no use for prisoners and often let them go. So in 1814, that is when Congress decided to appropriate money for bounties for privateers to hang on to prisoners and turn them in to US detention. My guess is that Congress wanted to do prisoner exchanges to get all of these Americans freed from British prisons. So naturally, Congress created an industry out of capturing prisoners to solve the problem. That is on top of the prize capture system implemented by Congress, which was an industry created to destroy enemy logistics and infuse money into the US Treasury.

With that said, privateers did some damage during that war and were a very important part of the overall strategy. Despite the risks and poor conditions, many guys were driven to join the privateer schooners in the hopes of capturing a prize (or enemy vessel). I compare it to today’s crab fishermen in Alaska, and a good visual representation of that ‘risk versus reward’ mindset is to watch a show like the ‘Deadliest Catch‘. It is the allure of the hunt and of striking it rich, that drove these men to do what they did back then. Plus it was the patriotic thing to do at the time, and privateering was very popular.

Another little nugget I found out recently, was the concept of Prize Tickets. What these were, were contracts between the sailors and the privateer company in which that sailor would get his share of the prize, after all the proceedings of the prize court and after everyone was paid. The interesting thing here is that guys didn’t know how much they would get for their efforts, and it required patience to wait for the final outcome. What happened with many privateers is that instead of waiting, they would instead sell their prize tickets to brokers who would pay a small fee. These brokers would stand to make a killing, just because they were rich enough and patient enough to wait for the final outcome of the prize.

The other thing that I thought was interesting is that privateer and letter of marque were two types of vessels/enterprises during that war. Not only was a Letter of Marque a commission/license issued to privateers, but the name Letter of Marque was given to a certain type of enterprise/vessel in this war. A Letter of Marque was a cargo vessel whom was issued a LoM for the possible chance that they might come across an enemy vessel and make a capture. But their primary task was shipping their cargo. A privateer was a vessel that was primarily a fighting vessel, and prize captures/commerce raiding was is it’s purpose.

For more information on the War of 1812, I highly suggest a new book that came out called the Perilous Fight: America’s Intrepid War With Great Britain On the High Sea’s 1812-1815, By Stephen Budiansky. And I really liked this quote from the product description of this book: “Never again would the great powers challenge the young republic’s sovereignty in the aftermath of the stunning performance of America’s navy and privateersmen in sea battles that ranged across half the globe. Their brilliant hit-and-run tactics against a far mightier foe would pioneer concepts of “asymmetric warfare” that would characterize the insurgency warfare of later centuries.” Pretty cool. -Matt

ACTION FOR THE BENEFIT OF REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS.
COMPILED FROM THE MINUTES OF CONGRESS
The Spirit of ’76, Volume 6
1812, Jan. 18. Act declaring war with Great Britain.
1812, June 26. Act concerning letters of marque, prizes and and prize goods. The 17th section says: “That two percentum on the net amount (after deducting all charges and expenditures) of the prize money arising from capture of vessels and cargoes, recaptured by the private armed vessels of the United States, shall be secured and paid over to the collector or other chief officer of the customs at the port or place in the United States at which such captured or recaptured vessels may arrive; or consul or other public agent of the United States residing at the port or place not within the United States, at which such captured or recaptured vessels may arrive. And the moneys arising therefrom shall be held, and is hereby pledged by the government of the United States as a fund for the support and maintenance of the widows and children of such persons as may be slain; and for the support and maintenance of such persons as may be wounded and disabled, on board of thte private armed vessels of the United States, in any engagement with the enemy, to be assigned and distributed in such manner as shall hereafter by law be provided.” ) Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bounties, History, Letter Of Marque, privateers, royal navy, war of 1812

Bounties: US Offers $5 Million In Killing Of ICE Agent, Mexico Offers 10 Million Pesos

Mar 30

Posted by Matt in Bounties, Law Enforcement, Mexico | No Comments

The Mexican government offered up a reward of 10 million Pesos for this deal as well, and obviously the case is going cold and they need some information to catch these guys. Hopefully this bounty will do the trick. -Matt

U.S. offers $5 million in killing of ICE agent
Two ambushed along highway, likely by a Mexican drug cartel
By Jerry Seper
March 30, 2011
The Departments of Justice, State and Homeland Security announced Wednesday a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the Mexican gunmen who shot and killed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent Jaime Zapata and wounded his partner, Victor Avila Jr. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bounties, Drug Cartels, ICE, Jaime Zapata, Mexico, reward, Victor Avila

Fish And Game: North Dakota Takes Aim With Bounty On Coyotes

Feb 9

Posted by Matt in Bounties, Fish and Game, North Dakota | No Comments

The number of complaints USDA Wildlife Services receives from livestock producers confirms the coyote abundance. According to Phil Mastrangelo, director of USDA Wildlife Services in North Dakota, coyote complaints increased from 374 in 2007 to 498 last year. He said Wildlife Services has nine wildlife-control experts across the state, and coyotes account for the bulk of their workload.

“These guys work a large area, a minimum of five counties apiece, and they’re stretched pretty thin,” he said.

I guess the Senate Bill for this was shot down. But the House Bill is still in play and I think something like this would be a fantastic idea.

First, lets look at the opponent’s view on this. Of course the North Dakota Game and Fish Department would be opposed to a bounty program because it would threaten their good deals. Meaning if a bounty program succeeds, then why fund inefficient programs in the NDGFD? I compare this to the TSA and their opposition to private industry taking over their airport screening services.(notice how the TSA shot private industry down as well) This is government versus private industry, or in this case, government versus private hunters.

But if you read the quote above, they are only using nine USDA government hunters to cover 5 counties apiece! How can they possible put a dent in the coyote population there? Let alone, if these guys are being paid by the feds, they are probably getting health care and everything else that government jobs entail. Or they could be contractor hunters–who knows? What I do know is that the state must scale up the hunting of this animal if it want’s to reduce it’s numbers, and it is not enough to just depend upon the whims of recreational hunters to do the job or nine government hunters.

I think a bounty program would work just fine, and it would be a way for the state to spread the work load and incentivize the process. It would also infuse money back into the local communities where jobs are scarce. Hell, if a hunter was able to bag three coyotes in a day, that would be 300 dollars. Not bad for a day’s work?

If you want professional hunters to really get involved with the eradication of these animals, you need to make killing coyotes a viable occupation for them. Hunters pay for their gun, bullets, a tank of gas, food, and maybe even lodging to go out and hunt recreationally. But there is no way a recreational hunter will be driven to expend this much time and treasure to continually do this, unless they have another profession or trust fund that can support this lifestyle. (and some do out there) Hell, I have to really plan and budget to make an effort to go out hunting once or twice a year.

But if you want to ramp up interest in the task, then it must be incentivized and there must be good rules and management of the process in order for it to be effective. The end result of such an effort will be the desired outcome. Hell, if commercialized hunting almost decimated the buffalo back in the wild west days, a coyote bounty system could equally be successful.

Or we can continue to depend upon an inefficient and undermanned government system to do the job–and meanwhile the coyote problem continues to rise and threaten livestock and deer populations. -Matt

North Dakota takes aim with bounty on coyotes

Feb. 09, 2011

By BRAD DOKKEN

Not a day goes by, Gerald Berthold says, when he doesn’t hear coyotes howling nearby on his farm west of Arvilla, N.D.

“You can be out in the evening, and you can hear them just about in every direction howling,” Berthold said.

Coyotes have killed at least two of his calves in recent years, Berthold said. And last summer, he said two calves simply disappeared from a pasture near Emerado, N.D.

Berthold can’t say for sure it was coyotes, but he has his suspicions.

“I don’t know where else they would have went,” he said. “They were too young to take off on their own. They were still nursing. They were month-old calves.”

Coyotes have become an increasingly hot topic in North Dakota in recent years. As the population grows, so, too, have the reports of coyotes causing problems. Berthold said the increase in coyote numbers has been especially apparent the past 10 to 15 years.

“They’re definitely on the increase,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that.”

Prompted largely by hunters who believe coyotes are hurting deer populations, a couple of bills have surfaced this winter in the North Dakota Legislature taking aim at reducing coyote numbers. House Bill 1454 and Senate Bill 2224 each would establish a $100 bounty on coyotes until 2,000 are taken.

Legislators haven’t yet acted on the bills.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bounties, buffalo, coyotes, Fish and Game, hunting, North Dakota, predators

Bounties: The Bounty Hunter’s Pursuit Of Justice

Jan 12

Posted by Matt in Bounties, Law Enforcement, Letter Of Marque | 1 Comment

Our research backs up what I found on the street: Bail bondsmen and bounty hunters get their charges to show up for trial, and they recapture them quickly when they do flee. Nationally, the failure-to-appear rate for defendants released on commercial bail is 28 percent lower than the rate for defendants released on their own recognizance, and 18 percent lower than the rate for those released on government bond.

Even more important, when a defendant does skip town, the bounty hunters are the ones who pursue justice with the greatest determination and energy. Defendants sought by bounty hunters are a whopping 50 percent less likely to be on the loose after one year than other bail jumpers.

The results of the Manhattan Bail Project seemed to support the position of progressives who argued that commercial bail was unnecessary. But all that the findings really demonstrated was that a few carefully selected felony defendants could be safely released on their own recognizance. In reality, the project allowed relatively few defendants to be let go and so could easily cherry pick those who were most likely to appear at trial. As pretrial release programs expanded in the late 1960s and early ’70s, failure-to-appear rates increased.

Today, when a defendant fails to appear, an arrest warrant is issued. But if the defendant was released on his own recognizance or on government bail, very little else happens. In many states and cities, the police are overwhelmed with outstanding arrest warrants. In California, about two million warrants have gone unserved. Many are for minor offenses, but hundreds of thousands are for felonies, including thousands of homicides.

Excellent little article, and I also posted the author’s paper in Scribd. What fascinates me about bounty hunting/commercial bail is that it is an incentivized system of fugitive recovery that works. It has all the elements needed to survive and flourish, all with the focus on capturing bad guys. This system also rewards those that are good at it.

To study this type of incentivized crime fighting helps me to envision the various types of incentivized war fighting that I have mentioned in the past–like privateering. Creating an industry out of destroying your enemies, or creating an industry out of capturing your criminals can be very effective.

The other part of this paper that I liked is how it showed through statistics why states or cities that do not allow bounty hunting/commercial bail are using systems that suck. That arrest warrants are piling up in these states and cities because they are too afraid of allowing private industry to take part in their justice systems. Meanwhile, the states and cities that do allow this type of activity are able to benefit in two ways. Keeping control of fugitives, or benefiting from the forfeiture of that fugitive’s bond. During a tough economy, this forfeiture could be funding all sorts of public services or schools. Interesting stuff and be sure to check out the paper too. -Matt

The Bounty Hunter’s Pursuit of Justice

by Alex Tabarrok

Winter 2011

When felony defendants jump bail, bounty hunters spring into action. It’s a uniquely American system, and it works.

Andrew Luster had it all: a multimillion-dollar trust fund, good looks, and a bachelor pad just off the beach in Mussel Shoals, California. Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor, spent his days surfing and his nights cruising the clubs. His life would have been sad but unremarkable if he had not had a fetish for sex with unconscious women. When one woman alleged rape, Luster claimed mutual consent, but the videotapes the police discovered when they searched his home told a different story. Eventually, more than 10 women came forward, and he was convicted of 20 counts of rape and sentenced to 124 years in prison. There was only one problem. Luster could not be found.

Shortly before he was expected to take the stand, Luster withdrew funds from his brokerage accounts, found a caretaker for his dog, and skipped town on a $1 million bail bond. The FBI put Luster on its most-wanted list, but months passed with no results. In the end, the authorities did not find him. But Luster was brought to justice—by a dog (or at least a man who goes by that name). Duane Chapman, star of the A&E reality TV show Dog: The Bounty Hunter, tracked Luster for months. He picked up clues to Luster’s whereabouts from old phone bills and from Luster’s mother, who inadvertently revealed that her son spoke fluent Spanish. He also gleaned useful information from a mysterious Mr. X who taunted him by e-mail and who may have been Luster himself. Finally, a tip from someone who had seen Dog on television brought Chapman to a small town in Mexico known for its great surfing. Days later, he and his team spotted Luster at a taco stand, apprehended him, and turned him over to the local police.

Go to this link here to read the rest.

Tags: Bounties, bounty hunting, dog the bounty hunter, duane chapman, justice, Law Enforcement, Letter Of Marque

Bounties: Koevoet Bounty System During The South African Bush Wars

Dec 22

Posted by Matt in Africa, Bounties, South Africa, Training | 1 Comment

It was the 1978 brainchild of then Colonel Hans Dreyer (later a Major-General in the SAP) to develop and exploit intelligence and was based on the Portuguese Flechas and the Rhodesian Selous Scouts. Koevoet was based in Oshakati and suffered 153 killed in action and several hundred more wounded. They killed more than 3,681 SWAPO insurgentswhich resulted in a 1:25 or one to 25 kill ratio.

What I wanted to point out here was a very interesting piece of history that I don’t think has really been discussed out there. Maybe Peter Stiff talked about it in his Covert War book, but either way, I thought I would bring it up here and archive it.

This to me is a prime example of incentivizing warfare, and providing a means of competition within a unit for the destruction of an enemy. To create an industry (competition) out of killing your enemy basically. In this case, the Koevoet attached a value to the enemy(killed or captured) and their weapons/equipment, and established a bounty system that all of Koevoet could partake in and supplement their salaries with. The results were stunning.

Koevoet also gets a big mention for it’s innovative war fighting methods, and the proof of concept for applying the Selous Scout model to a different war and in a different country (see below). In other words, this unit would be an excellent study for how this type of counter-insurgency warfare could be taught, and even by a private company. Look at the effectiveness of this stuff in both Rhodesia and SWA and you can see exactly what I mean. -Matt

Koevoet worked on a bounty policy where anything and everything that you brought in had a price on its head. People somewhere around R2,000, large calibre mortars probably a bit more, land mines slightly less and so on, which was a great motivating factor for the combatants and the teams because you could earn double, triple your money. It also meant that score boards were kept and that the teams competed against each other for the most number of kills in a given week in the bush. -Sean Mark Callahan, Page 30 of the TRC, 17th of June, 1997

——————————————————————

Koevoet From Wikipedia

At the time, South Africa saw itself as the only country on the sub-continent that could stave off the onslaught of communism. As such, South-West Africa and its northern border with Angola was the one battleground that South Africa had to control if it was to weaken the Cuban-backed South-West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO).

Rising insurgency

In many countries there is a formal separation of duties between law enforcement and the military. The former is generally responsible for domestic issues while the latter is deployed in defence of the nation. At first this philosophy was adopted in South-West Africa. Guerilla operations inside the country were dealt with by the police. Insurgents were seen as common criminals that should be processed by the criminal justice system. However, insurgents used military equipment which normal police officers were not equipped or trained to deal with. A better armed and better trained unit capable of facing such challenges was established within the South-West African Police (SWAPOL) force.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Bounties, bush war, koevoet, Peter Stiff, private military companies, South Africa, Training

Job Tips: A New Way To Find Jobs–Offer Cash Bounties To Agents Through Career Element

Dec 19

Posted by Matt in Bounties, Job Tips, Jobs, Technology | No Comments

But Career Element is drawing attention for its dream job feature, which allows people like Elizalde to name the price they are willing to pay to land a high-quality position.

If an “agent” helps Elizalde get a job, his $10,000 bounty will be released – 87.5 percent to the agent, and 12.5 percent to Career Element.

“The best way to get a job is through networking,” Campbell said. “But if you don’t know people, this is a great way to get their attention.”

Now this is interesting. I stumbled upon this website and news story the other day while doing a search on bounties, and this thing popped up. The concept is all about offering a cash award to anyone that can get you your dream job! Pretty cool huh?

I have not signed up with this deal, but this is how it could work for anyone in our industry. If you are the job seeker, you sign up and you post what type of job or jobs you are looking for in the industry. Obviously you should be qualified for the jobs, but still, put it out there and put up a sizable bounty that could get you some interest. In the example above, this guy posted a $10,000 dollar bounty for his particular field. The question you need to ask as a security contractor is how much of a bounty would it take to get anyone interested in finding you a job?

The other element to this is the agents. For those of you who are on gigs who pull some weight with the company you are with, your recommendation of a qualified individual that is just trying to get into an industry like this, could make you a little money and help someone out. Because what the job seeker is trying to do here is get a ‘network’ of agents, fueled by the possibility of collecting a bounty for their work or recommendation.

This Career Elements website also promotes the negotiation period, which will further allow the job seeker and agent to talk about what is required for the task. The agent can also determine if they even want to recommend this job seeker.

What is interesting with our industry is that there are numerous types of jobs out there that a guy could be qualified for, but because a job seeker doesn’t know anyone in the industry or know how to navigate it, getting a foot in the door could be rough. Or getting their foot in the right door could be difficult as well. An agent could also find that one job that the job seeker didn’t even think about. Either way, it would be a way of connecting experienced job seekers (agents), with the folks that do not have an established network and want a job.

The article below also talked about potential drawbacks of a system like this. That recruiters from the companies might come onto a site like this and go after bounties to get people. Would this be unethical? I mean if a job seeker is qualified and is willing to fork over a bounty just to land a job, I would classify that as pretty dedicated. Not everyone can be good at finding jobs, and something like this is just another way to achieve that goal.

I have noticed that companies already offer bounties to individuals that bring qualified linguists to them. Folks that are in high demand are worth several thousand dollars in head hunting fees. Some companies even offered rewards for bringing in special forces types to high level contracts. So if companies can do this, why can’t contractors offer bounties to agents that could find them the jobs they are looking for?

Oh, and one more thing. I am not sure if Career Element has a policy against security contractors using their site. I didn’t see anything that would prohibit our industry from participating, but you never know. And if they do have a problem, this might be a new thing for someone to start just for this industry? -Matt

Website For Career Element here.

New ways to find jobs: cash bounties, texting

Stop Endless Job Search Trials, Hire an Agent to Land Your Dream Job

New ways to find jobs: cash bounties, texting

By Casey Newton

December 19, 2010

Fernando Elizalde has tried the traditional ways of gaining employment.

He asks his family and friends for leads. He attends networking events. He sends out resumes constantly.

But after more than a year of looking for a job in private equity, and despite a master’s in business administration from UCLA, the 28-year-old finds himself with few leads and a growing sense of frustration.

So Elizalde took a different tack: He recently posted a bounty – $10,000 to the person who lands him a job.

Elizalde is one of the first job seekers to try Career Element, a Palo Alto startup that allows users to post a bounty for anyone who can help them get their job of choice. That person could be a recruiter or someone at the job hunter’s dream company who has inside knowledge on a position opening up.

“I feel like it provides a huge benefit during really hard times,” said Elizalde, who emigrated from Argentina a decade ago and lives in Los Angeles. “It provides more networking opportunities. Yeah, it’s artificial, because in some ways you’re buying those connections. But at the same time, when networking is so important, I don’t see why not.”

With California unemployment at 12.4 percent and the national rate at 9.8 percent, some Bay Area startups are taking novel approaches to helping people find work.

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