China meth
Harry Bosch, one of the world's best-known (fictional) detectives, says there is no such thing as a coincidence. When two seemingly unrelated events have related outcomes, he looks for the link. When Czech customs agents announce on Feb. 12 that they seized 3 tons of methamphetamine precursors on flights from China in Dec., suspicious minds wonder why no arrests were announced. It shouldn't be difficult to trace the destination and intended recipient of 3 tons of illegal chemicals or to determine if this is the first time such a shipment has been made. The $45m value makes this a huge seizure. A Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, is awaiting death in China for smuggling one-thirteenth this weight of crystal meth. Czech Foreign Min. Tomáš Petříček intervened on his behalf in a recent meeting with the Chinese ambassador in Prague. Bosch would think of Huawei and NÚKIB and hypothesize that this drug bust is more about squeezing China than seizing meth.
Glossary of difficult words
meth - the drug methamphetamine;Harry Bosch - a character of the crime writer Michael Connelly;
precursor - (in this context) a substance from which another is formed, esp. by metabolic reaction;
crystal methamphetamine - the drug methamphetamine in a powdered crystalline form (often known in Czech as pervitin);
to hypothesize - to put forward as a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation;
to squeeze - to put pressure as a way to obtain something from someone.