SoylentNews

From https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/it-was-never-enough/ [texasmonthly.com] comes the story of an international arms dealer. Excellent weekend reading for anyone that wants to lead a more exciting life!

T. R.’s confidence helped him build a lucrative career at a very early age. According to T. R., it began like this: At sixteen, he worked at a kiosk in the local mall, selling cellphone accessories, but around two years later, when the kiosk’s parent company went under, his boss told him that as his last payment he could have all the remaining inventory, signs, and displays from two kiosks—the value of which he estimates at $80,000. He sold that inventory and some additional merchandise and invested the proceeds in setting up more kiosks. By his nineteenth birthday, he said, he had $4.5 million, all of which he invested in a kiosk company he called Wright Marketing Group, spread over forty locations. He eventually broadened sales to novelties and games—“all kinds of stupid gifts, with a two-thousand-percent markup.”

The venture escalated on a kiosk-buying trip to the Shenzhen International Toy and Education Fair, in China, where, T. R. claimed, he came up with an idea for a console for pirated video games called Power Player that would plug into a TV and allow users to play classics like Space Invaders and Galaga. He decided to focus on selling Power Player wholesale. It was a huge hit, T. R. said, until the FBI began arresting the biggest Power Player retail operators. Panicking, he abandoned his business and left the United States with $8,000 to travel in Europe.

The story builds from there, with all the juicy details -- cars, planes, yachts, girls (no mention of drugs or rock'n'roll) and plenty of adventures.

Me? I'm just happy reading these stories, the quiet life is fine!

Original Submission