Even so, this information was very helpful to Sheriff Henry, making his subsequent actions more targeted.
At the very least, if all the personnel and assets on this list were wiped out, the McKinley Family would essentially collapse.
"Who can get a B-level qualification in the black market? A-level? S-level?" Sheriff Henry asked.
Drummond said with a wry smile, "I'm not sure. It's given after an internal evaluation by the black market. My friend owns more than thirty bars in several nearby cities, as well as a private elite armed force of nearly 300 people, controlling the illicit liquor market in several major cities in this state."
"If I hadn't helped him out with a big favor before, he wouldn't have helped me get this intelligence," Drummond added.
Sheriff Henry's expression softened, and he asked, "How much does this intelligence cost?"
"3,000 us dollar, and the commission is 600 us dollar. With a 50% discount for you, it's 300 us dollar, totaling 3,300 us dollar," Drummond said unhurriedly.
Sheriff Henry's face darkened.
This kind of exclusive business was too shady!
3,000 us dollar was equivalent to the purchasing power of 360,000 us dollar in the previous timeline (2.5 million soft sister coins).
It was just a piece of intelligence that could be distributed multiple times!
And there were even purchase restrictions.
Drummond said, "Don't think it's expensive. If it weren't for a B-level black market qualification, you wouldn't be able to get intelligence on the McKinley Family."
Considering the difficulty of collecting and organizing intelligence now, Sheriff Henry nodded and said, "Okay, how do I pay you?"
Drummond had already thought it through and was determined to cling to Sheriff Henry's leg.
"Just deduct it from the bar's dividends."
Sheriff Henry felt much more comfortable after hearing this. After all, the bar's dividends had not yet been received, and deducting from there meant he wouldn't have to pay out of his own pocket now.
"You did well this time. I'll remember it," Sheriff Henry said affirmatively.
Drummond immediately said, "It's my pleasure to serve you, Sheriff Henry. As long as you're satisfied, you can always find me if you need any intelligence."
After speaking, he stood up, bowed slightly, and turned to leave.
Sheriff Henry carefully re-examined the McKinley Family's information and found that they had many branches, with excellent talents in both politics and business.
Even Brendan, the Big The Dart of Denver here, was just a major leader of their family's Midwest branch, and he was still subject to the constraints of the six elders.
How did it sound a bit like the Roman Empire's management model?
So these large families really had a knack for childbearing and education.
The silver mine managed by Sean at Dwyer Manor was estimated to have a reserve of 80 million ounces, with an annual output of about 2.4 million ounces of silver, making it a medium-to-large silver mine, with associated copper ore.
Now, because of the discovery of many new silver mines in America, coupled with improved refining processes, silver prices have been falling all the way.
The price of 1 ounce of silver was 1.12 us dollar.
Including the copper mine, this mine could produce about 4 million us dollar a year. Even calculating a 25% net profit, it would still be 1 million us dollar.
This silver and copper mine had been exploited for twelve years and could still be exploited for about 20 years.
Sheriff Henry thought that his own bounty was only worth 10,000 us dollar, which was only one percent of the mine's annual net profit!
This made him have the urge to release Sean and Brendan immediately—this was too disrespectful!
However, releasing them was easy, but getting this mine was really difficult.
After all, this was an industry with an annual net profit of 100-150 million us dollar in Sheriff Henry's pre-transmigration timeline.
And it was very troublesome to figure out who the shareholders behind this mining company were, because five companies held shares.
After each of these five companies, there might be several more companies holding shares, layer upon layer of entanglement.
If Sheriff Henry insisted on occupying this mine, he would definitely face many unknown opponents.
However, if it was just to cause damage, or to figure out the mining company's transportation plan, it would be possible to use the storage space to take away all the produced silver.
After all, an annual output of 2.4 million ounces of silver was only about 68 tons of silver, less than 6.5 cubic meters in volume. With Sheriff Henry's current 33.5 cubic meters of storage space, he could easily take it all at once.
However, this mine was guarded by an entire company of about two hundred family cavalry private soldiers, and there might also be various fortresses, traps, and Gatling Machine Guns, and possibly even howitzers, so it was not that easy to attack.
This was different from Sheriff Henry's previous ambush of the McKinley's cavalry private soldiers.
This showed the importance of intelligence in an operation.
Sheriff Henry swore that he must establish his own powerful intelligence network in the future, such as opening multiple newspapers, Detective Agencies, and so on.
And controlling the media and the secrets of the upper class would also help his future plan for Chinese naturalization.
It seemed that Sean could not be released easily this time. He had to be asked as much as possible about information on the gold mine and the McKinley Family.
Currently, there was a private national-level institution in America, which was the famous Pinkerton Detective Agency.
More than twenty years ago, because of his success in foiling an assassination plot against Lincoln, who was still campaigning, the once famous Scotsman Aaron Pinkerton, along with Edward Lacken, a lawyer from Chicago, established the Northwest Detective Agency, which quickly upgraded to the Pinkerton Detective Agency.
It was said that more than ten years ago, during the North-South War, the legendary President Lincoln's security was handled by them. After the war, the army took over the president's security affairs, and the president was successfully assassinated.
The Pinkerton Detective Agency rapidly developed and grew, and from 1871 onwards, it took on outsourced work from the American Department of Justice for "searching and prosecuting criminals who violate federal laws" for 50,000 us dollar annually.
The Detective Agency currently had over 1,000 active Pinkerton family members and over 10,000 reserve members—almost all of whom were retired soldiers.
The Pinkerton company's logo was a large eye with the slogan "We Never Sleep" written on it.
In the previous timeline, when Zhang Tianyuan played "Wild West Hickok 2," he was deeply impressed by the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which was like a persistent parasite in the single-player story mode—the well-dressed and elegantly spoken agents of the Pinkerton Detective Agency were an irresistible threat in the plot, often forcing him to relocate his position overnight, and even plan to flee abroad without success.
Sheriff Henry was now very covetous of the Pinkerton Detective Agency's intelligence gathering center. He even suspected that this black market intelligence system was related to this Detective Agency.
After all, detailed intelligence was not that easy to collect these days and required a lot of manpower and resources. It was impossible to have many such private intelligence agencies.
What could 50,000 us dollar in annual contract fees do nationwide?
Pinkerton was just using public power for private gain, currying favor with the powerful, and suppressing competitors.
Many times, qualifications were the most expensive.
For example, if several parties were competing for a security or detective task, at the same price, one had national credibility endorsement, while the others did not or had far inferior qualifications, how would you choose?
One step fast, every step fast.
Otherwise, the Pinkerton Detective Agency would not have grown to its current massive scale.
Without this credibility, would those elite retired soldiers be so easy to recruit?
Moreover, this Detective Agency mainly served official and large capital, such as railway companies, mining companies, steel companies, etc., and would sooner or later clash with the inevitably rising Sheriff Henry.
Sheriff Henry had also been checking intelligence on the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the police archives these past few days and found that they had recently been pursuing Jesse James and his brother Frank, the infamous bandit brothers who robbed many trains.
A few years ago, this Detective Agency even visited the James brothers' mother's home and bombed it with incendiary devices, causing the mother to become disabled and killing her youngest son.
This indicated that in this timeline, this Detective Agency also acted in an unconventional manner.
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 2 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
patreon.com/TripleCrown07
If you guys wanna check it out.