SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN
FROM: Commissariat of Foreign Affairs
TO: People's Commissariat of External Relations (PR Aztlān)
ENCR: Qara Div (highest)
Wonderful, comrades! We look forward to working with you in advancing our shared cause. We shall shortly dispatch our diplomat to the People's Republic of Aztlān, so that he may travel with your own mission to Samporna. We shall also reroute a cargo ship, controlled by a shell company managed by our Commissariat of Internal Security, to cross the Pacific and provide you with the necessary products and weapons. We hope that it shall be sufficient for now. Long live the people's revolution, and death to the imperialists!
The people-masses of Azerbaijan
Hong Kong
People's Republic of China
The ASR's Commissariat of Internal Security controlled an extensive smuggling operation across Central Asia, transporting goods, mostly oil and valuable ores, across the continent in order to help finance the socialist Azeri regime. The New Silk Road, as they termed it, ran across the Caspian Sea, into Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and then continued south into Pakistan and India, or east into China. The Chinese government quietly tolerated the smuggling operation within its borders, so long as the ASR didn't threaten Chinese interests and continued to threaten their geopolitical rivals, they were fairly content to allow the enterprise to continue. China served as the gateway for landlocked Azerbaijan to trade on the global scale, selling oil, gold and weapons to various groups around the world. One of their biggest customers was North Korea, the hermit kingdom gulping down Azeri oil while in return providing more advanced weapons concepts and allegedly even assistance in designing and constructing nuclear devices.
To facilitate their criminal behaviour, the Commissariat operated a variety of fronts and shell corporations, providing a layer of secrecy and deniability to their activities. One of these companies, Silver Dawn Shipping, controlled several cargo vessels used by the Commissariat to smuggle their wares abroad, across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, into the Americas and Africa. Now, one of these vessels, the Azure Star, was being sent to Aztlān, crewed by Commissariat agents and carrying a wide array of supplies, some civilian in nature, and others decidedly not. The great vessel, having been granted permission to depart by an easily-bribed inspector, now set off into the South China Sea, heading east into the Pacific, and towards their destination. Piracy was of course a concern, for these waters were certainly not the safest, but the crew were heavily armed, and could likely see off anyone foolish enough to try their luck in seizing the leviathan craft and its cargo. An inspection by a military force was a greater threat, although considered even less likely. After all, why would anyone bother?