My mate had a rag business. He used to get all the old T-shirts from UK prisons,, he’d wash them, then cut them up to make cleaning rags for machinery. Anyway, he lost the Contract to buy the old T-shirts, so needed another source, he found someone in Turkey who could get them. It went well for a few years, then Turkey started having problems getting the correct type of cotton required, so the Dealer over there said he could get some from one the the ‘stans’, not sure which one it was,possibly Turkmenistan. Anyway, a deal needed to be done, and it was cash only, so he went over to Turkey with a bag of cash, the Dealer had arranged an armed escort (lawless area he was told, and not a good idea to carry £10k around when people know you will have the money with you, so he has photos with his minder holding an AK47). Met the Guy in one of the Stans, gave the cash, was rather worried, he wasnt rich, so £10k was quite a lot to lose. 3 weeks later the first of the containers arrived, driven from Stan, and was the best quality rags he’d ever had, he just had to pack it to sell it. Every two weeks another lorry would turn up in Leicester with rags from Stan.
So not really unusual. But still a very long way to drive a container. I’d bet the Drivers dont follow many EU/UK rules on driving hours, and they’ll be on really low pay, even so, just the diesel cost must be a lot.
