That sort of thing is everywhere, and has been a thing forever.
I remember when I was a teenager, my dad had a business importing consumer electronics from Asia and the difference in shipping cost between him paying the shipping company directly or getting a local agent to do it was often more than the cost of the products. It didn't matter if he used an established agent or some random person with zero connections, the price difference was due to him being European and had nothing to do with connections.
