***Why would either company buy a ticket to the US for a driver?***
I’m not sure if this would apply or not, but a few years ago our daughter did a semester abroad in South Africa. Upon arrival, several things she brought were stolen, among them, her cell phone, and prescriptions. Now she was staying with individual families for a few weeks at a time, so wasn’t really part of the university there. It was an immersion program.
At any rate, my husband used to work for DHL just prior to this happening, and though he was gone, he still had many friends and coworkers there. Upon hearing of our predicament, one friend offered to use his DHL account to help us send our daughter a small package of necessities so that it would make it through customs without having the usual hoopla to jump through. (Customs there are notorious for rifling through packages and stealing things like cell phones). So it worked, and she actually received everything we sent to her.
I’m just wondering if the company he worked for had similar type of accounts for travel, that might not go through all the same channels as when an ordinary citizen buys a ticket.
My best guess is, he knew somebody at Silson who had the authority to buy tickets on Silson’s dime. Money probably changed hands, albeit way less than the cost of the tickets. And Silson’s head count is down by one, or soon will be.