My FIL served in the British military for a decade. He then went on to work for a UK conglomerate working in "development" behind the Iron Curtain, in the USSR, the Middle East, Iran and the Far East for various stretches of time. He tells random stories of the same ilk as you do, although often really absurd or disturbing. He does it in the same matter of fact manner.
"I was bringing across £50,000 through Ashgabat once via a hidden floor in the soles of my shoes for a mate once ..." or "our friend in Dubai, Ramy, kept buying canaries at the pet shop after he first brought his family over. it took awhile to figure out what was going on ..." or "the bloody problem with Russians is that life is not valued by them. I've run into more sociopaths in my dealings with those dirty bastards than anywhere else in the world outside of Kowloon ..."
Now, I'm fairly certain that he actually was part of the British intelligence world. I sometimes wonder if you're not our Surly version of that.