@Monquito:
Sengoku very likely knows.
I mean, there has to be a high-ranking, influential, well positioned Marine within the SWORD ranks.
Otherwise, Diez Drake wouldn't ever be able to put a feet on any Marine facility at all, not without someone from the high ranks giving an "its okay, he can come in".
I think it ends with Garp not Sengoku. With only Kuzan being under him.
Its possible its Sengoku but I get the feeling he legit wanted to go in to retirement where as Garp has a bunch of ties to this new era of piracy and if course his son which is a whole other problem.
Could be its not either of them a d its someone else high ranking in the marines running the show. Did Tsuru retire?
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@otakufan:
I've never had the impression that Sword is a group operating without the knowledge of the Marine high command. Marines like Drake are basically the equivalent of undercover cops - even if he doesn't report to Sakazuki directly, the people he's reporting to almost certainly do, and lest we forget, while I don't think he was ever confirmed as a member of Sword, Donquixote Rosinante played a nearly identical role for the Marines and we know for a fact that he reported directly to Sengoku. And while it's circumstantial evidence at best, a cover page of Sakazuki some time back shows he has a small tattoo of a sword on one shoulder, which could be a kind of commemorative "unit tattoo", implying that he might have served in the Sword unit at one point himself.
I've certainly got my suspicions about a rift forming in the Marines between the Absolute Justice hardliners and the Moral Justice crowd, but I don't know that it's reached the point of full-on secret groups operating outside the chain of command quite yet.
That rift is why I think SWORD is a clandestine group running within the marines unbeknownst to certain members high in command. Specifically Sakazuki, certain admirals, and several vice admirals.
I mean you look at what Doffy was able to pull off with Vergo and at the same time what Sengoku did with Rosinante I think SWORD just took it a step further with a full on notorious pirate captain secretly operating for them in the New World where they can't go freely necessarily.
Plus I don't think Sakazuki knows about this cuz I don't think he would approve of any of it.