I read recently of smugglers busted with $18 million worth of meth hidden in a vegetable shipment. It was around 16 tons. For the smugglers, Aside from of going to prison, are the smugglers indebted to the cartel or do the cartels see it as a cost of doing business?
In: Economics
Drugs are insanely overpriced. Produced in impoverished countries and communities in bulk for pennies and sold for hundreds or thousands for a few grams, these mark ups cover all costs and then some, including “lost” revenue from busted shipments. Also the cartel producing the drugs is not necessarily responsible for the entire supply chain. In many cases they just sell in bulk to a distributor and now it’s his problem as to where it will go, how it will go and if it gets busted. But other times they do indeed manage transportation across borders. The smugglers are more often than not, people forced into the job. That means regular every day people struggling with poverty who have been threatened with violence to smuggle drugs, or they do it out of desperation. They don’t get paid much and they assume a lot of risk because if caught, they’re essentially doomed to rot in prison. There’s no point holding a person in that position responsible at that point. They’ve served their purpose of either transporting the drugs or getting caught and taking the fall for them. Inevitably some will be caught but those who aren’t make it all worth it. What point is there holding the smuggler responsible for the lost drugs when you know there is no way they can pay you back
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