How do drug smugglers pay back the cartel when busted US Law Enforcement?

Question

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

Answer 1

Cost of doing business.
Most of these busts are caused by informers.
Better smugglers find out the informers by calculating who would have ratted them out to neutralize them.

Cartels and smugglers (not the individual ones-usually they are sub or sub-sub contracted and thus driving up the prices) usually have profit-risk sharing pacts depending on smugglers efficiency.