Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
We know about the oil market,
the fruit and vegetable market,
and the sugar market.
what do they have in common? byers and seller everywhere , always look out for their own interests. the law of supply and demand controls these exchanges
the crime world is no execption to the rule. all trafficing has an economic reason to exist a mafia is a criminal enterprise which is first and foremost a business with its own products to deliver and services to perform.
the organized crime market generates round 870 billion a year,where does this money com fromtrafficking in every form.the more illegal it is , the more profitable it is.
so who are the main players in these underground markets? how are they organized?who benefits from the illegal profits?
welcome to the extremely active cocain market,the most luxurious narcotic in the world.
It´s a very profitable and competitive business too.so there’s a different dynamic because it’s illicit, but a lot of the economic fundamentals are the same.
the worldwide demand for cocaine isabout 900 tons per year.supply satisfies demands.
it’s impossible to knock out these markets,because once there’s a demand , there’s a supply. once there’s a supply ,there’s a demand.this is its fundamental economic reality.
it’s a juicy ,profitable market, but forthe bad guys.
The cocain market is estimated to bring in 90 billion a year .and truth, no one knows how much traffic there really is.
the cocaine business is one of the most secretive branches of the criminal economi.
it’s a statement shared by Dr .John collins from the prestigious London School of Economics . this researcher leads a group of analysts who are striving to decipher the way international cocaine trafficking has evolved over the last 30 years.
black market, people don’t keep financial records as clearly as in other industries ,so we can estimate it but fundamentally is based on a huge amount of assumptions.
” In the mafia, there’s only one thing that ‘s more sacred than family… silence.”
The best way to lift the veil on this market, which is a secretive as it is active,is to consider it like any other business in the legal economy. cocain is a market.
to commercialize it worldwide you need manufacturing sites to handle production, exporters and transporters to handle the logistics all the way to the consumer markert.
and a sales force to develop the distribution network, all along the chain,teams of financiers and managers are responsible for maximizing profits.
tha’ts buisness a, and the cocaine market is no exception to the rule.
to show how it works, let’s begin at the beggining, in Latin America, where production takes place.
cocain is an alkaloid
a psychoactive substance that must be extracted from erythromycin cocoa leaves this plant can only be found in three countries.: bolivia ,colombia ,and Peru.
cocaine is a substance that must be manufacturedtransformed from these leaves
to obtain the white powder that’s so deat to consumers’ nostrils.
it’s exported in this form to consumer markets.exept if it falls into the hands of the police.
that’s what happened to this shipment of 300 kilograms of pure cocaine.
this cargo was intercepted in Lima in a run-of -the – mill cattle truck.
the seized drug is being analyzed and registred by commander chilet and her team of forensic police.this is exlusive footage of one of the best seizures of 20017.
its also a great opportunity to learn more about cocaine itself.
one by one gets weigh,brick by brick. to be sure that the weight indicated on the report.
once weighed ,experts will take samples and analyze them.
so how does it go from a leaf to a powder?
well ,that’s the trick.it’s a chemical process that begins in the djungle with the harvest.
you have to alow the leaves to marinate in kerosene for several days.
the mixture is filtered to obtain coca base paste. this coca base paste must be transformed into cocaine base. this step is called purification
it’s pure chemistry.
after several steps, you get cocaine base
I’t looks like a average- sized pebbles when it’sdry. this raw material will travel to more specializes labs far from the production zone. its in these hidden labs
that the chemichsts will carry out the third operation.
called crystalization.this is a crucial step. that will determine the product’s quality
finally ,you get cocaine hydrochloride.
this is the scientific name of coke, C, or the notorious cocaine, at the moment , it’s almost pure.
to summerize , one ton of coca leaves is needed to produce four kilograms of cocaine base paste. after crystallization, there are only two kilograms of pure cocaine left.
the product is almost finished. well , almost.
thats’ indispensable for every luxury product, the manufacturer’s mark. do you see this? there’s a cross , like the one in the crusades the logos are made with a press.
it’s to identifiy the organization and location the drug originates from , in order to inform the receipient.
it’s to say that this is my drug.it’s pure and not cut with anything else.
it identifies it and says that i made it.
logo press
This hasbecome an essential step since the end of the big Cartels.
prodcucers must stand out in order to be recognized byy industry players
In the public’s imagination,the white powder
is associated with the Cali Medellin cartels. and the most famous drug trafficker in history,
Pablo Escobar.
but that was before the gold age of the great colombian drug cartels is over.
today mafias have split into a multitude of hyper -specialized buisnesses, that work together toward a single objective ,
developing their buisnesses and reaping the most profit.
This is what Peru’s minister of Interior has confirmed., today’s cocain buisness is free enterprise haven.
Ruben vargas says this kind of commerce is not organized like a normal buisness, that controls production, transport , and the xonsumer market
.he says we are up against a complex organization with different economic players at each stepf of its commericalization, for production, transportation ,and selling on the market.
these organization function opportunistically
Today ,worldwide prodcution of cocain is estiamted to be 1, 350 tons a year.
its among three countries: colombia ,bolivia ,and peru.colombia remains the largest producer in the world.
but the situation has changed over the last 30 years.
jaime garcia Diaz is an international specialist in cocain trafficing in the Andean region.
He says in the 1990s the biggest traffickers were colombians.in the division of labor Peru only provided the coca leaves.
overall , it worked like that from about 1965 until the middle of the 1990s,today all of the drug production
today ,all of the drig production,the production of chemicals to make cocaine, and the drug trafficking financing is national.
it’s in the hands of familys clans of small peruvian cartels.
The 300 kilograms seized by the police in Lima, is the perfect example. the cocain ins 100% peruvian.
the drug went up in smoke in front of journalists and the couuntry’s authorities. this batch was worth around 300.000 euros when it came out of the makeshift lab.
in europe it could brought in up to 18 million euros. that’s a 3,900% increase
To understand the reason behind this unusual price difference, you must go back to where it was made
we ‘ll look for our answers in Peru’s Amazon rainforest.
lets head to the Alto Huayabamba valley.
Two men agreed to tell about their daily live as cocaleros at the beginning of the 1990s.
at that time, hilmer and oswaldo were small farmers ,living off their crops here in the heart of the rainforest.
but thirty years ago, colombian drug lords came to the area. the government here abandoned the farmers.
hilmers says they had to fend for themselves. there were no farming subsidies, that’s why so many went over to the illegal side.
Oswaldo says they knew that it was illegal, but they didn’t have other options. corn and bananas are not profitable , and its’ not enough to survive on.it seemed to us that coca was the only way to survive.
and to understand the potential alternatives or development prospets for those areas , you need to get on the ground and see what it looks like.
i’n sure you’ve wondered why they didn’t just grrow coffe.why can’t they grow chocolat or cocoa?
when you go to these areas , you see exactly why,it’s a two -hours drive on a dirt road to the end of that road, and then it’s a two -hour boat ride up the river because there are no roads.
so notion that these people will grow a crop ,that can compete with crops grown in more economically developed areas. whitch is nonsensical.
These people are rational economic actors, they are not profit -grabbers, innate criminals , or anyhing like that.
these are people who live in difficult circumstances and grow crops that can feed their families.
at the beginning hilmer was skeptical, but he didn’t have a choice. he says , if you had lived here, you would’ve had to do it.
so at the start ,cocaine is a farm product .from their first harvest , farmer’s incomes increased 100 time. drug lords pay cash.in a remote areas ,no one could a fford to miss out on such an opportunity.
In this area of Alto Huayabamba, they all followed the same path. they all did the same thing. Generally , drug traffickers push farmers to produce the coca base paste.
it’s much easier to transport than tons of leaves, so it has to be produced on site.
the farmers who take ther risk see their profits multiply.
Oswaldo says that they wanted to learn how to make cocaine.it became profitable for them. they handle the transformation of the harvest from their own fields.they produced the base paste. in that way they could find the best buyers
the farmers who transform the coca into base paste are called cocineros or cooks.
because , to create a good base ,paste you need the tightrecipe,
the right methods.and espcecially the right ingredients. this requires chemicals.
you need large quantities of around 40 chemicals to make cocaine. it’s trafficking inside of trafficking. the problem is that, is that these chemicals are used in traditional industry .
it’s a real headache for authorities.
General Hector Loayza Arrieta heads DIRANDRO ,peru’s anti-drug police says the role of chemcals isfundamental,because they are the raw materials used to male the drug.
only two to three percent are imported.
to ble clear ,the chemicals come from Lima through legal merchant companies whose papers are in order.
it’s when they arrive in the production region , they become illegal.
Legal merchandise become illegal .cocaine production requires a network of wery specialized suppliers who are able to deliver tons of toxic chemicals.to the heart of the jungle
but it’s a black market ,the cocaleros pay over – market price for these products.
it’s an essential cost four times a yearfor each harvest to make the cocaine base paste.
once the harvest was finished, it took around five to six days to make the base.
today ,it’s quicker.technological progress has reduced the manufacturing time considerably,
and the cocineros, the cooks , have truly earned their name.
microwaves are used to accelerate the drying process of the base paste.normally , if it’s done the natural way, the process takes around three to four days.
with the ovens ,they can do it in one day.
once dry, base paste is sold to the highest bidder.byuers travel driectly to producers supply and demand is the golden rule.
and when a buyer came , he would gesture toward us, then you knew what he wanted . says oswaldo.
” how many kilos do you have?”you said a number then we negotiate says oswaldo.
the cocaine base pste is ready.this merchandise must be transported far from the fieldsto the drug labs that turn it into cocaine .
the easiest way is by air.
in 2015 , in the region in eastern peru alone ,anti -drug police dynimted 275 airdromes.
that gives you an idea of the extent of the drug trafficker’s logistical organization.Air traffick is intense during the export season.
If the police arrive at that time, all of the harvest and transformation work could be lost. Loading must be don as quickly as possible in avoid being caught.
Oswaldo say they brought the drug, and they brougth the money, everything happened quickly, very quckly.
amazing footage from the peruvian police shows how quickly the exchanges are. you can see
the airplane finds the area. its lands.
this the signals the groupe of couriers to bring the drug to the airoplane.the pilot pays for the merchandise
they load the plan with the drugs, up to 300 kilograms per trip. no one verifies the money or the merchandise. with drug traffickers ,trust is indispensable for the buisness to operate smoothly.
the police come to arrest the cocaleros. the operation’s result is that the druig and the money are confiscated. the plane is destroyed.
drug traffickers lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
police enforcement is an additional cost.it’s a financial risk that weights o n the cost of manufacturing.in light of this
authorities in producing countries have organized eradiction campaigns directly in the fields. hitting the trafficking economy at its source is their objective.
this is what happened 20 years ago in the Alto Huayabama valley.
Oswaldo say it was a terrible blow, and it was nearly fatal.thanks to it , the history of cacao began,but it took time.five years or maybe more begfore we could make a living from cacao beans.
In reality, some experts queston the efficary of eradication campaigns.
if you so the price of coca double on the farms in Peru or Colombia. that would have virtualy nil impact on what’s happening in the streets of new york or sydney.
those prices are determined by other factors. whitch revlove arouind trade, commodity ,and transit. the production is completely decoupled from these things
even if you saw huger eradiction in colombia or peru,which saw a price spike and saw farmers able to charge double what they’d been charging before, it doesn’t have any impact.
replacing coca with another crop ,that’s just as profitable, requres costly policies
that only affect a small part of the population. drug traffickers knows this very well and take advantage of it.
In bolivia , peru and colombia , a large number of ruthlessly exploited workers are just waiting for the opportunity to produce coca to escape poverty.
North America consumes 41% of the cocaine availble on the market, Europe consume 29%. cocaine is a nich market , like the luxury market, it’s an attractive product for a relatively wealthy clientele.
At least, that’s what studies from the UNODC,the UN office in charge of collecting worldwide data on organized crime,have shown.
Thomas Pietschmann: and we have 17 million people using cocaine at least once in the last year.the bulk of those are recreational users.who go to a party and take alittle bit of cocaine. but they account for only a small proportion of the actual consumption.
so we have a pareto distribution, which is typically 20 % or 80 % it means 20 % of the users account for 80 % of consumption.whatever the case, of the 17 million consumers in the world
12 million live in europe and north america,traffickers seek out this clientele due to ther significant buying power.
How is the traffic prganized to reach consumers who are far from the products areas? this is the job of the criminal groups responsible for transporting the cocaine.
The exporters.
The logistical organization of cocaine traffickers constantly adapts to avoid getting caught by anti-drug police.but because of geography , the routes are more or less the same.
To reach the different consumer markets,cocain first travels through transit countries, like ecuador, venezuela , Brazil and mexico, to reach the american market .
through brasil. thecaribbean ,south africa ,and wetern africa. to reach the european market. criminal organizations mist stay off the radar of various- anti -drug trafficking authorities.
The simplest way is to take advantage ofthe encreased volume of merchandise that moving around the world each day.
Sylvain raymond is in charge of the anti -drug trafficking program
at the WCO the world customs organization.
sylvain raymond says today ,when you see the explosion that has occurred over the last 30 or 40 years and the globalization of trade,just in terms of putting meachandise in containers and the explosion of trade, you can imagine that the proportion linked to crime has exploded in the same way.
General Hector Loayza Arrieta says it’s complicated for us ,specifically in port areas and especially with the increase in foreign trade we’ve had in the last few years.
Generally, they do buisness with transport companies, they transfor the illegal substance to a collection center or a warehouse
from there. they simulate the export of a product. or they will simply place it in several containers.which means they will hide a certain amount of the drug in container that containes legal cargo.
In Peru , more than 43 million tons of merchandise transit through Lima’s port every year Peru’s police only have a singel scanner to check suspicious trucks. a lucky break for cocaine exporters and the consequences are undeniable
fifty percent ofthe drugs that leave Peru travel by sea.
cocain travcels mainly surrounded by legal merchandise.around 500 million containers are handled each year in the world’s differents ports. that’s 16 containers a second.for the agents at Interpol,it’s become difficult to monitor exporters’ activities.
Andreas bastidas says the biggest trend at the moment is called the rip- off ,rip- on before ,the trafficers u sed to conceal the drug inside a particular commodity product. you have banana , you have pineapples ,coffee, you name it.
but now you don’t need to do that you don’t need to conceal the cocain within a large shipment.
The trafficers are using duffel bags. they put cocain in it.then the containers are opened just when they’re transiting a port. they throw the bag in ,
and they clos it and replace the seals.this is what they call as ripp- off
the company that ships the commodity is not involved in the crime. during a seizure, it’s unclear who is exactly behind it. you have no trace, and it’s harder to investigate.
with this method, you’re guaranteed more anonymity, if you’re caught, you wont’t be linked to anything,and you can doanother one next week.
instead of doing one shipment with one ton you do several shipments with 200 or 300 kilos, its safer, easier,and you don’t get caught so easily.
s. raymond says It’s a game of dominoes as traffickers become more creative. we’re always just a little bit behind as soon as we discover one modus operandi,they’ve already started thinking about a second one so we’re constantly racing to outsmart each other.
Transporting cocaine is the heart of trafficking.
exporters show unlimited ingenuity to get the drug to consumer markets. for example, to export from colombia, mafia transport companies offer an undetectable and efficient means of moving the drug to the USA.
Tiny submarines. these submarines can transport up to eight tons of cocaine to florida in one trip .
the latest official figures estimate that 30% of the cocaine consumed int the USA arrives in submarines.
moving cocaine is also the job of small and indiviudal companies. a significant amount of cocaine crosses borders in the pockets or bags of normal individuals.
they called mules.
the drugs smiggöers åay between 2,000 and 3, 000 dollars for this service. it’s an attractive amount .as long as they make it trough
( up to 35 years in prison)
(your freedom is worth more)
more opportunistic, mexican cartels sometimes use migrants to import the drug to the united states.
Crossing the border illegally with the help of a smuggler cost around 2,000 dollar.
it’s a large sum for hopeful immigrants, but with the mafia ,they can always work something out.
that’s what john doe, a former member of the Tijuana cartel explains.
john doe says , there is another way, if the person does not have the amount, but wants to cross and is able to do it we… they are offered,no , i won’t say we. they are offered to cross illegal drugs.marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. crossing one load will be enough to cover their payment to cross.
whatever it takes to supply the market , whatever the cost.
s.raymond says the authorities in charge of fighting trafficking take action, we try to anticipate their moves and logic. and the consequence of that,is that there’s an impact on the final price.because the cost of customs seizures is inclueded in the final price. we are a part of this economic situation.
the further you haveto travel to reach the end costumer, the higher ther isk of falling into the hands of law enforcement
this factor justifies a huge increase in the price of cocaine
while a kilo of cocaine is valued at 2,500 euros per kilo in the countries where it’s produced, it cost between 35, 000 dollar and 50 ,000 euros in north america. and up to 60,000 euros in europe.
you can see that it’s the risk that influencethe price,
because in this kind of business, there are onlt two possible options.
it either make it through.
or it doesn’t
to avoid discovert,trafficerks rely not only on hiding their products, r they have aslo completety transformed the strucutre of traditional trafficking
today in the age of globalization, people are working together and coperating across borders
andreas bastidas says its harder to investigate if you don’t have one main structure with these people being a part of this bif family ,you even get other parts of the groupe but if you have justone little groupe here its going to be isolated for the rest the other will find another group thar will do type of outsource work.
andthen they will continue doing the buisness. with th number of criminals running around this buisness has a guaranteed structure to continue.
T. Poetschmann says now , twith an increase in their numbers , the groups cooperate with each other
this is a good example of incresasing international cooperation. among other groups.
the cocaine market is now open to all mafias., tweny years ago , coke meant the colombians they bought land and companies in Western to stock the cocaine.
and to create networks to trransport it to europe.
today ,you relize that in the space of then or 15 years, organized crimes that’s 100% african goes to Lating america to buy directly.
they handle of the logostics , transport , storage, and sale on the European market. you realize that nothing is et in stone.
Africa offers many advantages to cocaine traffickers, mafias adept at exploiting the authorities’ ,limited resource and police instability.
sylvain raymond says i think that drug traffickers need gray zones. were there’s a lack of security, in order to covert their tracks.
these gray zone that’s lack security interest trafficklers , this is particularly evident in regions lile the Sahale, were ‘s a cluster of activity and everything has goten muddled.
the linkbetween organizedcrime and the treat of terrorism ,is becomigng more and more and more obivous.
here we are. the cocaine will enter consumer markets.In europe,thhere are many ways for it to enter , but therisk is high f or the exporters.
the means availble to the police customs officials ,and armies, are four superior to those of their south american and african colleage
these smuggler never had a chance of escaping
the rarmy ,backed by experts at the national Crime Agency,intercepted and boarded the trawler in open water.
and 2,3 tons of cocaine were seized
seizure is a kind of cstoms tax tht traffickers pay, exept that it represents 100% of their product’s value.
Regarldess , another boat located a bit farther away was able to evade the net.
In spain, netherlands, ablania ,france,and italy,tons of cocaine arrive safe and sound. distributing it works like any legal business,wholesalers sell the cocaine to sem- wholesalers who sell it to retailers,whosthen sell it to consumers.
Wladimir is a dealer. sells a kilo a year , mainly to finance his personal use. he explainse how ge get s his cocaine
wladimir says the first time you go to rotterdam they showyou the product that you want. for 500 grams, you pay 13,00 euros.you gave to 2,000 euros in expenses, andthat makes 15,000 euros. it cost 2,100 euros to move 500 grams.
its hidden in a fully loaded truck originating from holland. it’s not just for one customer.when you’re in holland they tell you where the parking garage is.
yoou pay half, and after 15 days you sent the other half to a person who comes to get the money. and takes it back.
Again ,transprot and exchange are high -risk operations.customs officials and police are mobilized everywhere in Europe.
it’s a fact that in redent years, the number of cocaine seizures has increased, nearly 50% of all the cocaine produced worldwide was seized in 2017.
However ,the street price of a gram hasn’t gone up.
supply continues to satisfy demand.how?
again , it’s like a traditional buisness.you just have to sell a product of inerior quality in drug trafficking it’scalled adulteration
to undestand , let’s analyze a gram of cocaine sold on the street.more than 50% of the powder is made up of levamisole,
an anti-parasatic drug used by veterinarians in additon to a bit of acetaminophen
suger an talc.
In the end , only 25 % of it is pure cocaine at best.
the adulteration process is almost like a tax. the profits from the adulteration don’t go to any one place.it’s just along the way , a bit more adulteration keeps happening until it reaches street level and its purity is heavily degraded.
this phenomenon is well know to consumers, karl was addicted to cocaien for along time for nearly ten years he consumed up to ten grams a weeek.
karl says ,having konw people who went through a lot of it, and i became friend with them sometimes they showed me hoe they cut the original product.
and i discovered that what they bought wasn’t completely pure either. they cut it. leaving less than 30 % of the coke in the final product. they made a crazy profit.I completely understood why they did it.
cutting the product ensuers a reasonable profit margin from captive consumers.if you want a good product you have to knowthe right network and you have to be ready to pay.
In Europe , a gram costs between 30 and 100 euros. it all depends on the distribution channel, jsut like in a traditional buisness, products are cheaper in sumpermarkets than in high- end boutiques.
contrary to what you might think, when you’re a small entrepreneur in the drug trade,you have many constraints.
you must have cutters , dealers , and lookouts.theres management in drug trafficking and that costs a lot.
and very often, you have to growngrade your product the more you cut it, the more profit you make. and the more you can spread out your expenses.
there’s a small dealer logic that clearly impacts the quality of the product and it’s true that if you have clients who are a little sophisticated, they’ll ask fora pure product adn will pay more for it.
Wladimir says, i don’t cut it.my prices is higher, i´m more espensive than the others, but i sell acerteain quality. its like a fine food shop. i sell a gram uncut, but everyone comes back to me i’ve had the same customers for almost 15 years i ‘ve met everyone and sold it to judges ,doctors et cetera.
coke really touches everyone, but it’s hidden and discreet , what they like about me and my high -end boutique is my discretion.
to sell the product, you need to discreetly access customers who may not want to deal directly with a criminals in a s sketchy area.
dealer found a way around that by using a sales force that could supply demand at its source.
coke isn’t sold in neighborhoods. its in bourgeois circles in the liberal left,with musicians, ,the media, those who have the means and who havefun taking it.
so those drug dealers usually haver representatives, there’re a little like traveling salesmen with a foot in each world.
they’ve got a foot in the housing projects to find the product in large quantities. and as an unadulterated as possible.
the drug dealer has the power to cit the product the way he wants and he has social skills that a basic thug from the projects doesnt’ have. and that will allow him to approach high -end customers without frightening them.
There ‘s another way to reach this skittish clientele .
E- Covers.
Neil walsh is the head of cybercrime at UNODC.
walsh says hy do customers buy drugs from the internet and darknet forums?do they feel that it’s safer? do they feel that it minimizes their risk?instead of going down to a dark street corner,maybe increasing the likelihood of arrest , they can do something online? but what is it? its a photo. nothing more than a photo.
so you are going to take therisk of giving 1.800 dollar to someone you don’t know, in a location you don’t know and hope that this thing that may or may not be what it says it is.is delivered to you?
karl says i know a few people who have tried it, and it has rarely worked out very well in terms of quality.
That explains why less than one percent of cocaine is sold on the web today.
from the growing fields to consumers.
the cocain industry ischaracterized by a multitude of intermediaries
it hs an army of dealers on many different levels.
but what happens to the money from alll these transactions?who benefits from the crime?
the drug trafficking economy garners huge profits,but it´s also a buisness that ewquires large investments.in other terms , cocaine trafficking is lcrative.
but there are substantial and intervitable cost, that the mafia has to finance
what is true for the legal economy is even mor so for the criminal economy.
that’s the opinion of manuel benavides. project manager for the international monetary fund.
M. benavides: drug trafficking is essentially ans economic activity. its an illegal one, but an activity nonetheless.drug trafficking is like a parent company with branches, but because it’s clandestine,you don’t know where their boards mmet .
we know there are technicians, a staff that analyzes projectsions and then handles the problem they enounter in the areas where thery operate.
to solve its problems, mafa use technique that we can easily compare to the buisness strategies of legal companies. of course they stray a bit from the concepts taught in buisness schools.
and in the same way that legal industries use marketing,drug trafficking ,with its own logic, has its own marketing. and wthat’s is this marketing? its buying the goodwill of authorities and entrepreneurs who protect them
spending money to buy the help of al these people can only corruption.
if mafia-style marketing doesn’t worl well enough, there’s always lobbying.
it’s common practice in traditional business for large groups to try to put pressure on politicians. in order to convince them to vote for laws that help their buisnesseswith dealers ,the principle is the same., the only thing that changes is the method.
lobbying is the jobo f sicarios ,or hitman.
you have to recognize the reality of organized crime violence in Latin America.it’s something Europeans cant’t fathom at all.
police are decapitated at the drop of a hat as a preventiative measure
if you’re good at drug trafficking, the’ll murder your mother or they cause your children to have an accident.
the job of a customs agent or an anti-drug agent in africa or latin america is a thousand times riskier than that of a European or american agent.
in colombia , the price carels pay to kill police officer are around 650 euros. this expense are included in the cost of every gram of cocaine sold.
we now have all the necessary information to see why a kilo of cocaine that’s purschased in Lima for 2,500 euros sells for 60.000 euros in Rotterdam.
On peru ,the producer’s price is 2,500 euros per kilo .its pure , almost 100 % cocaine hydrochloride.
this kilo arrives in Europe, the wholesalers have already cut.now there are two kilograms of cocaine. its now 50% pure. with a total wholesale value of 60.000 euros.retaileres cut it again and again now there are four kilograms of cocaine.ant its only 25 % pure.
total value is 200, 000 euros.
ig you analyze thes figures, you can see that the price of a kilo has multiplied 24 times from the producer
to the consumer.
however ,the price only increased three times between the wholesale and the consumer.
because what we do no is that its a very skewed distribution, so very few people make a lot of moeny, and a lotof people make little money. here’s the explanation.
at the retail level, there are many people involved in selling the drugs. and mostly of them hardly make any income. so there wers som studies that shoed that the income is below the minimum wage.if you would earn a decent income.
so its the people who manage transit make the most money off of this, and people growing it and the people selling it on the streets in the end -consumer market. make very little of the overal percentage of the profits
The money isnot where it’s produced.many think that the traffickersare there, but the money comes from the final destination.
so there is a sense of uncertainly,there’s a lot of frustration in procuder and transit countries while they’re forced to crack down on the actual commoditites, the financial centers in other parts ofthe world enable the trade. through the transit of money.
oleksiy feshchenko heads the worldwide anti-money laundering program for the united nations office on drugs and crime.
oleksiy : there are criminals who invent mechanisms to enjoy the proceeds of crime and all that wealth but in such a way that it cannot be attributed to them, that governments cannot confiscate it.
on average, we can say that around 50% of trafficking prorfits are laundered. there is used to pay for the merchandise, shipping and expenses. a large part of the profits is spent on a day -to -day basis.
especially by small dealers. there are many of them but these amounts are too small to draw the attention of the authorities.
when it comes to laundering millions of euros,mafias turn to what should be called financial crime. money laundering was a direct part of the enterprise
imagine, there are about 200 bank accounts, every day from each account, money is transferred to three or four different accounts.every day, its like huge tumbler
” okey alexi , do you want to transerf money or hide ten millon
this is the entry point sent your ‘r money to this acount , and then tyou will get your money back
maybe , perhaps throug several payments to interiely differents accounts or i may not receive money in my bank account
.but i will obtain documents that show im’ the happy owner of th cargo n a vessel.or somewhere in say the india ocean.metal tubes, rice ,fertilier or some other commmodity.
and then immediatelly, i get contact details of two companies tharea ae willing to to buy this cargo ans they will pay me money.
so i just signed a documen sent a fax, and now im happy buisnessman we jsut made a great deal i ´m clean and these money can they cam not be assosciated by with the original crime because they went through this mixer.
and it’s lmost impssible to trace it.
it’s clear thar mafias excel in the art of otpimizing their profits at every level of the economic chain.
they exploit all of the loopholes. the oppurtunities that th global economy offers them both in buisness and finance.
the ways of fighting drug trafficking are ever more efficient, but the new markest are emerging offering potentially huge profits for the narcotics industry.
DR.John collins says i don’t expect another massive decline in the united states cocaine market .in the foreseeable future, neither in Europe ,maybe amild decline ,as it’s probably peaked, but Asian and the Middle East may be the new markets.and that is the funamental truth is that it constantly changes,similary, just as production shifts, so does consmption.
the organisations fighthing against drug trafficking, are the main economic constraint on the cocaine market.
and they have no choice but to continue tirelessly playing their roles.
sylvain raymond say considering the logic of this traffic,we´re not close to ending the fight against orgainzed crime ,whatever the political and geopolitical evolution in the world conserning the production of these products.
your realize there is an enormous quantity of merchandise. which generates an enormous of money.and perhaps thatr’s the other key.money.shouldn’t we focus on this as much as logitiscs?
thomas pietschman say this is what percentage of illegally laundered money, is being seized by authorities, as i told you before,
now we have around 50% of the cocaine sezed by the authorities.so it’s a huge quite amount.do you know how much is onthe money side?less then one percent. the best estimate was 0.2%
Between the licit and the illicit , there are contat points,one of this contact points in the global economy are the tax havens
manuel benavides says in my opinion , tax havens are big launderers and who installs offices in tax havens?, without exception , there are officers and branches of financial institutions that’t manage the financial flow of the world’s economy
sylvain raymond say such jurisdictions and havens exits because there is demand.there are people who want to avoid taxes. there are criminals who want to hide their money.
there are husbands who want to hide money from their wives before divorce. this is a segment of the market.it’s relatively small ,but it exists. and there are also companies thare are just doing so -called.
Agreesive tax planning or tax minimization, they are not happy with the high taxes that they’re paying in their countries.
and they’re finding different ways to minimize their taxes and if there is a tool available, then everyone will use it. both criminals and non-criminals
DR.John collins says i don’t believe you can ever win the fight agaunst drug trafficking i think we’ve learned that very well over the last few decades.
that’s what we mean when discussing drug war failures,the idea of more eddort being required2 we need to get tougher on it, and that will eventually knock it out.”
it’s nonsense and won’t ever work. you’re fighting against an economic force, an economig logic.it’s self- defeating.
manuel benavides says the simplest way is to make an agreement to outlaw tax havens. why don’t we make such an agreement? let’s say that human nature is ambiguous, contradictory, and even mysterious.
that’s a poetic way of saying that money doesn’t stink.
and that it’s not only mafias who profit from the huge amount of money that cocain trafficking generates.legal or illegal ,buisness is buisness.