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they had grown to understand how their contacts in Colombia operated. We relied on the descriptions of these two groups to describe the structure of drug smuggling organizations in Colombia during the late 1980s and the 1990s. Movement Away from Cartels Past research has shown that the structure of drug organizations in Colombia has evolved over the past twenty years (DEA, 1997; Bunker and Sullivan, 1998). Drug distribution groups in Colombia became formal organizations under the leaders of the Medellin cartel.These organizations operated in much the same way as traditional formal organizations, with a chief executive officer responsible for executive officers who were in charge of separate functions of the organization. Because this organization was hierarchical and the leaders controlled the movement of drugs through the organization, their deaths and increased Colombian and U.S. law enforcement pressure led first to fragmentation and ultimately to the demise of the Medellin cartel. The Medellin cartel was quickly replaced by the Cali cartel, a loose association of five major drug syndicates, each representing different aspects of the business. In this organization, a strict topdown command and control structure was the norm, exercising control over subordinates through fear and intimidation.The Cali cartel ruled the Colombian drug enterprise until the mid-1990s, when two of the leaders were incarcerated, which caused organizational fragmentation into specialized groups. According to the smugglers, smaller groups were now able to coordinate movement of drugs into the United States without control by the cartel. It is interesting to speculate about the impact of each organizational structure—highly organized or loosely confederated—on successful smuggling. Many of the smugglers in our sample had smuggled drugs since the 1970s and 1980s, and they told us about the shift in structure away from cartels and into less organized groups. In many cases, the current structure may be likened to the networks 34 b Chapter 3 described byWilliams (1998: 155) as a series of connected nodes (individuals or organizations) with both a core and periphery networks with significant linkages among them. Linkages with the core are based on relationships and trust, while the weaker links to the periphery are based on function. The smugglers in our sample confirmed the impact of the removal of the heads of the Cali cartel on the organization and the subsequent splintering of the organization into functional units. The result was a shift from a centralized operation controlled by a few to a number of networks operating individually and as a group to move drugs out of Colombia. A few of the smugglers described this shift in the following ways. It’s more spread out now. Ever since all those major groups had either been arrested or turned themselves in or retired . . . but when a group like that—they say when the Ochoas went in to turn themselves in, all those employees they had, all those people that worked for them, they knew what they were doing . . . they had the gift of all these connection . So what happened? It all spread around. (221)1 Well, it is different—it’s smaller groups now. Like before it was all cartel. It was a group of gentlemen, that, you know, it was like a board.We make decisions together and stuff. Now it is all broken up, but, you know, the drugs are still coming in. Even more than ever. (1) After the cartels broke up, many groups shared control over movement of drugs as the market readjusted to the change in control. It all spread around. It was worse because in the beginning there is an organization. There’s people being organized. Now you got people everywhere, you know? And it doesn’t mean that’s going to generate seven hundred kilos for every little person that is left. No, these people—this one might deal with ten and the other ten. (22) Drug Smuggling Organizations b 35 ...

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