Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling: Lessons from the Inside

Structure and Movement of Drugs

The smugglers were consistent in their characterization of the current structure as two-tiered networks made up of core and periphery members. The core, described to us as offices, used brokers and transporters to generate loads and move them to the United States and to return the profit to Colombian sources. One office may have multiple brokers in Colombia and the United States, just as it had multiple transportation groups. The brokers allow the offices to function independently, typically in isolation from one another.The connection between the offices and brokers and how they connect to move drugs to the United States and profits back to Colombia is depicted in Figure 3.1. Structure and Movement of Drugs In this section, we use the information from the smugglers about the structure of smuggling operations to describe how the different groups organize loads and transport them to the United States. 36 b Chapter 3 Office of Supply Independent Transporters Brokers in Colombia Office of Finance Office of Transportation Transporter Brokers in United States U.S. Distribution Office Buyers $ U.S. Contacts Figure 3.1 The Structure of Drug Smuggling Organizations Suppliers Many of the smugglers in our sample were not that familiar with how coca farmers fit in the business. Many were familiar with the fact that the coca crops were located in Peru and that the paste was developed there. One mentioned that the Colombians were planting coca crops of their own. The smugglers also felt that either the farmers or someone the farmers worked for sold the paste to Colombian labs to be processed into cocaine .What remained elusive to them was how the product was moved from the farm to the lab and who was in control of that movement. A guy, a peasant in Colombia, if he grows oranges, he can’t sell the oranges because they rot, you know. So, if he grows bananas, he can’t sell them, right? But if somebody comes and asks him, you know, “Can you grow some coca leaves for us, and we pay you for whatever you produce,” well the guy is going to do it. So why don’t you pay $5 for each orange that this guy produce[s]? He doesn’t care what it is, what he’s growing. Because the trafficker is not, is not growing the coke. It’s some guy in the jungle doing that. (13) One smuggler mentioned that organizing a load of drugs for transport was not as simple as it might appear.There were a series of payoffs.The farmer was paid off by the chemist, who was paid off by the broker, who was paid off by the office. It was also necessary to pay for transport from Peru to Colombia and to spend money for protection from law enforcement or guerillas. When working independently, this process was even less organized because the person attempting to generate a load must initiate each payoff individually. Generally, the identities of the players and the process involved in this aspect of the smuggling operation were unclear to the smugglers, except that they knew that the coca was purchased from farmers and either processed Drug Smuggling Organizations b 37 independently and sold through a broker or bought and processed by the office. The farmer goes and contacts an individual and says, “Look, I have—I processed this.Would you buy it from me?” He has the money [and] says, “Okay, I’ll buy it from you.” So this guy goes and he contacts a broker from one of the offices. He says, “Look I have to send this to the United States.” (13) Although members of our sample may have been unclear about how drugs were grown and processed in Colombia, none of them mentioned any problems about finding large quantities of drugs to move or loads that needed to be transported. One smuggler mentioned that it was as easy to get cocaine in Colombia as it was to get coffee. I go down there [Colombia] to try to find somebody that wants to put cocaine into the country [United States], and the place is teeming with people that are drowning in cocaine , looking for any way to get rid of it. (24) The identity of the person who actually owns the load or was paying the farmer or the chemist was difficult for smugglers to understand as well; however, it...