Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling: Lessons from the Inside

Minimizing Risks

❖ 6 Balancing Risk and Reward I n our conversations with smugglers regarding methods, roles, and recruitment, it became clear that the smuggler community engages in a number of strategies to minimize risk and avoid detection. Some of the strategies appeared to be universal, while others were specific to the size of the load, the method of transport, and the transportation route. In this chapter we describe these strategies, their increasing importance after President Ronald Reagan declared his war on drugs, and how Reagan’s war resulted in changes to the smuggling trade. We also introduce smuggler assessments of risk, the level at which a smuggler would be deterred from smuggling drugs into the United States, and how risk perceptions may alter as a result of a smuggler’s experience with the U.S. criminal justice system. Minimizing Risks Smugglers have to focus on a number of things during the smuggling operation, including law enforcement, people ripping you off, snitches, equipment, time, thinking clearly, and not being nervous. To manage the risks, people involved in the business seem to live by a number of rules of the drug smuggling game. Keep Your Crew Small The number one rule for almost all smugglers is to keep the size of the crew small, for both practical and precautionary reasons . Eight to ten people are usually involved in organizing a load, but a crew may consist of only four members. Limiting the number of people involved in an operation reduces the chance of error because the size of the load is manageable, and the operation is less likely to get out of control. Smugglers balance this goal with the size of the crew required to successfully bring in the load. When you bring in a load, you use a lot of people, okay?You use people on the ground to secure and transport when it gets there.You use the boat and the bait to watch the cops. You use the guys in each boat, one loaded, one empty, to secure if the boat break down, you got another boat next to you to bring it in, okay? You use the people on the ground and in the Bahamas. (32) Once the load gets too big, it’s—you need a lot of space to bring it in, and the boat, like the one I was using, doesn’t—it doesn’t have that capacity, and then, you know, you’re using two boats. You’re talking about four people that you got to control, you know, four boats—two boats that you got to make sure they’re right all the time. It’s a lot of responsibility. (22) In addition to keeping crews small, many smugglers also either reduced their involvement in the transport or hired crews to organize each operation and limited their contact with the organizer of each crew. Balancing Risk and Reward b 115 Trust Your Crew A small crew also limits the chance of involving members who are not well known by the other crew members and who, therefore, are not trusted—people who may become confidential informants or cooperating defendants if caught. As discussed in Chapter 5, when trying to recruit potential crew members, managers rely on word of mouth, reputation, and recommendations. They also look for people who have needed skills or equipment. When one has a certain activity, that activity takes you to another person that is involved in the same activity. (9) The word gets around. You know, like everybody you are asking, they will tell you, “This guy is good.” (29) You know, a lot more people were cooperating with the government , and you didn’t know who was who. So you wanted a small group.You wanted real trusting friends. (1) Because one good crew could cost you the load or go to jail. So you get tight with a crew. (29) In addition to being trusted, it is also important for crew members to avoid posing a threat to the group by being flashy with proceeds, by getting drunk or high, or by doing anything else to make themselves unreliable or to call unwanted attention to themselves. The smugglers we interviewed discussed the importance of “being smart” with money to avoid suspicion. One of the tactics associated with being smart is using front operations to explain cash. At least nine of the smugglers mentioned having other jobs or businesses...