The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the misery in our corner of the world.
How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
31–40 of 248 posts
Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
#32Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera is a true hacker, he continually breaks into the most secure country in the world by exploiting it's weaknesses. "The cartel makes sandbag bridges to ford the Colorado River and sends buggies loaded with weed bouncing over the Imperial Sand Dunes into California." Because of this, even when he is caught and send to a maximum security prison he is able to organize an escape by hacking t…
It sometimes blows my mind how much power money can buy. This gentleman seems to also have a powerful charm.
Not just a carrot, but a carrot and a stick. If you don't comply, your family and friends can and will be harmed.
It's a large reason why Mexico military forces stays anonymous by wearing balaclavas on duty and getting rid of the short hair requirement.
Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
#33I'd be really curious to know what their IT department looks like.
I'm going to guess low-tech. If I were running a dangerous, cutthroat business, I certainly wouldn't trust my profits, life, or freedom to anything I didn't understand completely. Having an IT department puts Chapo's sysadmin(s) in a position to stage a coup that he can't detect or address until it's too late.
Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
#34I'd be interested in knowing how they were able to buy Boeing 747s. Those are huge transactions, you can't simply buy planes with cash. I would assume that it would be through shell companies, but wouldn't (or shouldn't) Boeing be careful about who their customers are?
They launder their money through major banks like Wells Fargo. If you do a Google search there are hundreds of recent news stories about this.
Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
#35I'd be interested in knowing how they were able to buy Boeing 747s. Those are huge transactions, you can't simply buy planes with cash. I would assume that it would be through shell companies, but wouldn't (or shouldn't) Boeing be careful about who their customers are?
'Money doesn't stink', as the Roman Emperor said. Who's to say they aren't selling? But in any case, money and planes are pretty fungible. Perhaps they use straw buyers, or perhaps they simply buy used. Plenty of 747s out there now.
I was going to say the same thing, you see a lot of them parked on the tarmac in Mojave with out of business livery or sometimes just painted white.
There have been stories of folks laundering money in the middle east where there are apparently a lot of 'cash' jobs that take US currency, still the cartoon picture of the pallets of cash was pretty hilarious. I wonder if you could trade a pallet of cash for a check from a Saudi Prince?
I am most fascinated by the tunnels though. At some point these guys will be able to plan long enough ahead that they can buy a tunnel boring machine and starting south of the border have it end up in like down town San Diego. Maybe they could fund one of those evacuated tunnel trains we read about here recently :-). Given the work on quad copters I'm still surprised that there aren't semi autonomous groups of quad-copter mules carrying cocaine in swarms from point A to point B.
Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
#36The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the miser…
At this point, I doubt it will help. Why? The cartels thrive in countries where you can essentially buy off any official.
When you legalize drugs, they aren't going to suddenly stop selling it. They will now have a legal business which will continue to fund their criminal empires. We most likely will see an increase in other crimes, like extortion and kidnapping.
Drugs are still illegal in the US and we don't really see the same kind of crime in our country because the police actually (for the most part) do their job.
If you really want to stop the violence, stop the corruption. I know the recreational drug users of HN don't really want to hear this..
Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
#37I admit that I (in a way) root for those guys. If they can move around such quantities of physical illegal stuff then we can be sure we can move around any strings of bits we choose to.
Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
#38The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the miser…
While that would reduce violent crime, it would also sanction people using recreational drugs besides alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine. Many voters and politicians find it against their religious or moral beliefs to allow other people to do recreational drugs besides the ones they themselves are doing.
Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
#39The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the miser…
At this point, I doubt it will help. Why? The cartels thrive in countries where you can essentially buy off any official. When you legalize drugs, they aren't going to suddenly stop selling it. They will now have a legal business which will continue to fund their criminal empires. We most likely will see an increase in other crimes, like extortion and kidnapping. Drugs are still illegal in the US and we don't really…
People who have lived in big cities in the U.S. would strongly disagree with you. There are entire areas that are dangerous to walk in thanks to drug gangs. Legalize the stuff and dealers can't continue forcing out the competition with guns, since that competition will be the local supermarket.
Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions
#40The only way to stop these large criminal enterprises is to legalize the stuff. Just like alcohol prohibition created some of the most notorious American criminals, South American drug prohibitions produce powerful criminals down there. There isn't any large crime related to South American cocoa or coffee imports. Legalize it and then spend money and make laws regulating consumption, it would greatly reduce the miser…
At this point, I doubt it will help. Why? The cartels thrive in countries where you can essentially buy off any official. When you legalize drugs, they aren't going to suddenly stop selling it. They will now have a legal business which will continue to fund their criminal empires. We most likely will see an increase in other crimes, like extortion and kidnapping. Drugs are still illegal in the US and we don't really…
"I know the recreational drug users of HN don't really want to hear this"
They are of course part of the problem.