Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 248 posts

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#231

Post by dhughes »

cbrauchli wrote: post #226
dhughes wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Portugal might not have the same drug culture as the US, That's what I mean. I often deal with people from Monaco and work with a guy from Portugal and the difference in culture between southern Europe and here (US/Canada) is striking. It's interesting to see how similar Monaco and Portugal are generally speaking. People from each area seem shocked by the excess we take for granted. Food for example eating out and…

Hmm. It's tough to say. I see what you mean now. Food is one thing, because it doesn't carry the negative stigma that drug use does here. The US is also extremely friendly towards obesity, from what I see. Obese people do not undergo anywhere near the same amount of humiliation as they would elsewhere. You're completely right though that the food culture in the US is one of absurd excess. I'm just not sure that exces…

It seems the majority of cigarette smuggling goes on at the Quebec/NY border. The two big players involved are the Rock Machine/Hells Angels (Bandidos and Bacchus) and Mohawk Natives who reside in the border region.

There is also quite a bit in eastern Quebec and New Brunswick , it's into the remainder of Maritimes the border really where a lot of this occurs.

CBC.ca has news of it from time to time mostly when violence erupts, a lot of it occurred in the 90s when the Rock Machine and Hells Angels were separate club but I think they merged, violently.

Of the regions involved all are areas of high rates of smoking. Even here where I live where the federal tax centre building is the local news found illegal unmarked cigarettes outside the smoking area! Imagine if in the US the IRS workers on their smoke break smoked illegal cigarettes and just put them out on the ground, ballsy!

http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Mohawks+gangs+tobacco/14...

(PDF) http://www.cisc.gc.ca/annual_reports/documents/2001_annual_r...

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#232

Post by MikeCapone »

technoslut wrote: post #186
dudurocha wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the tv show The Wire, third season, a Police Captain tried to 'legalise' drugs sale. He put all the dealers, the little soldiers, and said "If you deal in the streets, we will arrest you. If you deal in the free zone, you are free to go". At first, the dealers were very distrustful, but after some days, all the dealers were in the same place. And the addicteds learned that they could only buy drugs in that zone. T…

I think you're taking away too much from a TV show. The post you've made could possibly happen but how much would crime rates (robbery in the best scenario) rise because drugs are legal? I really don't know the answer. One of the many things I've learned in my life is that criminals will go where the money is. In the early 20th century it was alcohol, prostitution, gambling, etc. They later moved on to drugs which wa…

I think it's a little dangerous to think of the world as "criminals" and "non-criminals". There are people who commit crime who wouldn't commit them in a different context, and to say that whatever we do "they" will just find a way to keep things exactly as bad.. It doesn't feel like it's a good model of reality to me. There would still be lots of crimes, but the mega-drug-cartels that we're seeing now couldn't exist with legal drugs, and they couldn't be replaced with something else of that size unless we prohibit something else that has the attributes of drugs, and I don't really see it right now.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#234

Post by dimitar »

drhodes wrote: post #169
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't gangs; it's gang violence. Making their crimes less stringently punished (reducing the paranoia within their ranks) as well as doing more to restrict the flow of arms from the United States (a better use of funds than incarcerating college potheads) seems a more sensible experiment to try before full legalisation. Consider the negative externalities of cocaine use (much higher than marijuana's); the…

> I'm not sure if I want to walk around the street with people high on bath salts and cocaine. People probably wouldn't be using mystery-chemical-x-mixed-in-some-bro's-tub bath salts if they could get cheap cocaine from a well established business.

Alcoholics still drink whatever crap they find. Including anti-freeze, perfumes, sanitary alcohol, moonshine. And this is even in countries where alcohol is dirt cheap like Russia.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#235

Post by MrScruff »

pacala wrote: post #225
_juof wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should do even more: develop new drugs(and processes) with less side effects. Drugs(and processes) that let you escape reality when you want, but still enable you to manage life reasonably well and be relatively healthy. It's clear that the need or desire to escape reality won't change anytime soon. Instead of ignoring and fighting this reality, we should try to find constructive solutions.

Here's an unpopular view: Let's work together to make reality less dreary such that you don't have an urge to escape reality.

You're going to have to work pretty hard to make reality not look a bit dreary compared to the average LSD trip...

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#236

Post by hef19898 »

startupfounder wrote: post #4

Joaquín 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…

He also seems to have very ... sophisticated understanding of markets, supply chain maagement and logistics. that and a very healthy sense for risk management. One only has to tip his hat in the light of these operations. Which dosn't mean they don#t have to be stopped.

Maybe legalizing would help, but I'm not sure if legalizing heroine would actually do something good. what you have to do is to wreck havoc with their supply chain. But in order to do that you have to discard philosophie and biases first. Something I don't seen coming any time soon as long as politians all over the place only think in names in fugure hats.

As the article mentioned, removing Chapo won't do any good, the worst case ould be the zetas taking over his supply network and logistics, something that doesn#t thrill me a lot.

How you actually disruopt his operations, hard guess. At the minimum it would involve some serious leg work and analyzing. Continous analyzing and leg work. Again somethiing I don't see western law enforcement fit to do right now. and as long as intelligence is running their asses of in pursuite of some afghan hill billis that won't change anytime soon.

My 2 cents.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#237

Post by morsch »

dimitar wrote: post #234
drhodes wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not sure if I want to walk around the street with people high on bath salts and cocaine. People probably wouldn't be using mystery-chemical-x-mixed-in-some-bro's-tub bath salts if they could get cheap cocaine from a well established business.

Alcoholics still drink whatever crap they find. Including anti-freeze, perfumes, sanitary alcohol, moonshine. And this is even in countries where alcohol is dirt cheap like Russia.

Mostly they don't. And more of them would do so if potable alcohol was orders of magnitude more expensive.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#238

Post by its_so_on »

I don't like the way the author glibly compares his subject with startups like Facebook and Netflix and seemingly seriously uses real notions of economics such as 'cartel' and 'capital-intensive'. ("Sinaloa is both diversified and vertically integrated, producing and exporting marijuana, heroin and methamphetamine as well. ") It's frankly disgusting.

Of course economics is the study of how people behave with money and resources. You can make these comparisons - just as you can study the economics of lynchings and torture by slaveowners to assert ownership over their property, the practices of the East Indian Company, or the (taking out touchy subject - think of warmongering; not saying such a thing exists). But please don't do it "straight" or without any irony. This isn't economics. This is death and murder (or war etc).

The economics is important. But it's not the economics that keeps me - or the Coca Cola company or your uncle Jack - from arming up with an uzi and "diversifying" into this "sector". Have some decency.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#239

Post by technoslut »

MikeCapone wrote: post #232
technoslut wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're taking away too much from a TV show. The post you've made could possibly happen but how much would crime rates (robbery in the best scenario) rise because drugs are legal? I really don't know the answer. One of the many things I've learned in my life is that criminals will go where the money is. In the early 20th century it was alcohol, prostitution, gambling, etc. They later moved on to drugs which wa…

I think it's a little dangerous to think of the world as "criminals" and "non-criminals". There are people who commit crime who wouldn't commit them in a different context, and to say that whatever we do "they" will just find a way to keep things exactly as bad.. It doesn't feel like it's a good model of reality to me. There would still be lots of crimes, but the mega-drug-cartels that we're seeing now couldn't exist…

>There are people who commit crime who wouldn't commit them in a different context, and to say that whatever we do "they" will just find a way to keep things exactly as bad.

It's not as if I'm talking about a father stealing a loaf of bread for his family. The people I'm speaking commit the most vile crimes possible. They are deserving of the tag 'criminal' regardless of what position in life they started.

That said, this isn't really about defeating the drug cartels. It's about the putting an end to the violence that is behind it and stopping it from spilling out into the lives of law-abiding citizens.

In South America, criminals have turned to kidnapping family members of wealthy individuals and even talented baseball players who have signed deals with professional teams. Most baseball teams have backed out of looking for prospects in Venezuela because of these worries. There was even a minor league prospect who was kidnapped last year and held for ransom.

Re: How a Mexican Drug Cartel Makes Its Billions

#240

Post by WayneDB »

koide wrote: post #218
WayneDB wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The government" is absolutely complicit in that crime because they turn a blind eye to it. Do you think that the cops don't know about Backpage or other prostitution outlets? Do you think that law enforcement is impervious to corruption?

I don't know about the US, but in other countries, slavery prostitution outlets are indeed persecuted and closed once found. Other prostitution outlets are tolerated (or encouraged.) My point is even assuming incorruptible law enforcement, these outlets would still exist, might last less if you wish. From there to saying it's a government sponsored slavery is a big step.

The government is complicit by keeping it illegal.

If it were legal, it could be taxed and regulated like anything else. Most people are OK with letting others do what they want with their own body. It's certain puritanical, tyrannical, authoritarian and powerful government factions that don't allow that.

Post reply on HN