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HOW COLOMBIAN DRUG LORDS TRANSPORT ILLEGAL DRUGS |
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- Drugs are transported by boat, plane, and over land |
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PROCESS OF GETTING COCAINE AND THEN DISTRIBUTING IT... There are many ways for a drug lord to obtain and then distribute cocaine. In an interview, Juan David Ochoa, a famous Medellin cartel member takes a reporter through the process:
Some other ways that the Colombian drug lords would dispense the cocaine were: buy the cocaine and send it to a partner (usually in the US), own your own lab and transport the cocaine at your own cost, or subcontract with someone other people at different stages of the process and transfer the sales to the person contracted in the US.
BY AIR... Most of the time the cocaine travels out in small planes from Colombian airstrips to different countries. The reason the planes are small is that the first drug lords realized that if they sent out small shipments on a vast number of planes then there was always going to be shipments that got to their rightful destination. Sometimes this destination is only a drop off point and other times it is going to where the cocaine will actually be distributed. This lowered the risk of the traffickers losing all of their investment from a government seizure. Drug lords have accumulated enough money to actually own businesses that focus on renting out planes to pilots. These businesses are just another way to control how their product gets to those that are in demand. BY SEA... Another way for drugs to be shipped out of Colombia is by boat. The boats can leave off the coast of Colombia. When done this way the shipment is usually shipped in a mixture of products such as food, flowers, or chemically diluted in another export product. Another trick in the drug exporters repertoire is to have a plane fly to an in between spot and then the cocaine is transferred to a boat from there. When on the boat cocaine can be shipped to Canada where cartels have networks set up that have an easy time getting the drug to the US. BY LAND... With the crack down of law enforcement in Florida during the mid 1980's, cartels have been using more and more routes through Mexico. Another factor in the drug lords switching their style of transportation is that in 1993 the US signed the NAFTA agreement. This enables free trade between Mexico and the US. This also makes it almost impossible for the border patrols to be able to locate drugs in the shipments of goods that come from Mexico. The Colombians get the cocaine to Mexico and then from Mexico it is loaded onto huge eighteen wheelers with a whole bunch of other goods and then is brought over into the US. HOW THEY ARE ABLE TO CONTINUE TO DO THIS... Without demand there would be no supply. This is the driving force and factor as to why the world is continually flooded with illegal drugs. During the 1980's cocaine was portrayed in the American media as something glamorous. Movies like Scarface glamorized the life of drug dealers and the killing and money and power that go along with the cocaine. The Colombian drug syndicates didn't even have to market their drugs to the US, because the media was doing it for them. The world and especially America did not look harshly upon cocaine until 1985 when the crack epidemic hit the US. GOVERNMENTS INVOLVEMENT... Sometimes the governments of other countries actually help cartels ship their drugs. Panama and Nicaragua are known countries that have helped Colombian cartels distribute their cocaine. In Nicaragua the drug lords would give them money or pay them with arms to be able to land their cocaine plans there to refuel and maybe even transfer a shipment. Manuel Noreiga is notorious for letting the Medellin cartel ship their cocaine to Panama and then dispensing it to different countries out of that safe harbor. The US government has actually been known to use known traffickers businesses for their support of anti-left wing guerillas and governments. The CIA has been caught many of times giving aid to countries that are recognized as drug trafficker sympathizers or even partners. EQUIPMENT AND GUERILLAS... Colombia is also able to transport and make so much cocaine because of the amount of factories that they can use to refine the cocaine. The population of Colombia is densely populated in only a small area of the country. This is because some of the country is actually filled with large rain forests. This is where the drug syndicates are able to place most of their factories of production. They are able to do this because the government has trouble reaching out and regulating these areas. The drug syndicates and guerilla troops control these areas with an iron grip. These groups are loaded with heavy artillery and are trained by soldiers, because of this if the Colombian government wanted to liberate these areas they would have to stage a war on their own people. Over 40% of Colombia is controlled by guerilla forces. They tax the peasants that grow the coca plant and also protect them from the governments wrath. |
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| Here are some very good links for more information on HOW trafficked: | ||
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--A link about the business: |
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--An interview with Juan David Ochoa: www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/interviews/ochoajorge.html |
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--The growth of drug trafficking and guerilla warfare www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=109139&tocid=25343#25343.toc
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| REFERENCES:
Thoumi, Francisco E. (1995). Political Economy & Illegal Drugs in Colombia. Colorado: Lynne Rienner George, Susan (1992). The Debt Boomerang. San Francisco: Westview Press Scott, Peter D. & Marshall, Johnathan (1991). Cocaine Politics. Los Angeles: University of California Press Gootenberg, Paul (1999). Cocaine; Global Histories. New York: Routledge
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