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Mexico's Cartels and the Economics of Cocaine
Townhall.com ^ | January 6, 2013 | Stewart Scott

Posted on 01/06/2013 8:41:26 AM PST by Kaslin

At Stratfor, we follow Mexico's criminal cartels closely. In fact, we are currently finishing our 2013 cartel forecast, which will be released later this month. As we analyze the Mexican cartels, we recognize that to understand their actions and the interactions between them, we need to acknowledge that at their core they are businesses and not politically motivated militant organizations. This means that although violence between and within the cartels grabs much of the spotlight, a careful analysis of the cartels must look beyond the violence to the business factors that drive their interests -- and their bankrolls. 

There are several distinct business factors that have a profound impact on cartel behavior. One example is the growing and harvesting cycle of marijuana in the Sierra Madre Occidental. Another is the industrialization of methamphetamine production in Mexico and the increasing profit pool it has provided to the Mexican cartels in recent years. But when we are examining the transnational behavior of the Mexican cartels, the most important factor influencing that behavior is without a doubt the economics of the cocaine trade. 

The Cocaine Profit Chain

Cocaine is derived from the leaves of the coca plant, and three countries -- Colombia, Peru and Bolivia -- account for all the coca harvested in the world. Turning coca into cocaine hydrochloride is a relatively simple three-step process. Once the leaves of the coca plant are harvested, they are rendered into what is known as coca paste. From there, the coca paste is processed into cocaine base, which eventually becomes cocaine hydrochloride. The process involves several precursor chemicals: kerosene, sulfuric acid, sodium carbonate, hydrochloric acid, potassium permanganate and acetone. Most of these chemicals are readily available and easily replaced or substituted, making them difficult for authorities to regulate.

According to figures from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, coca farmers in Colombia receive $1.30 for each kilogram of fresh coca leaf. In Peru and Bolivia, where the leaf is air-dried before being sold, farmers receive $3.00 per kilogram.

For the fresh leaf used in processing in Colombia, it takes somewhere between 450 and 600 kilograms of coca leaf to produce 1 kilogram of cocaine base, depending on the variety of coca plant used (some varieties have a higher cocaine alkaloid content). At $1.30 per kilogram, this means that it costs somewhere between $585 and $780 to purchase the coca leaf required to produce one kilogram of cocaine base. One kilogram of cocaine base can then be converted into roughly one kilogram of cocaine hydrochloride, which is commonly referred to as cocaine.

As cocaine progresses from the production site to the end users, it increases in value. According to figures provided by the Colombian National Police, a kilogram of cocaine can be purchased for $2,200 in the jungles in Colombia's interior and for between $5,500 and $7,000 at Colombian ports. But the price increases considerably once it leaves the production areas and is transported closer to consumption markets. In Central America cocaine can be purchased for $10,000 per kilogram, and in southern Mexico that same kilogram sells for $12,000. Once it passes through Mexico, a kilogram of cocaine is worth $16,000 in the border towns of northern Mexico, and it will fetch between $24,000 and $27,000 wholesale on the street in the United States depending on the location. The prices are even higher in Europe, where they can run from $53,000 to $55,000 per kilogram, and prices exceed $200,000 in Australia. The retail prices per gram of cocaine are also relatively high, with a gram costing approximately $100-$150 in the United States, $130-$185 in Europe and $250-$500 in Australia.

Along the supply chain there is also quite a bit of "cutting," which is when substances are added to the cocaine to dilute its purity and stretch profit. According to the Colombian National Police, the purity of cocaine leaving the country is about 85 percent. By the time it reaches the United Kingdom, purity is 60 percent, and it drops further to about 30 percent at the retail level, according to the U.N. World Drug Report 2012.  

Cartel Behavior

There has been a thriving two-way flow of contraband goods across the U.S.-Mexico border since its inception. Mexican organized crime groups have been involved in the smuggling of marijuana to the U.S. market since the U.S. government began to restrict marijuana in the early 1900s, and Mexican organized criminals profited handsomely during the Prohibition era in the United States. As U.S. demand for illicit drugs increased in the second half of the 20th century, Mexican organizations branched out to become involved in smuggling other types of drugs, including pharmaceuticals and black tar heroin; poppy cultivation was also introduced to Mexico in the 1930s.  

These Mexican organized crime syndicates, such as the Guadalajara cartel, also began to traffic cocaine into the United States in the late 1970s, but for many years the Mexican organizations worked as junior partners for the powerful Colombian cartels in Medellin and Cali. Mexico was a secondary route for cocaine compared to the primary route through the Caribbean. As a result, the Colombians pocketed the lion's share of the profit made on cocaine trafficked through Mexico and the Mexicans received a fee on each kilogram they transported. (However, they did not assume any of the risk of losing shipments between South America and Mexico.)

In the late 1970s and the 1980s -- the early phase of Mexican involvement in the cocaine trade -- Central American middlemen such as Juan Matta-Ballesteros were also heavily involved in the flow of cocaine through Mexico. They moved cocaine from South America to Mexico, becoming wealthy and powerful as a result of the profits they made. 

As U.S. interdiction efforts, aided by improvements in aerial and maritime surveillance, curtailed much of the Caribbean cocaine flow in the 1980s and 1990s, and as the Colombian and U.S. governments dismantled the Colombian cartels, the land routes through Central America and Mexico became more important to the flow of cocaine. It is far more difficult to spot and seize contraband moving across the busy U.S.-Mexico border than it is to spot contraband flowing across the Caribbean.

This increase in the importance of Mexico allowed the Mexican cartels to gain leverage in negotiations with their Central American and Colombian partners and to secure a larger share of the profit. Indeed, by the mid-1990s the increasing importance of Mexican organizations to the flow of cocaine to the United States allowed the Mexican cartels to become the senior partners in the business relationship.

In a quest for an even larger portion of the cocaine profit chain, the Mexican cartels have increased their activities in Central and South America over the last two decades. The Mexicans have cut out many of the middlemen in Central America who used to transport cocaine from South America to Mexico and sell it to the Mexican cartels. Their efforts to consolidate their control over Central American smuggling routes continue today.

This move meant that the Mexican cartels assumed responsibility for the losses incurred by transporting cocaine from South America to Mexico, but it also permitted them to reap an increasing portion of the profit pool. Instead of making a set profit of perhaps $1,000 or $1,500 per kilogram of cocaine smuggled into the United States, the Mexican cartels can now buy a kilogram of cocaine for $2,200 or less in South America and sell it for $24,000 or more to their partners in the United States.

But the expansion of the Mexican cartels did not stop in Central America. According to South American authorities, the Mexican cartels are now becoming more involved in the processing of cocaine from coca leaf in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. There have also been reports of seizures of coca paste being smuggled to cocaine processing laboratories in Honduras and Guatemala. The use of these Central American processing laboratories, which are run by Mexican cartels, appears to be a reaction to the increased efforts of the Colombian National Police to crack down on cocaine laboratories and the availability of cocaine processing chemicals. 

U.S. counternarcotics officials report that today the Mexican cartels are the largest players in the global cocaine trade and are steadily working to grab the portion of cocaine smuggling not yet under their control. But the efforts of the Mexican cartels to increase their share of the cocaine profit are not confined to the production side; they have also expanded their involvement in the smuggling of South American cocaine to Europe and Australia and have established a footprint in African, Asian and European countries. Furthermore, they have stepped up their activities in places like the Dominican Republic and Haiti in an attempt to increase their share of the cocaine being smuggled through the Caribbean to the U.S. market. As seen by recent operations launched by U.S. law enforcement, such as Operation Xcellerator, Operation Chokehold and Operation Imperial Emperor, the Mexican cartels have also been increasing their presence at distribution points inside the United States, such as Chicago, Atlanta and Dallas, in an effort to increase their share of the cocaine profit chain inside the United States.

While marijuana sales have always been an important financial source for the Mexican cartels, the large profits from the cocaine trade are what have permitted the cartels to become as powerful as they are today. The billions of dollars of profit to be had from the cocaine trade have not only motivated much of the Mexican cartels' global expansion but have also financed it. Cocaine profits allow the Mexican cartels to buy boats and planes, hire smugglers and assassins ("sicarios") and bribe government officials.

Cocaine is a product that has a very limited and specific growing area. Consequently, that distinct coca growing area and the transportation corridors stretching between the growing area and the end markets are critically important. With a business model of selling cocaine at over 10 times the cost of acquisition -- and even greater over the cost of production -- it is not surprising that the competition among the various Mexican cartels for the smuggling corridors through Mexico to the United States has become quite aggressive.

Read more: Mexico's Cartels and the Economics of Cocaine | Stratfor


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Mexico
KEYWORDS: cartels; cocaine; drugcartel; drugs; drugwar; warondrugs; wod; wodlist; wosd
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1 posted on 01/06/2013 8:41:34 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Bump for later.


2 posted on 01/06/2013 8:59:07 AM PST by super7man
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To: Kaslin

This “trade” in cocaine into the U.S.A. wouldn’t exist if there did not exist a demand for the product.

How much effort would it take to eliminate the demand here, in the U.S.A., for cocaine? For it is the huge profits from cocaine sales here that is financing the Mexican Cartels’s expansion into other regions in the Western Hemisphere.

One can only suspect politicians in the U.S.A. of having a special interest in seeing this expansion continue rather than eliminating the demand here for cocaine and thus the porous border.


3 posted on 01/06/2013 9:01:53 AM PST by SatinDoll (NATURAL BORN CITZEN: BORN IN THE USA OF CITIZEN PARENTS.)
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To: Kaslin

Assuming folks read this entire article before posting, does anybody really believe that relaxing U.S. drug laws would limit the profits to the drug cartels?

They are already employing mafia tactics to maintain control in the “medical
mj” market.

Ya, there are a some home growers not impacted, but that’s always been true.


4 posted on 01/06/2013 9:02:45 AM PST by G Larry (Which of Obama's policies do you think I'd support if he were white?)
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To: G Larry
With a business model of selling cocaine at over 10 times the cost of acquisition -- and even greater over the cost of production

Did you read the whole article? Without a tenfold profit there would be no incentive for an organized cartel to murder and enslave. Instead, they would be making a ten percent profit or so and they could either buy a factory for making shoes or ship cocaine to the United States. I don't know how the lessons of Prohibition in the 20's are lost on many Conservatives. It is time to decriminalize all drugs and then stop lessening the consequences drug use has on an individual by giving them State subsidies.

5 posted on 01/06/2013 9:35:14 AM PST by Sawdring
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To: Kaslin

The current body of drugs laws has created a financial empire controlled by murderous criminals and scheming politicians of several nations.

Like all laws, the shaping of these regulations over the decades since their quasi-racist and progressive inception has been influenced by monied lobbyists.

Were cocaine, opium, and other drugs freely imported by the same enterprises that import spirits, under similar regulations, then governments could collect their excise taxes, and cities could be free of the criminal depredations by those who are presently burdened by multi-hundred dollar per day habits.

Figures in the Stratfor piece suggest that retail prices could be slashed by up to 90% which would reduce the snorters’ and shooters’ outlays to the came level as alcoholics daily rations of $20 to $50.

Or, we can believe what the Ministry of Truth tells us.

Your call, Winston Smith...


6 posted on 01/06/2013 9:46:29 AM PST by headsonpikes (Mass murder and cannibalism are the twin sacraments of socialism - "Who-whom?"-Lenin)
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To: G Larry
Most established big business is operated by people with cartel or mafia mentality. The only difference is they no longer need to “show teeth” because government will do it for them.

Instead of financing guerrilla warfare, they simply finance the right politicians to take out competition. It's done through corrupt regulations, taxes, unequal enforcement, lawsuits, etc.

Instead of going around and openly robbing people, they simply get politicians to steal for them. The thefts no longer occur at gunpoint, but rather through automatic taxes that most citizens don't even look at. The politicians get a cut and don't care because "it's not my money."

The politicians and connected businesses benefit while everyone else gets screwed through higher taxes, higher prices and inferior products.

7 posted on 01/06/2013 10:09:36 AM PST by varyouga
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To: Sawdring

So, you’re stuck on clueless?!

What part of legalization do you fantasize would move the cartels out of the business model and into a 10% vs. 10X profit position?

What part of expanding the dope culture contributes to a better society?

Let me guess...”It’s no different than booze...”

Stupid! Just plain Stupid!


8 posted on 01/06/2013 10:18:33 AM PST by G Larry (Which of Obama's policies do you think I'd support if he were white?)
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To: headsonpikes
Figures in the Stratfor piece suggest that retail prices could be slashed by up to 90% which would reduce the snorters’ and shooters’ outlays to the same level as alcoholics daily rations of $20 to $50.

With taxes, the cost of a 2 pack a day cigarette habit is getting near $20 in some parts.

9 posted on 01/06/2013 10:22:32 AM PST by glorgau
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To: varyouga

Ya, there’s no product competition, allowing the market place to decide.

Where do you get this “most” garbage?

Do you have any choices in transportation, appliances, tools, electronics, food, clothing.....?

There are a few area’s where your paranoid scenario occurs and it’s important to correct those, but it certainly isn’t the prevalent business model in America.

It’s has no bearing on exploding drug use in our culture.


10 posted on 01/06/2013 10:32:57 AM PST by G Larry (Which of Obama's policies do you think I'd support if he were white?)
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To: glorgau

Prohibition didn’t work then and does not work now. I would rather Anheuser Busch handle cocaine leaf distribution. We tax it but keep the price low enough people want do home invasions.


11 posted on 01/06/2013 10:40:41 AM PST by I_BE_THE_ONE
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To: Kaslin

And don’t forget the billions Hollywood makes with narco-themed movies... (all the while snorting up a good percentage of the product)


12 posted on 01/06/2013 10:52:06 AM PST by Moltke ("I am Dr. Sonderborg," he said, "and I don't want any nonsense.")
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To: Kaslin
Marijuana represents roughly 60 percent of the cartels’ profits in the U.S. market. Legalization in the U.S. would cause economic damage to the illicit Mexican drug industry greater than 45 years of interdiction wars. Legalization would have to follow a licensing, taxing and marketing model along the lines of the U.S. alcoholic beverage and tobacco products industries. Any hippie-dippy, free form marketplace will quickly be dominated by criminals.

If marijuana is removed from the “war” public resources can be focused on narcotics. When Nixon waged his “War on Drugs” the funding was roughly 75 percent for education/treatment and 25 percent for law enforcement/interdiction. Over the years this ratio has reversed with law enforcement getting the lion's share and the result has been zilch. As controversial as methadone clinics are they remove the addict and his money from the outlaw market and give him the breathing space to build a productive life.

Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico's newly elected president, has reached out to the U.S. for help with the cartels. If he's serious the U.S. could mount the type of high-tech military programs (electronic eavesdropping) that helped diminish the Colombian cartels and restore order in Colombia. An important component in Colombia was the emergence of a large, armed vigilante group that turned the cartels’ own terror tactics against them. It was unpleasant but it worked.

What throws a wrench in any of these ideas is the monetary power of the cartels and their ability to influence U.S. policy through bribery and other forms of corruption.

13 posted on 01/06/2013 11:05:38 AM PST by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
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To: Brad from Tennessee

“What throws a wrench in any of these ideas is the monetary power of the cartels and their ability to influence U.S. policy through bribery and other forms of corruption.”

I assume the existing body of law and policy is the result of just such subornation and corruption.

You should, too.


14 posted on 01/06/2013 11:34:16 AM PST by headsonpikes (Mass murder and cannibalism are the twin sacraments of socialism - "Who-whom?"-Lenin)
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To: Kaslin

Never fear, Everyone of our Too Big To Fail Banks in this Country , who by the way are under Direct Control of the Federal Reserve Corporation, Who also is Under Direct Control of US Treasury, ie El Presidente and Congress. Will Still continue to LAUNDER ALL OF THEIR MONEY.


15 posted on 01/06/2013 11:42:52 AM PST by eyeamok
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To: headsonpikes

The below link is dated but I believe accurate:

http://www.aim.org/special-report/the-hidden-soros-agenda-drugs-money-the-media-and-political-power/


16 posted on 01/06/2013 1:48:22 PM PST by Brad from Tennessee (A politician can't give you anything he hasn't first stolen from you.)
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To: G Larry
Assuming folks read this entire article before posting, does anybody really believe that relaxing U.S. drug laws would limit the profits to the drug cartels?

Nobody claims that "relaxing" U.S. drug laws would limit the profits to the drug cartels - but eliminating those laws (except for standard product regulations against fraudulent claims and contamination) would do so by the simple economics of increased competition.

They are already employing mafia tactics to maintain control in the “medical mj” market.

Evidence? The article doesn't say this.

17 posted on 01/06/2013 1:54:56 PM PST by JustSayNoToNannies ("The Lord has removed His judgments against you" - Zep. 3:15)
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To: Brad from Tennessee
So what? Soros wears pants - does that mean you won't?
18 posted on 01/06/2013 1:56:26 PM PST by JustSayNoToNannies ("The Lord has removed His judgments against you" - Zep. 3:15)
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To: Moltke
And don’t forget the billions Hollywood makes with narco-themed movies...

I keep hearing on FR about how movies and TV "glamorize" drug use - but I haven't actually seen such a depiction in many years.

19 posted on 01/06/2013 1:59:34 PM PST by JustSayNoToNannies ("The Lord has removed His judgments against you" - Zep. 3:15)
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To: SatinDoll
How much effort would it take to eliminate the demand here, in the U.S.A., for cocaine?

It would take a police state. How did we do on eliminating the demand here, in the U.S.A., for the mind-altering drug alcohol?

20 posted on 01/06/2013 2:02:50 PM PST by JustSayNoToNannies ("The Lord has removed His judgments against you" - Zep. 3:15)
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