Contents:

Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling: Lessons from the Inside

Lessons from the Inside Scott H. Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling features interviews with 34 convicted drug smugglers -- most of them once major operators -- detailing exactly how drugs are smuggled into the U. These sources provide tangible evidence of the risks, rewards, and organization of international drug smuggling. Quoting frequently from their interviews, Decker and Chapman explain how individuals are recruited into smuggling, why they stay in it, and how their roles change over time. They describe the specific strategies their interviewees employed to bring drugs into the country and how they previously escaped apprehension.

Over-all, the authors find that drug smuggling is organized in a series of networks which are usually unconnected. This extraordinarily informative book will be of particular interest to law enforcement officials and policymakers, but it will appeal to anyone who wants to know how the drug business actually works. Motivation for the Study pp. Understanding Drug Smuggling pp. Impact of Drug Interdiction Efforts pp.

Organization of the Study p.

Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling: Lessons from the Inside

Drug Smuggling Organizations p. Movement Away from Cartels pp. Structure and Movement of Drugs pp. Movement of Drugs p. Methods of Transport pp. Drug Smuggling Roles pp. Recruitment into Drug Smuggling pp. Motivation for Drug Smuggling pp. The sample comprises individuals who were sentenced by U.

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Out of a total of 73 individuals who were approached, 34 agreed to be interviewed. These respondents, the authors assume, were among "the highest-level drug smugglers confined in federal institutions" at the time of the study p. Two described themselves as "managers of operations" who were running a whole operation.

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The majority of respondents, 22 out of 34, were involved with the transportation of the drugs, describing their role as that of either "transportation manager" 14 , "transporter" 6 or "off-loader" 2. Five respondents functioned as brokers between Colombian suppliers and U. Three individuals in the sample did not admit to any specific roles.

At the time of sentencing, no respondent had been younger than 26 years with most having been in their 30s and 40s and eight respondents beyond the age of All respondents are male, most of them Hispanics, among which Cubans and Colombians form the two largest groups, comprising 10 and 7 individuals, respectively.

The semi-structured, open-ended face-to-face interviews were recorded and transcribed, using a translator "when needed" p. As the authors explain, they have confidence in the veracity of the information provided as the "vast majority of interviewees were forthcoming, and responses rarely contradicted the information provided" by the presentence reports which had been used to select interviewees p. The declared purpose of the study is, first of all, to explore how the interviewed drug smugglers operated and what they did to reduce the risks of being caught.

Following from these observations, the study also aims at formulating interdiction strategies that exploit situations in "which a smuggler may have been deterred from smuggling drugs into the United States" p. The findings of the study, some of which have been previously published in an Abt Associates, Inc.

Extensive direct quotations from the interviews are presented along with summaries of the respondents' statements.

A number of interesting aspects are addressed in this way, including the modus operandi of drug smuggling into the U. Most of the respondents 21 had been involved in smuggling operations that used private boats for bringing drugs into the United States. Commercial ships or commercial planes, respectively, were less commonly chosen as means of transport.

The authors note that only few individuals in the sample were familiar with smuggling across the U.

Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling: Lessons from the Inside

Many of the smugglers reported that until the mid s the primary drug exported from Colombia to the United States was marijuana and that in the absence of strict controls thousands of pounds of marijuana sitting on the deck could be brought into the country by boat. It was only in response to increasing interdiction efforts that smugglers switched to cocaine as the more valuable and easier to transport drug. The basic modus operandi most often described in the interviews involved drugs being brought by Colombians to mid-shipment points in countries closer to the United States, such as the Bahamas, Cuba, Aruba, Haiti, Honduras, and Puerto Rico.

The Bahamas had been a favorite mid-shipment point for transport of both marijuana and cocaine because of the large number of uninhabited islands which make it difficult for Bahamian authorities and American law enforcement to monitor and control movement. However, the presence of pirates made the Bahamas also a risky place for drug smugglers to operate.

Cuba was used by at least four of the interviewed smugglers who stated that it was the most secure mid-shipment point, since the Cuban government could be paid off and U. From the mid-shipment points the drugs would mostly be transported by boat to Florida. There the drugs would either be offloaded directly or, when the drugs were hidden in a compartment, as seems to have been common by the mid s, the boat would be taken out of the water and cut open to remove the drugs. The smugglers in the sample claimed that compartments could be designed in such a way that they would not be detected in most cases a boat is boarded by law enforcement.

Five respondents cited commercial freighters as the easiest and safest way to bring drugs, especially large shipments of up to five thousand kilograms, into the United States. However, while this method takes advantage of the sheer volume of international trade, reportedly it is also more costly and requires a higher level of coordination between a higher number of individuals compared to other smuggling schemes. Smuggling drugs through airports is considered more risky and at the same time less profitable because only small loads can be transported on a passenger's body or in the luggage.

As the authors explain, the interviews were not focused on describing smuggling operations. Still, they were able to collect some information on the structure of drug smuggling enterprises which they view as supporting the notion that a shift has occurred away from centralized "cartels" to numerous "less organized groups" p.

In this Book

Chris Bickford rated it really liked it Sep 16, Five respondents functioned as brokers between Colombian suppliers and U. Impact of Drug Interdiction Efforts pp. Dave Wilcox rated it liked it May 11, Jason Schmidt is currently reading it Feb 17, This book gives a straightforward account of drug smuggling through the eyes of incarcerated, mostly high-level drug smugglers. Return to Book Page.

One interviewee is quoted as saying the following: It was worse because in the beginning there is an organization. There's people being organized. Now you got people everywhere, you know? And it doesn't mean that's going to generate seven hundred kilos for every little person that is left. No, these people-this one might deal with ten and the other ten.

The authors describe the new structure as that of "two-tiered networks made up of core and periphery members" p. The core networks are made up of what the interviewees described as "offices", a term which apparently is to be taken quite literally. These "offices" organize specific aspects of an operation, such as supply, packaging, transportation, distribution and money management.