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How illegal drugs enter an island country: insights from interviews with incarcerated smugglers

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/17440570902782477

1744-0580

Jonathan P. Caulkins, Honora Burnett, Edward Leslie,

Island Studies and Pacific Affairs

Abstract A typology of drug smuggling 'technologies' is developed based on interviews with 110 inmates incarcerated in UK prisons for importing illegal drugs. Approximately three-quarters were involved in courier-based operations. The other 30 collectively accounted for substantially greater smuggling throughput capacity and fell into five groups: operations employing 'bent' lorry drivers; shipping drugs intermingled with legitimate commerce; transporting drugs on commercial airlines with assistance from corrupt officials; mailing drugs into the UK; and smuggling via boats landing between ports of entry. A Pareto Law seems to apply, with a minority of respondents being responsible for the majority of the smuggling. Most participated in smuggling to make money, but more than a few couriers reported being coerced and/or tricked into carrying drugs. Perhaps not coincidentally, rough calculations suggest that, when balancing profits against prison risk, crime does not pay for couriers but can for organizations employing bent lorry drivers. Keywords: smugglingdrug policyindustry structureorganized crime Acknowledgements This work was funded in part by the Qatar Foundation and Qatar National Research Program and is based on data collected by Matrix Knowledge Group for its project The Illicit Drug Trade in the United Kingdom, conducted for the UK Home Office. We thank many colleagues, notably Peter Reuter and Laura Wilson, for their insightful comments and suggestions. Notes 1. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2005 World Drug Report (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Nicola Singleton, Rosemary Murray and Louise Tinsley, 'Measuring Different Aspects of Problem Drug Use: Methodological Developments', Home Office Online Report 16/06 (2006), http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs06/rdsolr1606.pdf. 2. Social costs are hard to pin down. The statement is certainly true with respect to so-called Cost of Illness (COI) estimates, but is probably true more generally. Domestic production of cannabis is common, but cannabis generates far fewer social costs per user or per kilogram than do other drugs. T.J. Moore, The Social Costs of Illicit Drugs in Australia. Report for the Australian Federal Police (Fitzroy: Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre 2006). 3. Frederick Desroches, 'Research on Upper Level Drug Trafficking: A Review', Journal of Drug Issues 37 (2007): 827–44. 4. Peter Reuter and John Haaga, The Organization of High-Level Drug Markets: An Exploratory Study (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1989). 5. Scott Decker and Margaret Chapman, Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling: Lessons from the Inside (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press 2008). 6. Vincenzo Ruggiero and Kazim Kahn, 'British South Asian Communities and Drug Supply Networks in the UK: A Qualitative Study', International Journal of Drug Policy 17 (2006): 473–83. 7. Nicholas Dorn, Michael Levi and Leslie King, 'Literature Review on Upper Level Drug Trafficking', The Home Office of the United Kingdom Online Report 22/05 (2005); Desroches, 'Research on Upper Level Drug Trafficking', http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs05/rdsolr2205.pdf 8. Frederick Desroches, The Crime that Pays: Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime in Canada (Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press 2005). 9. Damian Zaitch, Trafficking Cocaine: Colombian Drug Entrepreneurs in the Netherlands (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2002). 10. Matrix Knowledge Group, 'The Illicit Drug Trade in the United Kingdom', Home Office Online Report 20/07 (2007), http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/rdsolr2007.pdf 11. Ethnographic studies: Patricia Adler, Wheeling and Dealing: An Ethnography of an Upper-Level Drug Dealing and Smuggling Community (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985). Journalistic accounts: James Mills, The Underground Empire: Where Crime and Government Embrace (New York: Doubleday 1986). Case studies: Joseph R. Fuentes, 'Life of a Cell: Managerial Practice and Strategy in Colombian Cocaine Distribution in the United States' (PhD diss., City University of New York, 1998); and Carlo Morselli, 'Structuring Mr. Nice: Entrepreneurial Opportunities and Brokerage Positioning in the Cannabis Trade', Crime, Law and Social Change 35 (2001): 203–44. 12. Simulation: Gordon Crawford and Peter Reuter, Simulation of Adaptive Response: A Model of Drug Interdiction (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1988); Jonathan Caulkins, Gordon Crawford and Peter Reuter, 'Simulation of Adaptive Response: A Model of Drug Interdiction', Mathematical and Computer Modeling 17 (1993): 37–52; and Peter Reuter, Gordon Crawford and Jonathan Cave, Sealing the Borders: The Effects of Increased Military Participation on Drug Interdiction (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1988). Systems analysis: Keith Gardiner and Raymond Shreckengost, 'A System Dynamics Model for Estimating Heroin Imports into the United States', System Dynamics Review 3 (1987): 8–27; and Peter Rydell and Susan Everingham, Controlling Cocaine. Supply Versus Demand Programs (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1994). Modeling: Jonathan Caulkins and Rema Padman, 'Interdiction's Impact on the Structure and Behavior of the Export–Import Sector for Illicit Drugs', Zeitschrift fur Operations Research 37 (1993): 207–24; and Jonathan Caulkins and Haijing Hao, 'Modeling Drug Market Supply Disruptions: Where Do All the Drugs Not Go?', Journal of Policy Modeling 30 (2008): 251–70. Policy analysis: Peter Reuter, 'Quantity Illusions and Paradoxes of Drug Interdiction: Federal Intervention into Vice Policy', Law and Contemporary Problems 51 (1988): 233–52; Peter Reuter, Eternal Hope: America's International Narcotics Efforts (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1985); and Claudia Costa Storti and Paul De Grauwe, 'Modeling the Cocaine and Heroin Markets in the Era of Globalization and Drug Reduction Policies', Mimeo. 13. Matrix Knowledge Group, 'The Illicit Drug Trade in the United Kingdom'. 14. Mark A.R. Kleiman, 'The Problem of Replacement and the Logic of Drug Law Enforcement', Drug Policy Analysis Bulletin, 3 (1997), 8–10. 15. Respondents who camouflaged drugs described, among other schemes, using a secret compartment or lining of a suitcase, mixing drugs into hair gel or sewing them into robes. It is not clear how often these measures fool Customs. One respondent carried liquid cocaine in bottles of hot sauce only to discover on arrival that this trick was well known to Customs. 16. Penny Green, Chris Mills and Tim Read. 'The Characteristics and Sentencing of Illegal Drug Importers', British Journal of Criminology, 34, no. 4 (1994): 479–86; 38% of the 342 couriers carrying Class A drugs in Green et al.'s study received sentences of 7 years or longer and, hence, would have been eligible for inclusion in the sample considered here. 17. The respondent claimed the organization had revenues of £250,000 from delivering 10–15 kg to a customer in London, and that this netted the boss about £100,000. The respondent accounted for most of the £150,000 in costs implied by that level of profit. Successful couriers earned £2500 per trip for carrying 3–5 kg, suggesting courier costs of £7500–10,000. The respondent (organizer) earned £15,000–25,000 per trip and thought the corrupt Customs official might have been paid £10,000–15,000 per trip or perhaps more. Assuming the 20–30 kg of cocaine shipped in order for 10–15 kg to get through had been obtained for £3000 per kg, this suggests materials costs of £60,000–90,000. Additional costs include plane tickets, paying the artist to conceal the cocaine in plates, and other operating costs. Another respondent (a boss) described a similar operation with similar finances but slightly higher net revenues. He reported a frequency of two flights per month, suggesting a throughput capacity of several hundred kg per year and net revenues of ∼£7 million per year. 18. Singleton et al. 'Measuring Different Aspects Of Problem Drug Use'. 19. The pilot had been operating a legitimate air transportation business when he became involved with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The respondent claimed initially to have been coerced by the IRA, but also said he was paid £70,000 for the first trip, and continued to receive money from the IRA throughout his drug trafficking career. The respondent hauled drugs and guns from various European locations into the UK through the Liverpool and Birmingham Airports. The largest single load of cannabis he reported was 2.5 metric tons and the largest payment he received was £250,000, suggesting a rate of £100 per kg. The respondent said actual transport costs were only £6500–7000 per trip, suggesting that skilled labour (pilot) wages dominated other expenses. He was caught when, as part of a training program for new Customs officers, Customs was searching incoming planes. 20. Decker and Chapman, Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling. 21. Two details offered by this respondent are unique among the interviews we read. First, he claimed that the importer cut each kilogram of 75% pure heroin with 4.5 ounces of manitol, cutting the purity from 75 to 65%. Other respondents described more substantial cutting, or none at all. Second, he described each pick-up being made by a group of people divided over three cars, one to carry the drugs and two others to run interference with the police if there was trouble. Paying a team of people £5000 each per pick up is far more than most organizations pay staff, suggesting the importers were large enough to pay an 'efficiency wage' to ensure high-quality staff (e.g. the respondent was arrested along with 36 others from low-level sellers up to people at his level, but no one above him was arrested). The respondent also described getting a very good price for the 5 kg purchases (£15,000 per kg). A last possibly confirmatory observation is that another respondent reported buying quantities of heroin – up to 60 kg per purchase for 15+ purchases per year – that, if true, suggest the existence of an importer of this scale. Those tidbits lend some credence to what otherwise would seem to be an account of an organization with an implausibly large throughput capacity. 22. Receivers were paid £10,000 per box, and people to whom the box was addressed received £5000 per box, apparently without knowing for sure the boxes contained drugs. The only other cost mentioned was £600 per month to rent a house where the drugs were stored before being distributed to the 50–200 lower-level dealers they supplied. The respondent was arrested when DHL called the police about a suspicious box, and the police made a controlled delivery. That arrest did not stop the organization. 23. Six to repay a debt, two to support their drug habits, four for common expenses associated with low-income families such as feeding children and paying a mortgage, two each to cover expenses with illness in the family (sister's HIV treatment and sick mother), financial difficulties associated with their business in Africa, and travel costs to return to Africa from Europe. 24. Knowledge Group, 'The Illicit Drug Trade in the United Kingdom'; and Reuter and Haaga, The Organization of High-Level Drug Markets. 25. Forty-seven of 66 plane couriers, seven out of 13 confessed non-plane couriers and 10 out of 30 non-couriers got involved with drug trafficking by being invited by someone they knew, rather than a stranger, a recruiter or self-starting. Prison, prior smuggling or criminal involvement, and family smuggling businesses were also mentioned as ways respondents got started in drug distribution, but comprised a smaller part of the sample. On the other hand, nine of the 66 plane couriers, two of 13 non-plane couriers and 10 of the 30 non-courier respondents were clearly self-initiating. For the others there was insufficient information to make a determination. 26. James Wilson and Allan Abrahamse, 'Does Crime Pay?', Justice Quarterly 9 (1992): 359–97; Pierre Tremblay and Carlo Morselli, 'Patterns in Criminal Achievement: Wilson and Abrahamse Revisited', Criminology 38 (2000): 663–69; and Peter Reuter and Robert MacCoun, 'Are the Wages of Sin $30 an Hour? Economic Aspects of Street-level Drug Dealing', Crime and Delinquency 38 (1992): 477–92. 27. Peter Reuter and Mark Kleiman, 'Risks and Prices: An Economic Analysis of Drug Enforcement?', in N. Morris and M. Tonry (eds) Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research 7 (1986): 289–340. 28. Jonathan Caulkins, C.P. Rydell, William Schwabe and James Chiesa, Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences: Throwing Away the Key or the Taxpayers' Money? (Santa Monica, CA: RAND 1997). 29. A. Blumstein, J.A. Canela-Cacho and J. Cohen, 'Filtered Sampling from Populations with Heterogeneous Event Frequencies', Management Science 39, no. 7 (1993): 886–99. 30. Singleton et al., 'Measuring Different Aspects of Problem Drug Use'. 31. G. Farrell, K. Mansur and M. Tullis, 'Cocaine and Heroin in Europe 1983–1993: A Cross-national Comparison of Trafficking and Prices', British Journal of Criminology, 36 (1996): 255–81. 32. Decker and Chapman, Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling. 33. Decker and Chapman, Drug Smugglers on Drug Smuggling