Freakonomics has done several pieces about drug profits, which are often startingly low. I know specifically that they talked about crack dealers at one point, but I'm unsure if they addressed other drugs. The bottom line for them was that one or two people at the top made nearly all the money, and everyone else was working it just to try to get to the top.
You might check the Freakonomics blog and search various drug terms there. They'd likely cite some of their sources.
You may have a slightly easier time narrowing down the last bit if you specify the kind of drug. Powder cocaine vs. crack, for instance, will have vast differences, and there are all kinds of other variables like what it's cut with and so on.
i don't need to get into specifics about what it's cut with for the storyline, but if it makes a difference here then maybe someone else can tell me instead. I'm happy to go with high quality stuff? ROFL, i have no freakin idea! cos it's not something i have ever involved myself with.
And it's coming out of Mexico so i'm going to go with cocaine probably.
would be be looking at $1 million, $10 million, $100 million?? a heap less, a heap more??
You hear of drug busts where they find $200 million worth of drugs... so how much of that would be profit? Would that one shipment of drugs just be one of many for a good operation over a year?
Those figures are worked out by multiplying the street price by the weight seized. There will be several layers of people between the street dealer and the importer each of who takes their share. So someone who imports a $200m consignment like that will probably sell it for $25m to a dozen distributors. If that consignment cost them $5m to buy and another $5m to arrange the importation there's a profit of $15m which has to be laundered into the banking system which is going to cost at least 10% maybe 20%. With say six shipments a year, one of which gets seized by the authorities you're talking about $50m a year
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You might check the Freakonomics blog and search various drug terms there. They'd likely cite some of their sources.
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And it's coming out of Mexico so i'm going to go with cocaine probably.
would be be looking at $1 million, $10 million, $100 million?? a heap less, a heap more??
You hear of drug busts where they find $200 million worth of drugs... so how much of that would be profit? Would that one shipment of drugs just be one of many for a good operation over a year?
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