[gwern]

'Money doesn't stink', as the Roman Emperor said. Who's to say they aren't selling?

But in any case, money and planes are pretty fungible. Perhaps they use straw buyers, or perhaps they simply buy used. Plenty of 747s out there now.

[ChuckMcM]

I was going to say the same thing, you see a lot of them parked on the tarmac in Mojave with out of business livery or sometimes just painted white.

There have been stories of folks laundering money in the middle east where there are apparently a lot of 'cash' jobs that take US currency, still the cartoon picture of the pallets of cash was pretty hilarious. I wonder if you could trade a pallet of cash for a check from a Saudi Prince?

I am most fascinated by the tunnels though. At some point these guys will be able to plan long enough ahead that they can buy a tunnel boring machine and starting south of the border have it end up in like down town San Diego. Maybe they could fund one of those evacuated tunnel trains we read about here recently :-). Given the work on quad copters I'm still surprised that there aren't semi autonomous groups of quad-copter mules carrying cocaine in swarms from point A to point B.

[cdibona]

Tunnel boring machines are extremely difficult to buy and more difficult still to run without oversight. They're just incredibly complex and hard to maintain machines. It's not impossible mind you , I mean, the cartels have all kinds of expertise available to them, but consider that the cartels have access to humans enslaved by their drug habits. Many people, fueled by cocaine, with picks and shovels can make short work of a tunnel like those described in the article.

[ChuckMcM]

You are much more practical than I am Chris. Looking at what humans, motivated by gold, did to the Sierras I'd have to concur it would be far simpler to do it your way.

[fkn]

If that day were to come, as a hacker, how do you turn down a chance to work with a well-funded customer that want you to build a evacuated tunnel train, but on the other hand, this is essentially blood money. A passion vs moral dilemma...