[BigTigger]

The economies of scale are crazy as well.

the US government spends $100 million on sensors yet the catels stand to make (if you can believe the figures) "$16 million wholesale" for one shipment of cocaine via this method.

The drug cartels stand to make more selling drugs than the US government spent trying to stop them in merely 7 trips with an ultralight

[positr0n]

$16 million is revenue, not profit, but I agree the scale is amazing. I know the price of cocaine in America is thousands of times more than straight out of the lab in Columbia. I wonder how big of a cut each group takes from the massive profit as it works it's way to America...

[base698]

You can get Columbian coffee for $7/pound in a grocery store in the US. It can't be that much different in the raw manufacturing costs.

[StavrosK]

Why do people misspell Colombia like that all the time?

[pessimizer]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

Because in English, that second 'o' in such an awkward place would obviously become a schwa, and because the country's namesake is spelled with a 'u' in English, too?

[lwat]

The manufacturing cost is about zero but there are other costs, like transport.

[alberich]

Indeed....

"There’s a reason coke and heroin cost so much more on the street than at the farm gate: you’re not paying for the drugs; you’re compensating everyone along the distribution chain for the risks they assumed in getting them to you. Smugglers often negotiate, in actuarial detail, about who will be held liable in the event of lost inventory. After a bust, arrested traffickers have been known to demand a receipt from authorities, so that they can prove the loss was not because of their own negligence (which would mean they might have to pay for it) or their own thievery (which would mean they might have to die). Some Colombian cartels have actually offered insurance policies on narcotics, as a safeguard against loss or seizure."(source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/magazine/how-a-mexican-dru...)

[hessenwolf]

This reminds me of the buccaneering articles in Rafael Sabatini's 'Captain Blood'. So nothing has changed, I see...