Pretty interesting discussion guys, a few observations.....
1. @ m2w
For the Calabrians, America means Canada. Not the U.S. But as we see recently, that's changing rapidly. The Gambinos and Bonnanos seem to be creating structural ties to the Calabrian clans.
Also, they are the ONLY mafia present on every continent. Mexico has the US. The Calabrese have Germany, Australia, Vast interest in Canada, ( I'm talking cities where they have people on the ground, active locally, they have a LOT of locales...) the most entrenched in Northern Italy......
2. Mexican power right NOW, is centered on control of the heroin trade. They now produce high grade heroin, as well as direct contacts to the fentanyl producers in China.
( I'm a little lost on the situation in Mexico. Word awhile ago was that the El Mencho,was the now the most powerful guy in the country. This is the New Jalisco group, and their power from what I understand is Meth. And they declared war on Sinaloa for control of the plazas, the trafficking routes, I'm not sure where this stands....probably a stalemate....)
Funny thing though is that I believe Sinaloa supplies Australia, or at least some of the cells there, it's actually kinda complicated....
Most of the time you see a big bust of Calabrian coke, it was sourced directly in Colombia, it's BEEN like this since at least the late 90s.....
Like the Aquino -Collucio group had ties to the Zetas, but that just the Aquino -Collucio group. Other groups might say, have an agent present in Brazil, ( think Vincenzo Macri..) or Colombia, The Gambinos were in Venezuela.
3. It's been like a decade now, so I'm not sure if it's still the case, but the coke boom in Europe is best compared to 80s era America. Cocaine definitely rules Europe right now....heroin rules here. Hence the Gambino-Ursino coke to Italy heroin to US thing......
4. The whole discussion about the money made per kilo reminds me of this little dynamic in the drug trade that often goes overlooked, peep this .....
“THE COLOMBIANS also couldn’t stop. Their addiction wasn’t psychological. It was economic. The more successful we were in smuggling, the less money they made per kilo. That was the twist of it. We flooded the market with so much cocaine that by 1983 the wholesale price of a kilo kept dropping. It had gone from $50,000 in the late 1970s to as low as $6,000 a kilo at one point. That meant that to make the same amount of money in 1983 as they did in 1978, the Colombians had to move almost ten times as much coke”
Excerpt From: Jon Roberts & Evan Wright. “American Desperado.” Crown Publishers, 2011-11-01. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
Check out this book on the iBooks Store:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/american-desperado/id422523338?mt=11Now I posted that to illustrate that paradoxically, the more coke you see an organization shipping, the LESS money they make. They are actually empowering the DISTRIBUTORS, who actually end up making MORE per kilo than the producers. This dynamic is precisely why the Mexicans got so powerful.
Take Luciano during prohibition. He said if you forget the danger part, a case of imported scotch was like 25 dollars. Get it ashore and it's like 1000 dollars. Water it down and " step on it", and sale it retail, clearly even though the guy in Scottland is totally secure and risk free, he's not making near off one case what the distributor is, see? Same shit with drugs.....
5. This brings to me to my next point...
Very interesting that the article says coke distribution is becoming more intense with more groups involved.
There was something posted awhile back saying that Holland was receiving so much coke the per kilo price had dropped to like 6000. ( This very same problem is happening with weed, the price keeps dropping cause they are producing more than ever, at a higher grade than ever...)
At that price shipping it might cost more than the profit. ( I checked, it's 1600 a kilo in Colombia, so still a profit but MUCH smaller than a distributors profits..)
Now this would be GREAT for distributors, All the Wholesalers had to meet and decide on a real price. Just like OPEC.They had to Cartelize like the 7 group did with liquor. In Mexico, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Central America like Guatemala, I think coke is 10 grand a kilo. That NY Mom n Pop Queens thing. They got it from Costa Rica, I think 10 grand a Ki. The guy from Canada, Scoppa? Was based in Mexico right, or he was there to organize? Well 2000 a Ki beats 10000 a Ki.
I'm just illustrating that unless they grow it there, Mexico can't ever beat that price. That's why they started to direct production in Peru. Their leverage is that it HAS to go through Mexico if the Caribbean routes are too hot. But then I've asked everyone to pay more attention to the Carribean routes right? ( Wink, wink)
So clearly it's MUCH more attractive to have your guy IN South America somewhere organizing shipments. This leverage I believe is what keeps the Calabrians on top of the Europe coke trade, they have trusted relations with the producers....
I think a European based group could just send an agent to Holland, like the Russians did with Spain, when everyone was setting up shop in Costa del Sol. Because that was the coke Hub.
5. I think you guys are TOTALLY forgetting both Peru and Bolivia.
Bolivia goes overlooked because NONE of their coke barons ever leave Bolivia.
I read a book by a DEA guy, he said a TON of Escobars coke was actually sourced from Bolivia.... I'll post links when I track em down....
