Wait wait, don't most sophisticated drug syndacites smuggle the drugs in themselves? Or at least halfway? I don't really think that we can truely count the suppliers themselves as the top of the drug chain, I say it is instead the wholesale distributors, because without them the suppliers would simply be out of business and its not always the suppliers getting the drugs into the country by themelves.
The American Mafia smuggled narcotics in itself. Later on it was the Sicilian Mafia who smuggled the drugs in and either distributed on it's own (while paying the LCN a tax) or turning the drugs over to LCN middle-men. Later on, when the Chinese took over the heroin business for about a decade, they smuggled the drugs in. The Colombian and Mexican groups now are the dominant smugglers and most other groups get their supply either directly from them or somewhere down the chain. If you control the supply and upper wholesale level of the drug trade, you're at the top. Everyone else is dependant on you. There are many mid-level sophisticated drug groups in the U.S. but they don't smuggle the drugs in themselves. Another good example of a group at the top is the Rizzuto organization in Montreal, which smuggles narcotics into that region.
