7 ms·
Valuing drugs at street value when they’re still at a lower value part of the supply chain makes for a good headline. But it’s really not an accurate portrayal
by jdavis703 5y ago
Valuing drugs at street value when they’re still at a lower value part of the supply chain makes for a good headline. But it’s really not an accurate portrayal of the real cost. I’d be interested to know how much cocaine this was based on how much cocaine is produced annually.
- kyleblarson 5y ago20 tons is still a respectable amount of yayo.
- s5300 5y agoI think a Kilo in Mexico is $5K, less in bulk Kilos. Selling on the street in US that Kilo stretches to $80k or so. So I would imagine the cartels running the actual coca production sites that sell to the people selling for $5k… is probably $1k or so, $2.5k at the very most. There’s reasons Chapo and such had literally billions in cash just sitting in warehouses being eaten by rats. They make a looot of money
- selimthegrim 5y agoCitation on the rats?
- jdavis703 5y agoEaten by rats sounds like an excuse thieves would tell their narco-terrorist boss. It’s like kids having their homework eaten by a dog right before the deadline. That’s to say, it’s likely a euphemism turned urban legend.
- nefitty 5y agoIn Narcos, something similar happens. Some money that was buried was found by a farmer, some was lost, some rotted... Escobar preceded to violently murder the people that brought him the excuse.
- Enginerrrd 5y agoI dont want to disclose my background exactly here, suffice to say I was not involved in any illegal activity, but others I knew were, and rats and just rotting cash really are genuine concerns affecting large sums of stored or buried money.
- lifeformed 5y agoWhy not store then in weatherproof boxes?
- QuercusMax 5y agoPay $20 for a Rubbermaid tub to protect hundreds of thousands of $$ seems like a reasonable tradeoff, except maybe it's hard to come by that many where they're hiding the money?
- Enginerrrd 5y agoRubbermaid tub will NOT cut it for that purpose. You really need a pelican case or similar. But... you'd be surprised, people are lazy.
- QuercusMax 5y agoI confess I'm extremely ignorant in terms of what it takes to actually store money in bulk. But it seems like literally anything would be better than just letting it rot.
- selimthegrim 5y agoI guess Enginnerd has a point.. see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29827582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29827582 and remarks at the end
- wbl 5y agoRats can chew through a lot of materials. Cash management is hard.
- gonzo 5y agohttps://www.businessinsider.com.au/pablo-escobar-and-rubber-bands-2015-9/amp https://www.businessinsider.com.au/pablo-escobar-and-rubber-...
- BrianHenryIE 5y ago"The Accountant's Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medellín Cartel", Roberto Escobar. > I know that Pablo was earning so much cash that each year we would simply write off approximately 10 percent of our money because the rats would eat it or it would be damaged beyond use by water and dampness. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Accountant_s_Story/pxzspAzTkKcC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=rats https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Accountant_s_Story/...
- s5300 5y agoI really just can’t believe they didn’t invest in some… cats… Like, if there’s ever a description of zero fucks given, I think it would have something to do with letting that much money get ruined by rats. I see multiple other replies of the citations so I won’t repost @jdavis703 I’m doubtful. I don’t think you’re aware of the sheer ruthlessness of high level narcos… they will brutally kill a lot of people over the smallest grievances, theft of petty cash included. Nobody is stealing %’s of billions of stored money & getting away with it.
- ransom1538 5y agoOh Ill one up that. Escobar in a rough spot literally burned millions of dollars to stay warm. "In addition, while his family was on the run in 1992–93, Escobar reportedly burned $2 million in order to keep his daughter warm." https://www.britannica.com/list/pablo-escobar-8-interesting-facts-about-the-king-of-cocaine https://www.britannica.com/list/pablo-escobar-8-interesting-...
- kingcharles 5y agoSome people do it for the lulz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Quid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K_Foundation_Burn_a_Million_Qu...
- short12 5y agoPablo had to bury money in farmers fields. One farmer years later found 600 million dollar For some reason he turned over all 500 million
- csdvrx 5y agoThe local police department asked the 400 million found to go towards their budget.
- endofreach 5y agoNo way a kilo costs 80k on US streets. How much does a gram cost?
- cannaceo 5y agoRight now a kilo (bird) is 20k. Ounces are $2000, 8balls are $200-250. Grams are $100. So a kilo stretching to 80k through the supply chain makes sense. That would put the final street dealer of that kilo buying on average a half ounce. That sounds about right to me. Prices in Los Angeles.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- batiudrami 5y ago$80/g is cheap if anything.
- CalChris 5y ago$25 and $200 a gram [1]. So 80k sounds about right. https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/how-much-do-drugs-cost/ https://www.addictioncenter.com/drugs/how-much-do-drugs-cost...
- technick 5y agoLocation matters, cocaine in Miami is cheaper (some might say on a multiple of 20+) than cocaine in NYC or SF. I only know this because my uncle and cousins used to run drugs for the Columbians.
- s5300 5y agoYeah, I was going to say Miami and Texas are likely the lowest. The Texas border smuggling is pretty real, as is the various ways of quickly getting to South Florida/Miami. Southern California border is nowhere near as bad as Texas in terms of smuggling LA is roughly $80/g, or it was 3ish years ago. I’d say it’s still around that. Going into the MidWest of Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philly, & North into Seattle, Portland & co is where it’s heading North of $80/g. $150/g in some of the mostly dead middle of nowhere but still metro cities then becomes a thing. I can imagine if you know a guy in NYC you could get $40/g or cheaper as massive loads come in private yachts and stuff… but average bloke is paying somewhat high
- obtino 5y agoFrom what I've heard, it's 4x the price per gram in Australia. So valuations like the ones in the linked article must be taken with some context.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- yeetaccount4 5y agoWhat’s the story, some pot grower in the early 2000’s with two plants was busted with $10m+ of street value product? After they weighed the plants, soil, roots and container of course. Minimum life sentence too, probably.
- Gustomaximus 5y agoThere was an amusing flip side in US early legalisation days where some Feds raided a dispensary and did their usual over valuation of drugs taken. They were then sued with the dispensary winning, the damages requested were of course the official police valuation.
- boring_twenties 5y agoI don't suppose you recall any details that might help us find the story? If true this would make me happier than anything else I learned in probably the past 2 years.
- Gustomaximus 5y agoSorry it was a long time ago. I think it was on reddit. Guessing Colorado as early days of legalisation but this is news article from years ago. It might have been a state not fed thing too as I was thinking about it after and that makes more sense logically. I also tried to find/link when I wrote comment but I couldn't find it again. But 100% read about this some years back and the weight/value cops used as damages used in court.
- gruez 5y ago>If true this would make me happier than anything else I learned in probably the past 2 years. until you realize that it's a nice "gotcha" moment for the cops, but the taxpayers are the ones paying the bill.
- boring_twenties 5y agoSure, and the taxpayers pay the bill every time a victim successfully sues or settles with a police department, too. So what? At the end of the day cops get away with all this shit because the taxpayers support them, whether tacitly or explicitly. Hitting them in the pocketbook is a perfectly valid tactic. Maybe once they have no money left for high school football, they'll wake up and demand that their government reign in the out of control cops. And if they don't, well, they fully deserve to pay every single victim.
- bgro 5y agoImagine if they were dumped into the ocean how good of a headline that would be. "The drugs were dumped into the ocean. The ocean, weighing 4.9x10E21 pounds, according to Google, means we just stopped 4.9x10E21 (plus a few) pounds of drugs from reaching the public. As we all know, this is the official standard measurement procedure used by police in the US. Cocaine has a street price estimate of $120 per gram on average according to Google. Because of how averages and math work (no source needed), we can just double that to $240 per gram to get the highest price out of the average. To convert grams to pounds, we just multiply by 453.59237. This means 1 pound of cocaine costs $108,862.17. 4.9x10E21 pounds, multiplied by $108,862.17 per pound means we just stopped $533,424,633,000,000,000,000,000,000 worth of cocaine from going to the general public. This is the low estimate, because it does not even include the weight and price of the original drugs or the shipping container it was in. We truly are godly and just heroes on this day."