Putting the
'organized' in organized crime, necessary for Argentina's efficient
distribution of illegal drugs
By Jorge Ossona
In Argentina's big
cities, drug-dealing operates in complex equivalents of distribution
'chains.' And yet as unstable and chaotic a world as it is, the illicit
sale of narcotics may be ordered along two or three basic principles.
Cocaine trafficking
constitutes the crux of activities that flow through an established hierarchy,
from the top supplier to local-level "tips" (punteros) — your
neighborhood dealer. These should not be confused with the classic political
"dealer," drug dealers being in a different category even if both
types recognize and interact with each other.
The dealer must
inevitably have detailed information about everything happening in his or her
territory, in order to formulate the widest range of solutions. Politicians
usually tolerate local dealers — the "tips" — because they know they
are running franchise operations conceded by the police and sections of the
communal power structure. At the same time, members of their families or local
supporters — indeed themselves — might very well be consumers, which is reason
enough for interactive circuits to emerge between these two references of local
life.
People merely
perceive them differently in the neighborhood. Regardless of his or her style,
the politician is considered a positive and universal mediator in the face of
individual and collective emergencies, while the drug dealer is both feared and despised, being judged a
"merchant of death."
Cracks and
soldiers
In all
neighborhoods there is a varying number of youth gangs including boys and girls
who work and study, and "lazy" types — the familiarly termed
"ni-nis" neither working nor studying — always party to a range of
offenses. They consume considerable amounts of beer and wine at street parties,
or other alcoholic beverages "blended" variously with mind-altering
substances that circulate in a little-studied market.
The most
compulsive of these, the "cracks" (fisura), are also
small-time dealers.
Some of these can
become "tips" or neighborhood dealers, for which they will need arms
and vehicles — mainly motorbikes — and backers or garantors higher up in the
drug hierarchy.
They must also
have a parental structure that will give them the rationale they lack, through
division of labor and a fixed domicile guarded by "soldiers." These
youngsters' temerity is fed by showing off their cars, motorbikes,
expensive phones and sophisticated weapons. Their group would eventually need an
emblematic name that somehow expresses its "ethics" and the
"destiny" it must live out without hypocrisy.
Above neighborhood
gangs are the "wholesalers," a more silent level of suppliers who
managed at some point to move up the difficult cursus honorum of
drug dealing. Personal references are more important at this level than your
family or group. The quantities sold here are greater than those of the
neighborhood, so the only people arriving at the wholesaler's home are envoys
of neighborhood dealers who are customers.
Cocaine is at the
heart of the chain, but a dealer at this level can also sell marijuana
independently, usually provided by Paraguayan dealers. Wholesalers have a
defined jurisdiction and specific subordinates, with exclusive relationships
that cannot be bypassed without breaking the professinoal "code."
Drugs and politics
Then there is the large-scale distributor, who confers the
"seal" or label to the entire chain, and imposes minimum standards of
quality on what neighborhood dealers sell in his or her name. The third-level
trafficker's reputation and competitiveness are at stake in the neighborhood.
Every week the entire chain pays those monies agreed on, with which they will
pay their next-level Peruvian, Bolivian or Colombian suppliers
living in luxury districts, but also "taxes" owed to the State in the
zone where their franchise operates.
Situated in a
comfortable position between the second and third levels is a middleman or
"reference" (referente), a strategic figure ensuring that the
entire chain functions. The "reference" handles total, gross
quantities coming in from the third-level distributor and monies paid in by
neighborhood "wholesalers." The middle man is the one who pays off
the corrupt police "street chief" with what is referred to as the
"toll charge."
This is taken to
the commissioner who sends a portion of the booty onto a "communal
godfather" who may be at the summit of the political pyramid. This last
circuit almost always involves a territory's secretive political
"dealers," who also negotiate with police the protection to be given
for other crimes committed in their zone of influence.
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