ADVERTISEMENT
Say the Sinaloa cartel is bringing in a shipment of ingredients from China.
Then when it’s on the road to their labs, they need local cops who decide to be busy somewhere else when the finished product is heading for the US border.
Yep, you guessed it.
Every single step in that chain is a chance for the good guys to stop them and well, a chance for the bad guys to buy a friend.
And boy, has Elmeno’s crew gotten really, really good at exploiting those chances.
We’re talking heavily fortified, watched like a hawk, and staffed by thousands of dedicated pros.
And yet, tons of product still sails right on through every single day.
The cartels have got people on the payroll.
We’re talking agents, officers, and officials on both sides of that line.
Although that definitely happens more often, it’s a lot more subtle.
It’s the guy on the inside who passes along a little tip, a little heads up about where the patrols are going to be, who can spot the weak links and security protocols, or who, you know, just happen to look the other way at exactly the right time.
The cartels are experts at finding your pressure points.
Sometimes it’s the classic financial pitch offers of cash that sound like a lottery win to folks holding down government jobs that barely pay the bills.
An agent pulling in $60,000 a year might get a little whisper about $10,000, $20,000, or even a cool $50,000 for one tiny favor.
For somebody drowning in debt, staring down medical bills, or just trying to keep their family afloat, that kind of money looks like a godsend.
But cash is just one trick in their playbook.
Frankly, fear is often a better motivator.
The cartels will do their homework on an agent’s family, their kids, their spouse, their parents.
Then they’ll casually let it be known that they have this little dossier.
They’ll put on a little show, sometimes subtle, sometimes not so much, just to prove they can and will bring harm to those loved ones.
If the agent gets any bright ideas about not cooperating, all of a sudden an agent isn’t weighing right versus wrong, they’re choosing between upholding the law and keeping their child safe.
That’s a decision most people aren’t built for.
And the second an agent is on the hook, either by cash or by fear, the cartel owns them.
They can start asking for bigger favors, threaten to blow the agents cover, or just keep the cycle of payments and threats rolling.
The agent is completely stuck with no way out that doesn’t end in a prison sentence, a ruined career, and a very real possibility of danger to them and their entire family.
Look, when we’re talking about cartel corruption, this isn’t about some petty cash skimming or a few bad apples.
We are talking about enterprises that are moving billions.
Yes, that’s billions with a B.
The profits from their main product line are so mind-bogglingly huge that the cartels can drop hundreds of millions of dollars a year on operational expenses and still rake in insane amounts of cash.
Just do the simple math.
If a cartel is pushing $10 billion worth of product into the US each year, they can easily budget $1 billion for their corruption fund that covers bribes, payoffs, protection money, recruitment, and the whole support system for their criminal machine.
And they still walk away with a clean $9 billion in profit.
And that’s not even counting their side hustles like human smuggling, extortion, kidnapping, and the portfolio of legitimate businesses they use as fronts.
That kind of money buys a whole lot of friends.
It buys the silence of anyone who might talk.
It buys a heads up before law enforcement kicks down a door.
It buys intel on what the competition is up to.
It buys political clout and protection.
And this is the really scary part.
It buys a mask of legitimacy, letting these operations hide in plain sight behind what look like normal businesses and the officials they have on their payroll.
The moneyaundering schemes these guys run are more sophisticated than you can possibly imagine.
Yes, that’s billions with a B.
The profits from their main product line are so mind-bogglingly huge that the cartels can drop hundreds of millions of dollars a year on operational expenses and still rake in insane amounts of cash, crypto transactions, real estate portfolios, and everyday businesses that are just there to scrub the dirty money clean that covers bribes, payoffs, protection money, recruitment, and the whole support system for their criminal machine.
And they still walk away with a clean $9 billion in profit.
ADVERTISEMENT
