Today Valentina's daddy dropped by on his way from a meeting he had in Costa Rica. He was on his way home when he wanted to see his two favorite princesses. And then his cell phone rang and he had to leave asap for an emergency meeting. I think it has something to do with the plane crash and the 4tonnes of blow that was found on board.
What do you suppose happens at a meeting held by a Drug Kingpin? See, a Colombian Drug Kingpin is first and foremost a very intelligent and educated businessman with multiple degrees. The Drug Cartel is like any successful corporation with a President and CEO. Present at these meetings are all US or European educated economists, lawyers, financial advisers, accountants, bank managers, transportation advisers, security and intelligence detail and at times high ranking police, army and government officials. Police, army and government officials, does that surprise you?
Close to 1-2 million dollars a year is shelled out to police and
government officials to turn a blind eye. How else do you think such large amounts of drugs are smuggled into this country? I'm not talking about mules. I'm talking about tonnes of drugs. Boarder patrol agents act as if they are so patriotic to their country but believe me a lot of them are corrupt. Anybody can be bought for the right amount. But what these people don't know is, the very moment you take their money you've sold your soul to the devil because there is no escape clause. You try to escape and the result will be the death of your loved ones. Their blood will be on your hands.
What is discussed at these meetings: the logistics of importing, storing and distributing the product. They discuss acquisition, production, transportation, sales, finance. What and where to invest their billions of dollars, the exchange rate in foreign countries. Then there are the over sea managers who handle the product when it has entered into their country. These managers are hired and approved by the Cartel. A representative from the Cartel is sent on behalf of them to fully check them out and to make sure they are not connected to the police in anyway. Once they are hired, the representative will tell the manager that he must put up his house and car as collateral and his family as human collateral so they will never turn informer. Then the manager will sell the product to a wholesaler who then resells it to middlemen who then resells it to street dealers. Communication is done through encrypted emails and text messages and if spoken on the phone, after each call a new cell phone is bought with a new number. Then comes the money, laundering the millions and millions into off-shore accounts and well it's not easy but the Cartels are ingenious and everything is always masterfully and perfectly planned.
Just think of the Drug Cartel as a very, very, very, very long ladder. And to get to the top you need to pass a lot of powerful, very connected and dangerous people.
When I was 6 years old I visited Valentina in Colombia and one day her daddy took us both to his office. It was in a huge building and his office was at the very top, the 24th floor. We were in a huge boardroom sitting to one side with a toy store catalogue. Her daddy told us to mark off what things we wanted and after his meeting was finished he would take us shopping. I remember all these men dressed in suits sitting at a huge u-shaped table. There were graphs, pie-charts and at one point a slide show. About 40 minutes into the meeting Valentina went right up to her daddy who was talking and said, "daddy we're hungry. And when are we going shopping?" His bodyguards took us down to the building's food court where Valentina and I ate a cheese pizza slice and then had a Kit-Kat bar. When we finished we went back up to the 24th floor where Valentina's daddy was finishing up his meeting. When all his partners left her daddy held both our hands while two bodyguards were in front of us and another two behind us and we all headed back down into the elevator where we were driven to the toy store in a bullet proof limo. We bought so many toys that the toy store had to deliver everything in their truck. To this day I still have the doll house her daddy bought me. He had it and the other 100 or so toys shipped to Canada.
XOXOXOXO,
Cocaine Princess
