What's 20 kilos of cocaine worth where you're at?

[cobravenom1]

North LA County had a similiar bust a week ago. I think it was around 20 kilos too. To a street cop with no intel, that's like hitting the lottery. Same excitment with all the paperwork.

A North LA County FTO and his trainee got a low-level dealer complete with his "Dope Dealer Training Kit" in a briefcase (2 kilo brick, scale, baggies, rolodex, and 22 cal. pistol). Shift Sgt actually asked how they got consent to open the briefcase.:rolleyes:

GREAT BUST to those Deps!!!

I honestly can't wait for the weather to get warmer. It's gettin hot around here.;):D

[meatstick300]

The OSHP seized 12 kilo's valued at 1.8 million last week.


http://statepatrol.ohio.gov/media/2008/08-026.pdf

[Coastie 585]

I was duty agent when 12000 kilos came in from the Coast Guard one day through the Tampa office in Operation [you know what]. It sucked. :D

Hahaha,

That had to have been a long night!

[Samuel]

North LA County had a similiar bust a week ago. I think it was around 20 kilos too. To a street cop with no intel, that's like hitting the lottery. Same excitment with all the paperwork.

A North LA County FTO and his trainee got a low-level dealer complete with his "Dope Dealer Training Kit" in a briefcase (2 kilo brick, scale, baggies, rolodex, and 22 cal. pistol). Shift Sgt actually asked how they got consent to open the briefcase.:rolleyes:

GREAT BUST to those Deps!!!

I honestly can't wait for the weather to get warmer. It's gettin hot around here.;):D

Kudos to those guys up your way too!

It's shaping up to be a very active summer!

[Samuel]

12 kilos worth 1.8 mill? lol these fools were shipping to the wrong state!

12000 kilos? what's that like, enough to fill all the sand bunkers on a golf course? :eek:

[Group9]

12 kilos worth 1.8 mill? lol these fools were shipping to the wrong state!

12000 kilos? what's that like, enough to fill all the sand bunkers on a golf course? :eek:

Even more fun is having to take the stuff to an incinerator to burn it.

If you ever have trouble describing what bulk cocaine smells like to someone, just have them stand next to 12,000 kilos for a few hours and they will know. I had a headache that lasted into the next day.

[BP348]

It goes for about twenty two to twenty four thousand where I am right now. If you bought 20 though, (our SOS for that much would be Houston, or Atlanta), you could get the price down into the mid to high teens.

Group,

I ment to ask this earlier. We get our pricing from DEA. I'm just wondering where the price difference comes from? DEA price $22k - 24k, USBP price $32000 per pound?

Maybe the DEA price is wholesale and USBP price is retail?

[Group9]

Group,

I ment to ask this earlier. We get our pricing from DEA. I'm just wondering where the price difference comes from? DEA price $22k - 24k, USBP price $32000 per pound?

Maybe the DEA price is wholesale and USBP price is retail?

One reason may be because DEA intell gathers it from the whole country and breaks it down by region, as well as coming up with a national average. Price frequenty is a lot different in different areas of the country. I just know what it goes for in my area right now. It went for a lot less in Miami, for instance.

But, I always say there are four kinds of lies.
1. Lies
2. Damn lies
3. Statistics
4. Value of seized drugs. :D

[jarobins]

Group,

I ment to ask this earlier. We get our pricing from DEA. I'm just wondering where the price difference comes from? DEA price $22k - 24k, USBP price $32000 per pound?

Maybe the DEA price is wholesale and USBP price is retail?

We price our drugs at the "street level" price. Meaning if we buy an ounce of crack for $800 the street price in our reports is recorded as $2800, since crack is sold locally for $100 per gram. I imagine the USBP also has a similar logic.

[Group9]

We price our drugs at the "street level" price. Meaning if we buy an ounce of crack for $800 the street price in our reports is recorded as $2800, since crack is sold locally for $100 per gram. I imagine the USBP also has a similar logic.

I know that's what has been done whenever I see a really high price for the value of seized drugs. I don't think it really matters in the end, but our policy for calculating value is what the person (organization) you seized them from paid for them, and would have sold them for.


For example, if you seize three grams of cocaine from a dealer, you can make a pretty good case for saying it was worth $300 (assuming he was going to get $100 a gram for it when he sold it).

It's a little harder to say that a guy you took a kilogram from, who you know is ouncing it out at say $1000 an ounce, just lost $1,000,000 instead of $30,000.

And, the same thing for a twenty kilo seizure from a doper you know is dealing one or two kilograms at a time. What he really lost is the money he spent for the cocaine (say $16,000 a kilo at bulk rate) and the profit he would have made (say $6,000 a kilo). And, if you only got a courier, and the doper can get 20 more kilograms, he hasn't even lost the profit, because he will be replacing the lost dope.

He doesn't get any more loss from it than that, no matter how much profit it makes, or would have made, down the line.

The good thing about a twenty kilo seizure though, is that he may not have enough money to buy twenty more kilos, or his credit may not be good enough to get 20 more fronted to him, so one small seizure like that can have a much larger affect on an organization than it should. I know of several large drug organizations that were thrown into turmoil and disaray, buy one or two large seizures of drugs and/or money, at a time when they just could handle the loss financially.

Not to mention, these seizures, when they happen, especially if exploited right by investigators, can be invaluable. They are a momentary open window into a large drug trafficking organization. Because, no matter how low that courier is on the totem pole, he or she has to have made contact with the organization to have set the run up. And, a good investigator, with access to the evidence gleaned from the stop, and the right data bases, can usually figure out which drug trafficking organization the courier worked for within a couple of days, (even hours sometimes). That is information that can be used to further disrupt the organization, maybe even in other states or cities. It's just basic link analysis.


That's the value to the public of seizures like that, but that is harder to explain that, so we give the media the "street value of the seized drugs".

When I hear someone say, "So they took 20 kilos off some mope, that didn't hurt them," I just want to cry, because, handled right, it will hurt them, and hurt them bad.