Cocaine: Middle Class High

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Allan Pringle, deputy regional director for the DEA, says of Miami: "The brokers are here, the financiers are here, the heads of the organizations are here." More than 80% of all cocaine seized worldwide is confiscated in Florida—yet by the most optimistic estimate, seizures of smuggled dope account for no more than 10% of the total traffic entering southern Florida. Arrests of cocaine smugglers and dealers pose a huge logistical problem: what to do with the confiscated cash. Says Pringle: "In some cases we've had so much cash on our hands that we've had difficulty transporting it for storage. We're talking literally about billions in small bills."

"We were being overwhelmed," says Peter Bensinger, whose recent firing by the Reagan Administration was precipitated by the DEA'S poor showing. Says Miami Police Lieut. Robert Lament, who heads the department's narcotics detail at the city's airport: "It's an epidemic right now. If you took all the drug money out of south Florida, the economy would totally collapse."

Thanks to drug-generated income, buyers in southern Florida frequently shell out cash for expensive yachts or condominiums. Seldom is a question asked or an eyelid batted in such cases. As Miami Herald Editor Jim Hampton observes, "What should a real estate dealer do when a man in his late 20s or 30s with no visible source of income plunks down $250,000 cash for a house or condo?

What should a banker do when a customer's account shows huge cash deposits, frequent wire transfers of funds to numbered accounts abroad, and other evidence that the banker knows is suspicious? None of these businessmen can be expected to turn away the customer. He'll simply find another seller who'll shrug and say, 'Well, there's nothing illegal about paying cash. And what am I anyway, a one-man morals squad?' "

With such huge profits at stake, the Colombian connection works with savage efficiency. Once landed in the U.S., the drug is distributed largely by grim professionals, many of them expatriated Cubans. The Colombians and Cubans are known as the "cocaine cowboys" for their willingness to kill in order to protect their racket. According to the DEA there were 135 confirmed drug-related murders in Florida's Dade County last year. Most were connected with the cocaine trade, say the authorities.

The "cowboy" brigades are as tightly organized as the military. Not only can they afford the best boats, planes, navigational equipment and weaponry that money can buy, but they have also hired experienced military talent to supervise their operations. The smugglers have their own intelligence, counterintelligence and reconnaissance units. Their logic is as blunt as their favorite Mac-10 submachine gun: any sizable bust by the feds must of necessity be the result of a tipoff. You find the squealer and eliminate him.