I might be generalizing and basing this on anecdotes but often people that work in the drug trade are users/addicts themselves, including the ones who are drawn to positions where it grants them the illusion of unlimited power & material excess. It's ironic that becoming a drug kingpin is the least efficient way of attaining those things, but when you live in a region where there is little to no economic activity, getting a Netflix drama portraying you is the highest point, even if it means doing consecutive life sentences in a maximum security prison where you can no longer enjoy the very things you've worked hard towards.

The "entrepreneurs" who simply come from the same pedigree but who has access to both capital and network with capital that propels them to force the transfer of wealth through deception, including imitating the attires of those that have successfully convinced us they are the good guys, whose popular products produce so much human misery in another country where people couldn't care less about.

Similarly, that same banality we feel towards another far away country, can be amplified towards anything in life. If you ask a criminal why he did it, the answer you get is very much the same as a consumer--"because the opportunity existed". To you it may mean indifference to the children to adults working in horrid conditions overseas, to a criminal, that same indifference is just far more profound and pervasive. Literally a criminal will describe robberies, scams in full pride-just like you they were indifferent to the suffering and damage caused around them, instead these were "opportunities" that they took advantage of because no other options were desirable.

My 2 cents in reply to your question.