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Comment by mothballed | Hacker News Reader

They don't. The people paying them and the schleps on the drug boats are two different people. They're putting their worthless peasants on the boats; Venezuela is chalk full of them so blowing up a few here and there makes no difference in the incoming bribe money nor to the drug trafficking organizations.

No one cares that they are dead. Not their employers, not the Venezuelan government, not the police who can now exploit the families of the dead even more, nor the Americans bombing them. They are mere expendable flesh in a game of politics, a token blood offering to the kings and princes of prohibition.

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My point is that even if the government would rather not have a drug trade fueled competing government within it's borders (which is what the cartels basically are) there's a whole bunch of people in the pickaxe business that would rather the gold rush remain profitable which potentially constrains the government's ability to solve the problem itself.

If I were the police looking to sell the most "pickaxes" I'd be thinking more about how I could take bribes from traffickers and also sell out the traffickers (or just selected patsies with the blessing of the cartels) to the US authorities at the same time.

They may be able to sell even more pickaxes than before.

Not just the police. They're just providing "pay me to F-off". There's guys building boats, guys driving trucks, etc, etc. It's a part of the overall economy and everyone who gets a cut, and every local government who themselves get a cut has a huge incentive to not kick that industry out.

Yes, that makes total sense, that a narcoterror regime would entrust the security of their extremely valuable drug shipments to "worthless peasants" instead of professional gunmen from Tren de AGUA.

Professional gunmen doing what exactly, while they are on a go-fast boat or narco-submarine with actual professional gunman on the docks on either end? The only people capable and willing to board such boats are the coast guard. Sending higher up professional gunmen to risk the open seas would be virtually pointless. Even if a private individual/group tried it, the cartel would 'deal' with them as soon as they got it back on land, no need to risk their enforcers on the high seas for such an improbable event.

You can see the same thing watching drug trafficking police videos. Most the time the drugs are in transit it is some random poor person with not much else going on in their lives. As soon as they are confronted by armed men they play dumb until the ruse is up.

They don't put pros on the boats because there is no reason to. Their gunmen won't do a damn thing against the coat guard, and nobody private is dumb enough to hijack a cartel boat, and the peasants on that boat know exactly what happens if they don't deliver the cargo.

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