I think your two posts are as close to the truth as I can think of. :idea: At least ideas that won't get my hands slapped. But I am not as creative as some of you.
Can anyone else come up with an acceptable way of expanding on both amauet1 & Betty P posts that will be within W/S topic boundary rules? I think I have exhausted my freshman year creative writing class skills. To be honest;I am much better at rock n' roll trivia like the songs and artists up till the 90's. :flashback: Whoa that's really off topic!
:cow:
Let's try continuing along the line of the Ozark story, which really describes how drugs are made and sold and money laundered in many, many remote, out of the way small towns in the US. This stuff doesn't just happen in Pike County, OH, it happens in so many US small towns today. In every state. Pike Co, is an exception to the rest only because that cat and mouse game of illegal drug trafficking/MJ growing suddenly resulted in 8 members of a working class family being brutally murdered in their beds one night.
I struggle with understanding how business criminals think, but I'll give it a try.
So, In Ozark, the guy (Marty) who works as a money launderer comes up with several ways to do it:
It's usually best if the business involves a lot of cash transactions, the easiest way to mix dirty money with clean
He buys into the Blue Cat Lodge and starts fixing it up, keeping a separate set of books that show him paying many times more for refurbishing than he's actually paying.
He buys into a local strip club - also lots of cash. He doesn't deal drugs, but I could see how that would also be a place for drug transactions, if you're careful who you work with. Same thing with the Blue Cat Lodge. Marty doesn't deal drugs, but someone out IRL could do that easily.
His wife gets involved in some real estate deals, buying and fixing up distressed properties, then selling them. People involved in that business probably have a variety of ways to buy and sell real estate in a way that hides the exchange of money and/or favors.
There are people in the show living way back in the hills who grow all kinds of illegal stuff, including huge crops of poppies (not sure how realistic this is, but possible)
Another plot line in the show involves an eccentric, religious land-rich backwoods couple who grow poppies and process heroin. They have a unique way of distributing it: because there are no local police on the lake, they help out a local pastor who has Sunday church that caters to people who like to be out on the lake boating, skiing, etc. They donate a bunch of Bibles every week to hand out to the congregation. Inside color coded Bibles, they hollow out the middle and fill it with big bricks of heroin, which are given to their distributors posing as church folks. Not saying this exact scheme is how anyone in Pike Co is doing things, but these people can be creative in moving product. They'll find ways to meet up with people in areas where LE doesn't usually come.
Another scheme they're working on involves laundering cash by building a casino - another kind of cash business. It may involve paying off people in government to look the other way. Can't be easy to get a license. Other forms of illegal gambling can be another vehicle - both for laundering money and selling/distributing drugs.
Also, in Ozark, Mexican cartels moved the cash to be laundered in semi-trucks through a legit trucking business.
We've read in the news about people using cars to transport drugs. The recent busts in Middletown, OH involved LE pulling over a car that had fentanyl and other drugs hidden in the gas tank. Valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are also stories about moving product in junk cars.
Drug traffickers in other communities may pay off police and judges to make sure their workers don't get pulled over or their businesses raided.
One message in Ozark struck me: Marty , the money launderer, started by posing as a wealthy investor who visited local businesses to see if he could invest and help turn them around, make them more profitable. Time and again, most of the business owners told him right away they knew what he was up to. The take away: Business people, community leaders and LE are aware of what goes on in their towns in areas where drug trafficking is a problem. They know how the business works, who is doing what, a lot more than you realize. Some participate for their cut, others don't want to be involved. But most of them know. LE may not know as much, but the others do.
And yes, people in economically depressed areas are happy to take what jobs they can find. But we probably shouldn't assume they're all part of drug trafficking. Big bosses will share that info with very few employees, it's too risky if too many people know.
All we can do to sleuth is look at public records for business transactions, real estate, etc. stuff we've already done. Rhodens were killed at a time when the drug trafficking scene was in flux: Pill mills had been pretty much shut down. Other drugs were coming in from other people, new systems were being developed. MJ was almost legalized, with a lot of powerful people investing money and pulling political strings, only to be recently defeated at the polls. A new plan was being drawn up for an alternate MJ legalization bill, structured differently than the first one.
All the above scenarios are taken from real life and could be part of the southern Ohio system. I hope this helps a little and maybe we can couch our theories in more esoteric ways, stories, etc.
