The Business of Cocaine: Are US Efforts Focused for Success?
Abstract
In the war on drugs, one quickly comes to understand that cocaine is a business. As such, cocaine lends itself to both military and business analyses. Its center of gravity and its key vulnerability is money. Money makes the cocaine kingpins tick. On the supply side, the government is currently conducting a number of programs to attack the cocaine financial flows. An analysis of their three-pronged attack shows that current agency efforts against money are insufficient and uncoordinated; that legal initiatives against money laundering are doing a satisfactory job addressing the problem, and that international efforts are currently insufficient. Several low-cost recommendations would produce better results targeting money and, consequently, the cocaine consortia. The recommendations include: making money the government's priority target in its fight against the cocaine industry; focusing and unifying operational and intelligence efforts against money, and continuing to develop and expand international efforts against money laundering. These low-cost, high-payoff recommendations promise long-term success against the cocaine industry.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA245118
Entities
People
- George N. Naccara
- Michael E. Lowe
- Ronald N. Lee
- William J. Lennox Jr.
- William S. Justus
Organizations
- United States Army War College