Bosses, Brokers and Helpers. Labour and business relations amongst Colombian cocaine traffickers

Samenvatting

Based on a recent ethnographic study (Zaitch, 2002) among Colombian drug traffickers (traquetos) in the Netherlands, this article analyzes the most common labor and business relations they establish among themselves as illegal entrepreneurs and employees. Colombian drug organizations active in Europe have been described either as representatives or cells of all-powerful Colombian cartels, on the one hand, or as flexible criminal networks, on the other. The first view presents a caricature of highly organized branches and professional businessmen. The other offers a chaotic web of underground, international criminals. By presenting three cases encountered during fieldwork, the author shows that social and business relations in cocaine enterprises are heterogeneous and extremely flexible. He systematically analyzes various forms of business (individual, partnerships, joint ventures, commissioned, family business, intermediation) and employees (skilled subcontractors, professionals, managers, unskilled parttime employees) found in the course of the research. His findings challenge mythical images of fixed "cartels" and homogeneous organizations, on the one hand, and obscure criminal networks, on the other. Colombian cocaine enterprises are small, flexible economic units with no bureaucratic, pyramidal structures. They tend to develop a flexible labor division, with clear hierarchies based on financial risk. Small intermediaries or brokers, sometimes themselves legal actors, can play more important roles than the mythological "Mr Bigs." Although the role of social relations is paramount in cocaine enterprises, they are wrongly defined as mere criminal networks. Social networks in cocaine enterprises are formed by relations between criminal and legal actors, settings, and businesses. They are networks structurally connecting illegal immigrants, prostitutes, gunmen, or common thieves with financial institutions, freight companies, or law-abiding citizens. 49 References. Adapted from the source document.