Colombian cocaine manufacturers have protected their profits by tightening control of their supply chains, along the same lines as Walmart. Mexican cartels have expanded on a franchise basis, with the same success as McDonald’s. In El Salvador, the tattooed street gangs, once sworn blood-enemies, have discovered that collusion can sometimes be more profitable than competition. Caribbean criminals use the islands’ fetid prisons as job centers, solving their human-resources problems. Like other big firms, drug cartels have begun to experiment with offshoring, bringing their problems to new, more
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