Today’s headline is “Police estimate street value of seized drugs at $4 million”
Details say 40 kilograms of cocaine, in a secret compartment behind the seat of the El Camino pickup he drove from Mexico.
It’s hard to believe anyone with $4 million would do his own border crossing.
How is street value related to real value as far as the criminal was concerned?
What do you suppose he actually paid for it?
I have no idea if the “standard markup” is 10%, 100%, or 1,000% ?
I thimk that ‘street value’ all depends on how jaded the police/prosecutors are in your area. Hell, They could take one seed from a pot plant and figure its ‘street value’ based on how many plants could potentially be grown from it and its offspring if they want to. Always take ‘street value’ with a grian of salt.
Street Value is a total bullshit figure.
For example, I own 10 Acres of pine trees. I can sell them to the lumber company for 10,000$. That is their value. OTOH, I could chop down the trees myself, plane them into 2x4s, build houses, and sell the houses for a million dollars. The million dollars is their street value.
Also, what makes you think the ‘mule’ who carried the drugs across the border actually paid for them? He was probably paid some nominal fee to carry the drugs and got nabbed.
In fact, I have heard (warning: urban legend may follow) that this is sometimes done on purpose. That is, you send 40 kilos of coke across the border and tip off the cops to it. Then, while they are busting that guy, and all the border cops are high five-ing each other and all the drug sniffing dogs are brought in to tear the car apart to see if other drugs are hidden in the car, 400 kilos sneaks through in a different vehicle right behind it.
I’d say that street drugs typically have a mark-up on the order of 1000-5000% considering the number of middlemen in the distribution chain who each take a cut. And speaking of ‘cuts’ the drugs are typically cut (i.e. diluted) with other neutral chemicals of similar color at many of the steps to increase volumes, and sales.
Well, 40 kilos would be 40,000 grams, divided into $4MM gives us $100/gram. What’s a gram of coke sell for?
For the average not-too-connected-Joe, a gram of yay-yo will go for approximately $50.00
Sure:
“Perhaps the most widely used technique for embellishing the importance of a seizure of illicit drugs is to state the “street value”
of the seized drug.311 A seizure of fifteen pounds of heroin, therefore, might not be merely a fifteen-pound seizure, but a
seizure of “thirty million dollars’ worth of drugs.” The “street value” figure is elastic and sometimes exaggerated; it often reflects
the most optimistic price a dealer might possibly ask for his drugs. This is analogous to estimating the value of rustled cattle by
the price they would bring as steaks at the best restaurants.”
From: druglibrary.org
While we know nothing about the quality of the dope mentioned in the OP, I’d geuss that “the average not-too-connected-Joe” isn’t going to get the pure stuff; and my impression has been that most of the cutting goes on downstream in the distribution network. So, what do we have to factor in for the cut?