Drug Trafficking - Is The Profit Worth The Risk?

Only in the illicit drug industry can seizures of between 10 and 30% of production, the forfeiture of a (small) percentage of financial and other assets and the loss, through death or imprisonment, of a percentage of operatives, impose merely an imperceptible or short-term impact on retail price and still allow large net profits at every stage of the distribution chain.

—World Drug Report, United Nations Drug Programme, New York, 1997

Despite the possibility of long prison terms—up to life imprisonment—many drug dealers evidently consider the enormous potential profits worth the risk. The media often report drug "busts" and indictments of persons involved in multimillion-or billion-dollar operations. Paying fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars, or even millions of dollars, becomes part of doing business when the profits are so high. Exact figures on the amount of money made from drug trafficking and sales are not available.