I was aware of the ongoing war between the government and the drug cartel. I know the new ways their trafficking drugs, animals, weapons, or even people whether it be from drug mules and border crossings all the way to submarines and puppies. I know thousands of people die every year due to the constant war on illicit trade. I understand that many people ignore the Canadian US border in terms of smuggling. I know the precautions they’re taking in terms of searching (x-ray machines, drug dogs) I know that were spending billions upon billions of dollars on the US Mexico border.

I always felt that there was information I didn’t know and wanted to know. So I came up with a question “How does illegal trade effect social and government standings in the world.” How does it impact me, how it impacts you and how it impacts all of us? It doesn’t take a masters degree to realize that a lot of 3rd world countries are corrupt by drugs and illicit trade. You have a bigger impact on illicit trade then you’d expect which I plan on talking about in the next few paragraphs.


I looked through the book Illicit – Moises naim which talks about how smugglers and traffickers are changing the world around you there’s a chapter in the book called changing the world where he goes on to talk about how it actually can improve or “boost” a government but most of the time it will hurt or even destroy a government to the point where they can’t tell the difference between smuggled money and official economy. Governments to attempt to stop this have began enforcing stricter laws, increased technology, and increased appropriations. But so far have had little to no effect of setting in a durable permanent plan on stopping the trades.


It’s to be expected that they can’t stop the black market or any illicit trade for that matter. They have insane amount of connections they’re able to go to a government official and basically say “let us stay here or else.” And of course the government caves whether it be the money or the thought of what they could do to them or worse, their family. They’re able to break down their market and bring it up within a couple months with new customers and new ideas.


Terrorists are actually following in the footsteps of the black market in terms of routes to take who to buy from how to kill and when. The illicit traders have a greater effect then you’d think. You’d expect governments like Somalia, Asia or Mexico to be corrupted due to the lack of government but even power houses like Russia and China are affected by trafficking. A big part of illicit trade is counterfeiting and not just money. People have been for thousands of years counterfeiting medicine, software, car parts, animal bones, and pelts and that’s only to name a few. The thought of being given counterfeited medicine scares me honestly. You’d be surprised on how much you contribute to trafficking, illicit trade, and counterfeiting. If you’ve ever taken a copied disk from a friend that contributes to counterfeiting. Counterfeited car parts are to have an expect revenue of almost $12 billion If you have an Iphone many of the materials in an Iphone are bought from 3rd world African countries where slave labor is used. The most obvious but we continue to ignore is sweatshops mostly in china where small children will make niceties for you and I for little to no pay.


Overall this paper enlightened me on how creative, smart, and devious traders are. I learned that there is a bigger market in counterfeiting then I’d like to think. I learned that most governments don’t really know what to do when it comes to illicit trade. I wish I could have learned some names from some of the cartel I’m sure I could have easily had Googled it but I wouldn’t be able to tell how legitimate it is.