ABSTRACT
Beyond corruption, however, it is important to emphasize that there are also legal channels through which resources from smuggling are directly transferred to the state, most notably asset forfeiture laws. In the U.S. case, for example, asset forfeiture has turned drug control (and anti-organized-crime initiatives in general) into a revenuegenerating activity for both federal and local law enforcement. In one well-publicized case, U.S. law enforcement will retain $7.9 million of the $9 million confiscated from the U.S. bank accounts of Mario Ruiz Massieu, who had been Mexico’s deputy attorney general and top drug enforcement official in 1993 and 1994.43
State officials also depend on smugglers to carry out their antismuggling mission. Law enforcement cannot do its job without at least minimal assistance from smugglers. The reason is that smugglers are the primary source of information on smuggling; to obtain this information, officials must constantly bargain and negotiate with smugglers. A number of drug smugglers, for example, received lenient sentences for providing information that lead to the sentencing of Noriega by a Florida jury. At a lower and lesspublicized level, this type of bargaining is the standard operating procedure. The line between legality and illegality can become rather blurred. Law enforcement officials may overlook the activities of one smuggler in exchange for information that leads to the busting of other smugglers.
