Any time your job involves risk of jail, bodily harm or even death, your potential income increases dramatically. Alaskan crab fisherman, oil drill operators and power line repairmen all earn significantly more money than the average blue collar person because their jobs involve incredibly high levels of risk. Dangerous jobs are a great way for someone who did not attend college to earn $100,000 or even $200,000 per year in salary… assuming you are OK with the downside. Another occupation that comes with extremely high risk and reward is drug dealer. You're probably not surprised to hear that drug dealers make a ton of money, but until today you may not have known exactly how much. Thanks to a recently revealed exposé, we've learned the astonishing profits that four levels of Ecstasy dealers take home every month.
When we've written about the incomes of drug dealers in the past, we've typically focused on the biggest kingpins in history, not the everyday street dealers. For example, a few months back we wrote an article about the richest drug dealers that revealed kingpins like Pablo Escobar and Chapo Guzman amassed multi-billion dollar fortunes by shipping tons and tons of drugs around the world. Then there's the story of Zhenli Ye Gon, the Chinese-Mexican chemical importer who was caught storing $207 million IN CASH in the back bedroom of his Mexico City house. Zhenli Ye Gon was providing chemicals used to manufacture industrial quantities of meth. All these guys are the highest level in the drug supply chain, the kingpins. After the kingpin, you've got many layers of middlemen, transporters, security and street dealers who get paid handsomely for their risk as well. A recent exposé on the world of ecstasy dealing in New York City has revealed the astonishing incomes earned by the pill makers, transporters, distributors and street level dealers:
Photo via U.S. DEA/Wikimedia Creative Commons/Public Domain
The Pill Makers: Located in Vancouver, Canada, these underground labs use highly trained chemists to produce ecstasy in powder form. Each lab produces between 20 and 100 pounds of powder per month, which is sold for $5000 per pound to…
The Transporter: A transporter purchases ecstasy from the makers in powder form. He or she is tasked with smuggling the powder across the Canadian border usually by train or hidden in secret vehicle compartments. Smuggling distribution-level quantities of ecstasy across the border is extremely dangerous. If caught, the transporter can face a penalty of 20 years to life, plus a $4 million fine! In return for taking on such high levels of risk, the transporter charges a 300% premium on the ecstasy powder. The typical transporter sells 20 pounds at $15,000 per pound, earning roughly $300,000 in revenue. After costs, he or she makes $200,000 in profits each month. The transporter then sells his powder to…
The Middleman: Once the ecstasy powder gets into a major US city like New York, it is sold to a middleman for $15,000 per pound. The middleman is responsible for distributing the powder ecstasy to street dealers located all around the metropolitan area. He sells powder at $1400 an ounce or $150 per gram. The majority of sales are in ounces. One gram of powder makes 10 pills, an ounce makes around 280 pills. An ecstasy middleman earns $450,000 in revenue, $350,000 in profits per month! The middleman is selling ounces and grams to…
Street Level Dealers: Keep in mind that, at this point, the ecstasy is still in powder form when a street dealer buys from the middleman. The street dealer is responsible for physically inserting the chemical powder into gel caps to form a consumable pill. The street level dealer is able to sell around 25 ounces of pills per month for a monthly profit of $40,000! The street level dealers sell to every day ecstasy consumers like this girl…
In case you weren't doing that math as we went along, a typical street level ecstasy dealer can earn yearly profits of $480,000, a transporter takes home $2.4 million and a middle man makes $4.2 million A YEAR! Obviously if anyone involved in this ecstasy supply chain is caught, he or she risks a very long jail sentance. Not to mention that dealing drugs is can also be extremely dangerous, resulting in bodily harm or even death from rival dealers. So, now that you know the potential rewards, do you think dealing drugs is worth the risk?
