This is unfalsifiable: are you saying that there's some unquantifiable number of perfectly competent criminals? How would we go about verifying that?
On an individual level, I am positive that there are criminals that escape the (not particularly competent) techniques of DHS/CBP. But the GP's claim (that Federal criminals are, as a category, completely above and beyond this kind of enforcement) is just not true.
I'm just going off of talking with people during 5 years in the Feds. You know, the guys that can get whatever they want in prison because 'connections'. The guys that can reach out and touch someone for you if you need it. But sure, there isn't some larger more competent network of people that arrange all this for them. It's probably their grandmothers.
Of course there are. I said that in the last comment.
There are two points here:
* Estimates of "darknet" economies (and "criminal" economies in general) strongly express preferences for the mostly unfalsifiable LEO hypothesis that there's lots of crime just floating around out there, and they could do so much more about it if we just put up with a little more surveillance, etc.
* There's no particular evidence that there's a bimodal distribution between incompetent criminals who get caught and competent criminals who don't. There are probably lots of competent criminals who don't get caught, but there are also probably lots of incompetent ones who don't (and vice versa). The strongest predictor for successful interdiction (especially at borders) isn't competence, but sheer numbers: criminals have to succeed every time, cops only have to succeed once.
there is without a doubt a correlation between the significance of criminal enterprise and the rate of getting caught.
they may be catching some low level movers with these practices, but not much else above that. The evidence is that there is functioning enterprises in the first place. If captures at the border were a normal distribution of all criminal competency.. that would be destabilizing to a trillion dollar industry.
> there is without a doubt a correlation between the significance of criminal enterprise and the rate of getting caught.
This is the problem with unfalsifiable claims. Why is that "without a doubt"?
I can formulate a just as intuitive (and just as baseless) claim: less significant criminal enterprises get caught less, since they fail the "significance" test.
You are right, organized crime has never existed in this country. Hasn't required complex new statutes be created to go up against their sophistication. The government doesn't shout from the rooftops with their limited victories. You got me.
If you exclude the history of crime in this country and go only from the context of this specific conversation, you have a valid argument.
There are no Mexican cartels. They definitely don't operate in the USA (because they could never operate in a covert way in the USA and a public way in Mexico, being smart and adjusting to fit situational needs). The cartel just sits on the other side of the border and 'hopes' their product makes it to market and hopes they can find random repeat drug smugglers for their BILLION dollar operations.
The mafia was wiped out by the Feds. Vegas is totally clean of corruption.
MCs are just guys that enjoy riding together and having chapters spread throughout the country.
I can't buy illegal drugs in every town in American (which would require a sophisticated multistate/international logistics network). I can't launder money (yet the government continues to impose complex money laundering rules on banks at significant cost to the industry for some reason?). There aren't massage parlors in every city with women from China/Korea, with those women routinely changing out.
And if anything illegal is happening, it just random individuals, acting on their own, who HAPPEN to not get caught. A multi billion dollar international network, that has an uninterrupted supply of drugs/gambling/sex in most ever town in the country, all done by random people that somehow make it come together.
I didn't say any of that. Of course there's organized crime in the US.
My point is simple: LEOs rely on the fear and paranoia of invisible, unquantified crime to maintain public support for things that we'd otherwise never accept (domestic surveillance, civil asset forfeiture, a generally bloated and inefficient funding structure for police forces, etc.).
All I want is numbers: the money we put in should be a function of need, not of persistent handwringing by paranoiacs (or, worse, someone with a power trip taking advantage of the paranoiac). To that end, it simply isn't enough to say "we don't know what's really going on." Find out (that's what the existing ample funding is for!) and come back for more.
On an individual level, I am positive that there are criminals that escape the (not particularly competent) techniques of DHS/CBP. But the GP's claim (that Federal criminals are, as a category, completely above and beyond this kind of enforcement) is just not true.