This transaction requires that the person or persons at the top of the wholesale organization have sufficient liquid capital to make discount buys. The importer and the wholesaler represent different organizations or syndicates. The arrangement between the importer and the wholesaler may require the creation of an additional position if the wholesaler, in an attempt to hold down cost, agrees to incur the risk of moving the contraband from its point of entry to his or her sales area. In this case mules have to be employed to physically move the drug to the distribution points. Once the drugs have arrived in the area where they will be distributed, the wholesaler will again use mules to deliver them to the retailing organizations which have purchased them.
Importers bring large quantities of cocaine or heroin into the United States.
The importer must employ highly skilled smugglers to transport the drugs and coordinate shipments. Most importing syndicates calculate a certain amount of loss of their inventory to law enforcement interdiction efforts. Once the drug arrives in the U.S. the importer's role is finished, and the wholesaler takes charge of the operation. Wholesalers receive imported drugs of high degrees of purity. This means that the drug is mixed with a variety of substances such as mannite, lactose, or quinine, often doubling, tripling, or quadrupling the actual volume and weight of the drug mixture.