Trusted lieutenants of the organization in the United States have discretion in the daytoday operations, but ultimate authority rests with the leadership in Colombia. This evolving technology presents a significant impediment to law enforcement investigations of criminal activities. In the past, the necessity for frequent communication between drug lords in Colombia and their surrogates in the United States made the drug-trafficking organizations vulnerable to law enforcement wiretaps. Today, opium poppy cultivation and heroin trafficking are an integral part of their operations. The opium poppy is grown along the eastern slopes of the Central Andean Mountain ranges in the central part of Colombia.
Some growers appear to work under contract to specific traffickers.
Under this contract arrangement, the trafficker provides the farmer with the seeds and agricultural supplies needed to grow opium poppies. The brokers, in turn, sell the opium to chemists who process it first into morphine base and later into heroin. The chemists often work on contract for the trafficking groups that smuggle the heroin into the United States. Smuggling is accomplished in a variety of ways including wrapping small quantities of heroin in condoms and having couriers swallow them and concealing heroin inside hollowedout shoes, luggage, and in the lining of clothes. In 1998, a shipment of artificial flowers was discovered to contain heroin concealed inside the flowers' stems.