These individual dealers are usually independent and not part of any one structured group. Generally, there appear to be fewer middlemen in New York's heroin trade than in the past, and investigators report that in some cases, a seller is now only a step or two away from the importer. Many heroin buyers in New York use pagers or cellular phones to contact dealers. As a result of law enforcement pressure, most heroin transactions now take place indoors. While heroin sales still occur on the street, such overt sales are less common than in the past.
Users travel to New York City from the suburbs to purchase heroin.
In addition, heroin from the city is transshipped to markets primarily east of the Mississippi River. Mexican heroin was the dominant type in Chicago until the late 1980s when it was supplanted by Asian heroin. Currently, Southeast Asian and South American heroin are competing for market dominance in the city, although Mexican heroin and Southwest Asian heroin are still available. Colombian and Nigerian traffickers are the two principal heroin importation and wholesale groups, and African-American street gangs control most of the retail distribution, although Hispanic street gangs are involved as well. Most sales of heroin in Chicago take place outdoors and users from the suburbs often travel to these open-air drug markets to purchase heroin.