The opium route—beginning in the poppy fields of Asia and ending thousands of miles away in hundreds of American and European cities—was built and operated by an illicit and sometimes violent opium alliance. America's opium addicts are the final link in a chain of secret criminal transactions that begin in the fields, pass through clandestine processing and packaging laboratories, and enter the United States through a maze of international smuggling routes. This highly coordinated, complex opium alliance is the world's most profitable criminal enterprise, involving millions of peasant farmers, thousands of corrupt government officials, disciplined criminal cartels, and organized American crime syndicates. Most of those involved in the opium route will never meet.

This underground industry is largely controlled by cartels. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates that 90 percent of the opium sold around the world...