Drug lord

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A drug lord, drug baron, kingpin, or lord of drugs is a type of crime boss in charge of a drug trafficking network, organization, or enterprise.

Crime barons may be difficult to bring to justice: usually, they do not possess illegal goods. Rather, they are insulated from their drug trade by layers of underlings. Prosecutions of drug lords, therefore, result usually from carefully planned infiltrations into their networks, often using informants from within the organizations.

When a group of independent drug lords collude with each other, in order to improve their profits and dominate the illegal drug trade, they form an organization called a drug cartel.