Originally Posted by Icelander
The GM guesstimated that Raul Vargas was pulling in about US $50 million per year, which he had to use for his living expenses, spread around to his closest cronies to keep their loyalty and use to invest in real estate as part of the long-term plan to own all the land where an anticipated pipeline in his territory is meant to run.
This means that the combined revenues of everything everyone who takes his orders is doing is much higher, of course. They buy drugs for many millions per month and sell them for more than that. However, their access to the drug territory and ability to collect the revenue is contingent on their willingness to kill the enemies of the Sinaloa cartel.
So actual, practical things like paying soldiers, lookouts, vendors and mules, buying vehicles (frequently lost), ammo and functional firearms, as well as all the other costs involved in running both a drug business, extortion business and what amounts to a small, elite mercenary group, exists outside Vargas' personal budget.
And while normal TL8 body armour might be a part of that budget, 'Black Knight' armours with ballistic protective capabilities are certainly not a normal operating expense. They are a luxury and come out of Vargas' personal money. Or the personal money of those of his men who are trying to impress him, maybe.
Essentially, Vargas has $50 million a year to run his personal 'household' and to use it to grow richer. He is not going to be willing to spend more than about 5-10% of this on gifts of various kinds to his household and lieutenants, who are supposed to be already loyal, and besides, too afraid of him to need much keeping sweet. Besides, most of them would probably appreciate other gifts than just one awesome armour. You know, new cars, gold-plated Colt 1911s, horses, that sort of thing.
On the other hand, Vargas' has had a personal income probably exceeding $1 million per week for maybe six or seven years, with fluctations. There was probably a time in 2010-2012 when he earned several times that and probably a time in 2014 where he was essentially using his entire income (which might have been lower, as well) to keep together a core group of his best fighters, while they were essentially cut off form all their more powerful support. He's been in his current position for maybe two or three years, making an average of $50 million per year, but he's expecting a large payout within a couple of years from his real estate scheme.*
So, if we assume that he's been willing to devote ca 0.5-1% of his household budget to 'Project Black Knights' over the past two and a half years, he's maybe put a million dollars into it, total. That's a lot, in one sense, but it's not 'set up a factory' a lot. Of course, he might have already started some work on it while he lived in Michoacán, which might mean a couple of million at that time, but it's far from certain that he managed to finish it that time or that he would have been able to take with him everything that he did have.
*Him and about every other well-connected criminal in the region, as they are all part of a very dishonest, very ruthless, very large scheme to dispossess a lot of people so they'll profit from an ancipated oil pipeline. The oil pipeline is a multi-billion project and Vargas hopes to gain a significant chunk of that. Realistically, success would mean several hundred millions for him, in legitimate money.
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