Gone are the days of lavish spending, mega-cartels, and murder-counts greater than 20,000 per year. Instead, the cartels have transformed into smaller units that efficiently manage much of the world's cocaine without a lot of the high-profile violence that has been associated with the trade in the past.
Vice News correspondent Monica Villamizar daringly traveled to the center of the cocaine trade in the Colombian city of Medellin to get an up-close look inside the day-to-day lives of "foot soldiers," "cuchos," and drug lords who run the country's modern cocaine industry. We've broken out the highlights, but click the link above to see the full video.