The Cali cartel, Mexican smugglers and the war on drugs If the often-frustrating 40-year war on drugs has taught us anything, it is that even success can have dangerous downsides. Here's an example I came across in researching a book on the downfall of the Cali cartel. It all started in the summer of 1989, in the northeast San Fernando Valley. But first some background: Throughout the 1980s, Mexican smugglers were traditionally paid as couriers for hire by the Colombian cartels. They transported cocaine across the U.S. border for commissions that started as low as 20% of a load's wholesale value. As the flow of drugs increased, so did pressure to raise that commission to 30%, then 35%, 40% and more, until the Colombians said: "No mas." The go-to guy in Mexico for both of Colombia's cartel giants - Pablo Escobar's Medellin organization and his fast-growing Cali rivals - was Amado Carrillo Fuentes in the Tex-Mex border town of Juarez. He was a flashy, vain and hard-drinking crime boss who already had amassed a small fortune moving marijuana across the border. When the Colombian godfathers refused to raise transportation commissions, Carrillo's gang launched an audacious power play. They clogged the distribution pipeline. Instead of passing the smuggled shipments along to regional traffickers across the country, the Mexicans let it pile up in warehouses. One of those storage sites was in Sylmar. As one U.S. drug agent told me: "They held the dope hostage." Obviously, litigation was not an option for either side, so the cocaine stash in the Sylmar warehouse kept swelling as the summer pay dispute continued into early fall. The financial standoff was still unresolved on Sept. 28, 1989, when a joint task force of local and federal drug agents raided the warehouse. They encountered no resistance and no security, except for a $6 padlock on the front door. Inside, they found $12 million in $100 and $20 bills - and 211/2 tons of individually wrapped 2.2-pound bricks of white powder. To this day, it stands as the biggest cocaine drug bust in history. Press reports struggled to describe the mind-boggling amount of cocaine that was seized that day: Stacked properly, said one account, the kilo packages would approximate the size of two school buses. It's not like finding powder on a tabletop, a DEA agent explained in another news story, it's like finding powder covering a football field. A New York Times report estimated that the cocaine's wholesale value exceeded $2 billion and its potential street value approached $7 billion. Both the Colombians and the Mexicans lost a fortune that day, as well as several key operatives. A major smuggling route was compromised and one of Carrillo's top lieutenants went to prison as a result of evidence collected in the raid. A clear-cut victory for the drug war, yes? Not exactly. The bust made one thing clear to the Colombians and Mexicans: The pay dispute was very bad for business and had to be resolved. The Colombians decided to stop paying cash to the Mexican smugglers and instead began reimbursing them with product. At first, it was one kilo of cocaine paid for every two or three kilos smuggled across the border. Later, it was one kilo to the Mexicans for every kilo they smuggled. U.S. drug agents call that decision a game-changer. In many ways, it made Mexican organized crime what it is today - bigger, richer and much more dangerous. Under the new post-Sylmar compensation scheme, Mexican smugglers suddenly had the inventory to become major cocaine players and an incentive to embrace all aspects of the trade. Instead of making millions in commissions, they made billions as distributors. Soaring profits made lucrative smuggling routes worth fighting over and the fighting hasn't stopped. In Colombia, both the Medellin and Cali cartels have since fallen to internal warfare and law enforcement crackdowns. Today, remnants of the Colombian crime giants have ceded the U.S. cocaine market exclusively to Mexican cartels. And how has it affected supply? Not much. More than 22 years after the biggest cocaine bust in history, the biggest change along the front lines of the U.S. drug war may simply be the accents of the traffickers. William C. Rempel is a former Los Angeles Times investigative reporter and editor and the author of "At the Devil's Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel."