They also engaged in massive transcontinental drug trafficking, and in many cases were vertically integrated. They owned the land/fields, the people/slaves, the plantations, the drug crops/opium poppies, the processing chain, and also the sales, and the troops/armies were used to force people to take/buy drugs. If you refused to buy or take the drugs, they would burn your entire country down to ashes, and of course, enslave the people there to make more drugs.