Looking at Buju Banton’s trial in Florida, it is difficult to conclude whether his crime was due to ignorance, arrogance, or both. In a phenomenon as complex as drug dealing, it is necessary to rely on intelligence, the ability to calculate risks, as well as temperament, the capacity to judge coolly, to assess consequences, and to appreciate history.

As a successful musician, Banton’s intelligence is in question since the amount he could expect to gain from dealing in a few kilogrammes of cocaine would be a pittance compared to what he would earn from concerts or record deals. If one disregards moral considerations, it would make sense for an indigent businessman or an unemployed hairdresser, to look for such capital in a drug deal.

Given the risks involved, it makes no sense for a superstar to go the way of drugs. Jay-Z grew up on the projects in New York, where he might have dealt in drugs as a penniless black man. Now that he’s a multi-millionaire, with one of the richest, most beautiful wives in the world, it would be suicidal for him to push cocaine. Ditto 50 Cent.

If Banton’s action was due to arrogance, it raises even greater questions about his intelligence. As a Jamaican superstar he might consider himself above the law in his country, not subject to the same punishments as an ordinary citizen. This is true in Nigeria, Malawi, Colombia, Burma, Pakistan and many other Third World countries.

In such countries it is true, as in the time of Thucydides, that “rights are in question only between equals in power, so the strong do as they will, while the weak suffer as they must”. The man who steals a dollar, a naira, a rupee or a chicken, gets to rot in prison, while the plunderer of billions gets national awards, honorary degrees, and the most stunning beauties.

If this was Banton’s calculation, he was guilty of the simplest error possible, the ignorance of geography. While he’s a big fish in his little country, where politicians, policemen and judges fight to see who can push their tongues furthest up his nether regions, he’s a nobody in the United States or most other developed countries.

In such countries powerful people hardly need to commit “crimes” because they pay for legislators to make the laws, and hire lawyers to make sure what they do is within those laws. If they want to deal in drugs they get these drugs defined as “lawful”, as they’ve done with tobacco and alcohol. If they ever decide they can make money from heroin and cocaine they will make them “legal”.

Not long ago Great Britain made war on China to force that country to allow the British opium trade. They knighted Francis Drake and Henry Morgan for grand theft on the high seas, because piracy was the means to national wealth. Now South American drug barons and Somali pirates are considered “criminal” , because their money does not go to build up industries in America or Europe.

The banks which launder their money, however, are the same which serve the Queen of England, the presidents of America and France, and the Fortune 500 companies. The colour of one’s money is the same, although some harbour the illusion that money smells sweeter the older it is, so scions of slave owners who live on Jack’s Hill believe they’re better quality people than drug lords next door.

Many recall the violence of Pablo Escobar, while forgetting the genocide and plunder of the Spanish conquistadores. The “old money” which now rules in Latin America condemns the violence of the new men, who make money from cocaine and mass murder, while glossing over their history of plunder and extermination.

After Escobar made his first US$ 2 billion he was turned down for membership in Bogota’s most exclusive club, since his killings and theft were considered too recent. So he built a replica of the club and admitted himself as a member. I don’t remember if he blew up the old one, but recalling the sense of irony of the late Pablo, he probably did.

These historical considerations were probably far from the mind of the imprisoned Buju Banton, so his problem can probably be explained by his stupidity and arrogance. The scale of his ambition would probably be scoffed at by the true drug baron, if such eminent personages bothered to contemplate the infantilism of the Jamaican small-timer. The true drug baron deals in tons, not kilos, builds palaces, not four-bedroom houses in Manor Park or Norbrook, and slaughters thousands, not a few unfortunates in the ghettoes.

Bob Marley and Usain Bolt are global superstars who outgrew the arrogance of the small-timer. And they wouldn’t be stupid enough to get stung for dealing in a few kilos.

Patrick Wilmot, who is based in London, is a writer and commentator on African affairs for the BBC, Sky News, Al-Jazeera and CNN.