A few years ago there was a story on here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9143784 , I've read some more since then but I can't readily find them (it was over the span of a few years). Maybe they were re-hashes of this story, could be. I do remember reading another story about narco subs some years ago (I too find the engineering fascinating) and one described how the technical work was (at least in that story) done by poor students who were roped in bit by bit until they got in so deep that they couldn't leave, and found themselves stuck in remote South American swamps in horrible conditions. Can't find that story though, maybe someone else knows/remembers?
I don't know anything about organized crime other than what I see on TV, but not long ago there was a local story here about a couple of chemistry students who were put to work in an MDMA lab and got themselves killed because of bad ventilation. From what I can tell (again, this is from following media, I may be wrong), engineering in criminal enterprises is low status and quite dangerous, and not even paid particularly well. Cooks in drug labs get into accidents because of how rickety those labs are, there was an encrypted phone dealer around here who got himself killed when his network was dismantled by the police, the telecoms engineers in Mexico in the story above.
I don't know anything about organized crime other than what I see on TV, but not long ago there was a local story here about a couple of chemistry students who were put to work in an MDMA lab and got themselves killed because of bad ventilation. From what I can tell (again, this is from following media, I may be wrong), engineering in criminal enterprises is low status and quite dangerous, and not even paid particularly well. Cooks in drug labs get into accidents because of how rickety those labs are, there was an encrypted phone dealer around here who got himself killed when his network was dismantled by the police, the telecoms engineers in Mexico in the story above.