Cocaine Crackdown (Full Episode Highlights) | To Catch a Smuggler

foreign talk to you a little bit more okay you said these are all your bags right yes anything else in your pocket sir any knives scissors any weapons Firearms anything like that no all right have a seat okay [Music] are you serious yeah that's interesting [Laughter] like he's going to washing machine how long have you had that really how old are you [Music] do you talk to them yes you know what there's a lot of closet stuffed animal talkers so it's okay everyone has to think right all right be good to go man no way to pack these bags up for me foreign [Applause] box number 35 our main focus here in male is to inspect cargo and shipments coming into the country looking for items that are being smuggled you can go anywhere from twenty thousand up to a hundred thousand or more Parcels or letters a day [Music] I'm not sure so let's go ahead and uh prep it for examination the officers intercepted a partial containing different types of arts and crafts and further examination revealed the frames of the paintings had some anomalies we're going to have to test to determine what it is and that's a positive test for cocaine we're gonna notify HSI to pursue a further investigation it's not the powder it's become like it's more Crystal the more powder it is the more cut it is this package came from Haiti destined for Riviera Beach in Florida in between all of the paintings a layer of cocaine within them and there was a total of eight the total weight of this shipment was 1.32 kilograms of cocaine worth up to a hundred thousand dollars in street value so now that we have the possession of the cocaine our goal is to identify the recipients and dismantle the criminal organization behind this effort here how you doing today can I see a passport please anybody coming off a plane from an international flight is a potential suspect to us it doesn't matter how old they are race sex where they're from there's no textbook to show us who are the people who swallowing drugs or smuggling drugs so we got to be on our toes eyes open and listening to everything around us because you never know when that person we're looking for will cross your path where you coming from five six seven or eight please it's a numbers game at the end of the day the more you look the better your chances are to find something gotcha all right bye we just got word that a bag drove over our T8 maybe have to found some narcotics so let's make moves man so we'll get some details and go from there it could potentially be narcotics it was an older woman traveling on a wheelchair coming from Peru that may have some narcotics disguise in bottles just cut the top I think that's the best way it's very useful [Music] okay it's cocaine liquid cocaine's common and they put it in normal Goods so when they come in they just look like they're bringing drinks for shampoo into the United States it was cocaine in the bottle but on top there was a little bit of liquid if we just open a bottle and pour a little out we would never find the actual product so they all had it except for this one this has nothing in it they're hoping that CBP will stop them and test that one there's nothing in it and let them go with for this case 11 other ones about 6 900 grams six kilos is a lot of liquid cocaine but the passenger was 82 years old in a wheelchair she was very cool gave off the air that she had done this before and nothing was wrong the next thing we did was contact HSI and HSI sent a few agents over to begin the process of interrogating her way what did you think it was CBP they found eight little hand paintings about 12 by 12 and inside the hand paintings were packages of cocaine about 1.32 keys so we are going to attempt a controlled delivery on that to the receiving address the address comes back to a compound basically and I want to pass out some photos of this place uh aerial view basically there's two structures one is an actual Church up for sale right now they're not worshiping any the other is a two-story building it appears that it there is nobody there so it's probably just a drop location as soon as we give the green light he's going to go into the church compound with the Box we just want to make sure we've got all these corners covered we don't know what's going to happen so we're just gonna be prepared for everything safety is Paramount especially because of the location and what we know of the sketchy area right across the street so we'll get fully tacked out in the course of conducting our law enforcement operation we run into a number of risks we're obviously dealing with over a kilogram of cocaine and as such the individuals that we're dealing with normally have a criminal history and a lighting one too these individuals might use guns to protect themselves protect the product so we have to take every precaution to make sure that we protect the community and obviously our fellow law enforcement officials all right radio kick we're going to be setting up here I've been assigned to this office in West Palm Beach Florida for three years what we're seeing today is pretty common here in South Florida our communities seeing a lot of cocaine so we want to make sure that we take these drugs off the street our ultimate game plan is obviously to this rock or dismantle the organization that's operating out of Palm Beach County here in Florida [Music] air unit status there are several Brown units looking at the location and also we have an aircraft unit that is assisting us foreign air units so that we don't have to get as close and burn the operation and especially in areas like where we're at there's a lot of shootings here there's a lot of drug activity in fact the Target location is literally sitting across the street from known drug traffickers our Target location so we're clear I think everyone's in position we can commence the operation whenever you're ready to deliver the parcel to him all right all you're I am sending in the package you see the protein Target now unit do you have visual on the package standby shirt okay with a blue shirt so we have reached a critical point in our investigation this package has been claimed by somebody there's a very big possibility we're going to be going mobile that this package is going to be delivered to someone else the ultimate distributor yeah but they're pulling out now ladies and gentlemen we're about to go mobile all right I'm at the apartments just to the north of Virginia taking a parking lot we need to get somebody back there the eyeball is just in case even out of the vehicle and already walked into an apartment I'm close by it's kind of parked by some containers yep he's right here he's right there so here's the vehicle to our right there's a subject inside the vehicle yes he is he's in it with it someone's gonna walk up quickly and grab that package [Music] what did you think it was in Peru is vitamins natural remedies they don't sell it in pharmacies okay so who did you talk to BF Diaz okay so Diaz comes to your house knocks on your door and says hey can you take something to me and you said yes so anytime person give me your phone number okay okay you don't know who gave them your phone number to Diaz she stated that she received a phone call from an individual she didn't know the individual that well a friend of a friend you don't know him okay is first time you think that's kind of kind of shady today she said that she did not know she was smuggling cocaine people tell us this stuff all the time but it's our job to investigate the truth find out who this individual is or if this individual even exists [Music] vehicle has not backed up walking towards the Mercedes okay it looks like a guy [Music] yeah yeah walking towards the apartment all right we got it we got it we got the package right here two males one with a blue shirt one with the gray shirt and they're walking to one of the apartment complexes we're gonna take them down yeah man we're gonna get down come on over guys are we approaching yes approach all right guys going going [Music] [Music] thank you back in the apartment open [Music] good morning [Music] [Applause] you could have gone anywhere you're on the first floor upstairs no downstairs repeating they are on the first floor we need backup s [Applause] thank you [Music] keep walking keep walking stop right there hands up hands up let's go and you've got snare coming out we got one we have two individuals in custody with approximately 1.32 kilos of cocaine Street values about a hundred thousand dollars U.S they're looking at possession with intent to distribute we have a secure site we're still processing doing a search warrant now on the apartment and the vehicle it's got some receipts to Haiti putting people in jail is fine taking drugs off the street is fantastic but there's a ton of kids here so it makes you feel even better when you take down people that are doing this kind of thing in this atmosphere oh [Music] the investigation does it stop here we will continue doing analysis or telephone records and any other evidence that we've got from search forms we started at the beginning with just a very simple package and now we have enough evidence to be able to Target a transnational criminal organization [Music] thank you this is your last opportunity otherwise you're done and Diaz is just gonna go through okay where New York okay in New York where in New York it's a big place he works in trucks so electrophes he's a truck driver doesn't know which company she never stated that she had knowledge that she was smuggling in cocaine but we got a lot of information from her about this individual who wanted the bottles that she was bringing back so we're gonna have to follow up and see where it leads any facial hair let's fish anytime that we get a seizure like this it's a good feeling this is our job it's to stop these narcotics from coming into the United States but it doesn't stop here for us our job is to investigate these crimes transnationally and prosecute these criminal organizations from the top down to know that we stopped this load of Narcotics coming into the U.S that could have ended up into some kids nose and some kids arms on the streets it's a rush it really is you're never winning the war but we do like to win those individual battles from time to time [Music] [Music]

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 886,314

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, Cocaine Crackdown, To Catch a Smuggler, CBP LAX, peculiar items, young man bag, JFK, CBP, elderly passenger arriving, Perú, liquid narcotics, concealed in bottles, HSI in Miami, sting operation, apartment complex, cocaine, shipment of paintings, paintings, Smuggler, NationalGeographic, Full Episode

Id: l42-Yk1hibQ

Length: 22min 18sec (1338 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2023