Cocaine Shoes (Full Episode) | To Catch a Smuggler

[Music] when your bag is rover i consider it being a hunter you're always paying attention see who may look suspicious or sometimes you just want to do a random pop so let's do a random pop how you doing can i see a password please it's a volume game we search a lot of bags and a lot of times it's negative all right well we're gonna just do a quick back check but she was by herself and she had a lot of bags so we're just gonna look and see what we find so is this your bag or no you say oh this is not my bag then all of our alerts go way high because we're wondering what the heck is in that bag everything what's your name what is your uncle's name you forgot my person the wife is my boyfriend from your cousin husband yeah the wife is gonna come get the bag not a husband the husband all right she gave you the bag did you even open the bag to see what's inside i don't know you don't crazy but i don't know why are you taking somebody else's bag if it's not your bag you shouldn't be taking it you don't know what's all this what is all this so much stuff what is this melon unidentified liquid what is this you don't even know what this is nothing no no nothing huh who's this what the hell what is that narcotics drugs you know what it is no you don't know what it is because it looks like cocaine you don't know no um i'm gonna have to test it oh definitely let's see what the heck this stuff is so that's just analyzing starch baby powder and dextrin from corn okay all right all right yeah if it was cocaine it would have said that so we tested it it was negative but this lady has a lot of stuff all right what else put the next bag up there yeah this place is loaded we are currently on our way to a briefing with the supervisor the hsi miami marine smuggling group his group at the seaport and our group at the airport work really closely together to combat criminal activities that are happening throughout the miami port system we are going to talk about a case where his team seized a yacht that was being used to smuggle a significant amount of cocaine we have three vessels here that we seized this is the most recent south florida is a boating community there's tons of boats everywhere so very difficult to regulate that traffic we have pretty decent amount of trade with the dominican republic and a lot of recreational vessel activity between the dominican republic and the united states you know yachts sailing vessels that are transiting so that provides opportunities for these organizations to kind of mix in with that legitimate travel and exploit it initially encountered the vessel coming out of the dominican republic into fort lauderdale actually did a custom search immediately found five duffel bags full of cocaine right here in the salon area and then additional cocaine down below it's all stacked up on this bunk here they basically use the area behind this spunk okay cocaine was back in here 456 kilos of cocaine found some more additional evidence in here one of our principal defendants was actually sleeping there on the trip he had 40-something thousand in cash outstanding they do an at sea transfer so cocaine goes from the boat out of the dr on to this boat snaking their way through the bahamas stopping for fuel and then into the into the u.s and how many subjects were there four were taken into custody two arrested the captain was on this boat that night but we did release them as we collected evidence the investigation took a little bit of time but the plan tomorrow is to go out and execute an arrest warrant for him we're going to wait till he comes out of the residence and hopefully prevent a situation where we have to try to track down somebody who's trying to evade getting arrested [Music] what is this you forgot you don't know what you packed coffee what's this here this is my picture for what headache ibuprofen um all right so it's good put it back in here all right this has a lot of stuff what is all this what is this what do you have all this medication for your friend have a pharmacy does your friend have a like a score is he a doctor this guy or what does he do some kind of therapy liquid in in her bag is like a traveling pharmacy what people use this for huh i don't know you know what this is this pep time quite a quinda what's that ah no no no no nothing yes she paints so it could be poison you don't know what it is the main issue is that one she didn't declare any of this it's not like one or two for personal use it's like 50 plus two she has no clue what this stuff is and neither do we look at these pills we don't know what that is we don't i don't know what that is and we can't test it in such quantity so all this is gonna be turned over to the fda no no that's that's going with us so this is all going it's all going it's all going they'll determine whether it's okay or not if not then it's seized and destroyed more more than likely this is a good stop it was a good stop it's a good examination we're trying to find contraband we're trying to find things that aren't allowed into our country and she she had a lot so we we're going to release you okay okay so next time just be more careful with what you take back okay it's very important that people know don't bring anything here that's not yours or that you don't know what it is because it could be narcotics drugs weapons don't do it it's not a good idea [Music] we're gonna be executing an arrest warrant the individual was identified as part of an investigation into a smuggling organization this guy actually was the captain of a yacht that came into miami with 456 kills of cocaine we obtained a war for his arrest and we're going to be executing that warrant this morning i'll have you guys stage right here in the corner okay get a direct eye to the house here and then he will be here at the end of the street facing north once the takedown signal comes out just come to the residence and provide extra cover who are the other possibles at the house um his son it looks like the wife was heading to work when i drove by this morning and a gentleman that was there yesterday i don't know he kind of looked like a visitor at the house if he does get into a vehicle you know just try to keep containment on that street all right so we'll head over to the location here the rest warrants are you know inherently dangerous just because we're going into an unknown in this case it's the subject's home this residence some pre-operational surveillance has shown that he's uh departing the house pretty regularly in the morning mid-morning so we're just going to wait until he leaves to try to mitigate some of those risks of going into his house and grabbing him all right so we're on the street of the subject's house getting set up now getting everybody in position we always want to try to dominate the situation so i think we have six officers back here today we're dealing with traffickers that smuggle hundreds and hundreds of kilos of cocaine anything can happen be ready to go [Music] [Music] yo hey how you doing man it's your passport finding narcotics is very difficult nowadays have anything in your pockets back in the days you open the bag it's breaks of cocaine it's not like that anymore they're getting smart plaster you could prove it on the side there's no set weight as we find it they're looking for ways to hide it better we're going to be working in trinidad now sir passport trinidad is known for narcotics so we like to hit this flight how are you doing passport are you traveling by yourself okay what's the purpose of the trip i found the bike you have a company over there a store what's the name of the store stylistic do you have any like little uh like business card or anything okay how many bags are you bringing in mine break novella is this yeah how do you will get your stock buying this year when did you buy the ticket to come yesterday so was it planned yeah and when do you return friday can we talk to our alum okay give me your free ticket sherlock you're a question did you remember somebody else i bought okay we're gonna go through immigration and then we're gonna go through a customs inspection okay your hotel it's already paid for we do have a lot of medication coming in and a lot of people travel to mexico or canada and they'll buy over the counter or they'll pay somebody to get scheduled medication these appear to be loaded syringes of a yet to be determined pharmaceutical all of this medication coming in that's not approved by the fda it's a big problem it's in another language people not knowing exactly what they're taking people self-medicating people dying we have schedule 2 schedule three narcotics without a prescription these are the things the united states right now is trying to stop can you put a couple of boxes up here please so everything that is here that i'm about to go through is yours you take full ownership and responsibility of everything yes sir now do you have any plants or fruits no no no currencies of 10 000 or more no usually when we have families arriving from vietnam they on average have about five boxes i'm gonna go through your bags what i need to do is just stand behind the yellow line right there as i do as such please make no sudden movements towards me okay we have about 14 boxes looks like fish cakes uh a lot of fish cake what is this one fish some cashews they love having their home food like fish squid they bring clothes and medications let's not forget about those [Music] that's coding this is prohibited it's the schedule two narcotic no big one when we go out in the country and my husband's really bad and coffin thinks that my country is really cold and with my taste that's it you got this stuff everywhere don't you how many of those did you buy how many boxes the codeine that's it everybody's coughing now isn't that amazing so that's otc that's over the counter that's for dermatitis yeah these right here are the ones i'm worried about right now i just bought only one my thick one mm-hmm let me check these right here okay it says neocodeine on it but we're going to do the right thing and find more information on it that'll tell us what we got these are the 500 milligrams my least favorite thing is waking up early [Music] the plan was to wait till he came out to make the arrest on this individual but since we have not seen the subject go out of the residence and his vehicles parked out front we decided to go into the residence and try to make the arrest we're just waiting for a helicopter to help cover the rear of the house i've been doing this for i think about my 16th year now and i have an inkling that something isn't right it's extremely easy to leave if you wanted to you know get on a boat and go to the bahamas we would not have any way of knowing [Music] now we're just getting set up uh give me a few and i'll let you know when i get good eyes on there we go we're gonna go ahead and try to make contact with our subject here [Music] all right uh [Music] [Music] [Music] can you call them out please leave the door open leave the door open can you go over here any weapons or anything inside the house no no no firearms at all nobody else inside right okay we're gonna go ahead and check the house all right we do have a warrant yeah windows not home i'm not gonna find window in there right you don't seem too sure [Music] [Music] all right good yeah it's the police carefree hey okay nice and slow raj you guys are clear thanks for the assistant thank you guys [Music] stay right there okay the sun answered we asked if his father was home he said no obviously we said we're going to check inside he said his dad definitely wasn't home he left last night went to the last bedroom back of the house and he was down crouched in the corner so we were able to take him into custody no issues so we're going to transport him over to the office the rest was best case scenario subject was taken into custody nobody was injured so all in all successful operation down here in the marine smuggling environment we're still at it and we're going to continue to try to identify folks who are supplying cocaine other vessels and other individuals here in the u.s who are facilitating you know other smuggling ventures all right copy brother thanks i just got a call that our gang unit has a search warrant as part of another investigation that also involves cocaine being smuggled aboard boats from the caribbean so we're heading to start preparing for the larger takedown that's going to happen [Music] this it's a neocodeine and it's a derivative of codeine that's reported in the countries of lebanon and vietnam those are the two countries that produce this [Music] being a derivative of is sort of like i guess you would say hemp versus marijuana is there some there yeah it's to the itty-bitty minute percent so first time pat on the hand don't do it again do not bring this into the united states again do you understand yes sir let me tell you next time somebody go over there i tell them okay me no more no more that one now i got it you remember me never never all right put that stuff away no more i guess so thank you all right you guys have a great day we're going to release them and there will be information for the next time they enter to look for these items if they have it they've been warned and at that time they'll be receiving a penalty and a seizure on these items some don't know and you can't hold that against them some of them do know and they've been doing it for a while and they supply their store with it i tested stuff the other day that came back as sulfuric acid so think about that you're buying something outside the country you're bringing it in you're actually killing somebody we have to protect the united states that's what it's all about and i take that to heart thank you bye-bye [Music] all right this is your bag everything inside is yours let me get your dragon she's very disorganized so right now it's just about having a thorough interview because we want to be able to catch them and alive so you said you want to buy about how much clothes but you got to pay for that yeah and that's after transportation food okay how much money are you bringing in in cash 500 and you're 100 sure that credit card has two thousand dollars yeah now if there isn't then you're getting caught in a lot i wouldn't be caught on a line for my daughter i have to load it it's a reloadable card i'll be right back we have a lot of passengers who come here with the same story they come to shop to the united states to resell it in their countries however most of the times those passengers actually have a plan and she's only coming for one day normally when these people come they come for three four days because if you don't find something that one day and you go back home what was the purpose of your trip so we have to make sure that she's authentic because we have had incidents in the past where we've had passengers come in with the same story who will have swallowed cocaine she hasn't paid for the hotel she admitted she hasn't paid for until she has 500 bucks in cash she said she has some money in her credit card but you think this will work here well that's like a debit card gift card basically yeah what's your name is that her name no what is her different name karina it says karina that's not gonna let her use it then there's something she's not telling us or she's just lying can't put her in the path yeah put your stuff away and come follow me okay i'm gonna put her in a private room to speak to her a little bit more see if i can get the tooth out of her and see where the story goes from here take a seat right here i'm gonna search your body [Music] what's your daughter's name so the debit card is hers right she's just she's too calm she's been through this before obviously she's been put in the room before she's been patted down this morning she said that she mainly shows jordan's and that um last time she stayed with three months there was a few drones that were dropping like new drones that she was exporting back home through here and that's where she stayed here last minute ticket low income you know what make phone calls call her daughter right see the story makes sense if it makes no sense if it's completely off then we'd write it up too give me your daughter's number i'm gonna give her a call okay wait for me now let's check the phone see what you see yeah she literally has three contacts right now i don't know what you want to do i want to see if she actually leaves tomorrow you can have outbound check if she's taking stuff out she doesn't take anything out she came and she passed or she's taking out cash i don't have enough evidence to keep her but every piece of information that she gave me i couldn't verify anything come this way so i'm gonna make sure that we have an inspection on her way back to trinidad make sure she's taking out merchandise i'm gonna be looking after you okay after make sure you leave tomorrow if she's not then she's lying about something we got santiago landed about a half hour ago still a passport sir dominican republic is one of the source countries that we have what's up what are you doing you have your bags checked in you can't go by gender race age there'll be a senior citizen bringing it in a wheelchair all right i'm gonna take a quick look inside of your bag and then you'll be on your way all right come this way have you ever been inspected before no i'm gonna open one of these okay what is this oh boy yup wow all this stuff so one of our offices found boxes and cases these are antibiotics yeah only a few thousand pills here man this is cialis anti flu kind of like tylenol scattered viagra is over there all different types of viagras liquid virgin pill version injectable version massageable version all made and sold in dominican republic give me the pill sedan phil will pop up on this right away every time so wow comes up as nothing it says that it's not found definitely counterfeit taking counterfeit pills you don't know what you're ingesting in your body they could have fentanyl and fentanyl is killing people left and right nowadays everything is not allowed by the fda so now pretty much it's seasonable i think she tried to use the wheelchair as an excuse it throws you off a little bit because you think little grandma is not going to bring anything in depending your status you can actually be deported and banned from ever entering the united states we have information that cocaine is being smuggled from the bahamas on vessels it's being sold from a trailer here in the miami area the trailer is what we call a trap house which means nobody actually lives there it's just used to sell narcotics so we are currently on our way to this place to execute a narcotic search horn the trap house is in the area with a lot of gang activity and the subjects have a lengthy criminal history involving violence we also have intelligence indicating that these subjects may be carrying firearms so we're utilizing the hsi miami special response team we're here to enhance everybody's safety that's the only reason we existed let's go police thank you [Music] this is going over a fence let me see your head step towards me do it now got him they got him guys [Music] everybody's care inside yeah there was one guy man in the trap house the individual that ran away but he was caught right down the street the operation went exactly the way we wanted it to almost textbook we were able to conduct a breach of the fortified fence on the exterior there was no threats or anybody in the way so we were able to do that safely so we did have the primary subject hop a fence we were able to call that over the radio so he was taken into custody we have search teams that are going through the location now looking for narcotics firearms other evidence as far as i'm concerned this operation could not have gone better for us [Music] good morning the day before i stop this female coming from the caribbean she told me she's coming to purchase clothing she owns a store in trinidad and told me she's leaving today we have an inspection outgoing i want to make sure she leaves and i want to make sure she takes back merchandise if she doesn't leave then we have a problem and she leaves with no merchandise we have an even bigger problem maybe she came and she passed penalties [Music] says love i see [Music] i got her hello i am is your passport police how you doing you coming with family no no check your luggage and you'll be on your way inside i'm gonna carry on yeah okay what was the purpose of the trip um oh okay when you came into the us so yesterday just one day it's not enough time to shop it's too late and when you came in how much money you brought into the us cash money at five weeks oh then how much money are you taking back home no cash you weren't sure you spent it all here oh okay pretty good this is a new stuff or your your stuff your stuff do you have any receipt of the stuff you bought okay it's good after checking her backs we feel like the purpose she initially told me is legitimate so i'm gonna go ahead and release the passenger right now we get a lot more negatives and positives but i'm gonna keep looking we're gonna keep talking and who knows maybe we'll actually find something thank you for your time have a good flight what are you bringing back with you from from over there yes anybody give you anything to bring nope try it together yeah all right come on let me take the bag right anything to declare [Music] you wear these give me a second all right so pedro so you can see how it's darker on the bottom like really like dense very dense and completely off the swing yep they're loaded oh definitely [Music] there you go white powder from the odor i'm gonna say it's cocaine this is the sole of the shoe and that yellow packet is loaded get the test kit oh it's so thick there you go blue positive for cocaine i'm just gonna take you to another area to process you all right your wife know about this just not trying to be lying to it your wife know about this she does so why she acting like she don't know about it the only thing that's loaded is those shoes look how wide these are [Music] wow the smell is so strong oh my god it's like a weird mustache film yes this is what we do all the time it's a cat of the mouse game you know one finds it everybody helps it's a team effort just your thumb like that so much hard work we got a lot of negatives but when we hit it's a good feeling [Music] lately we've been seeing huge trends of people ordering stuff off of the dark web people have ordered fentanyl off of the dark webs nowadays it's leaning more towards prescription pills and we're just trying to catch everything that shouldn't be coming into the country okay you can run it this is mail that came in late last night we're doing routine scanning on it to see if we can find anything good hold on you can see the pills looks like a book almost it's labeled protein supplements it did look like supplements but in a lot of cases it's not the right kind of supplements it definitely doesn't look right i believe it's a present lamp commonly sold to xanax you can tell by the bar shape quite a lot here too you got probably 10 or 15 000 pills here if it was legitimate it would have some markings on it not just pills and an envelope we're getting these pretty regularly it's highly addictive and chances are these aren't prescribed for someone they're doing this on their own you actually don't know what you're getting i'm gonna get a quick weight just to see how much it is 3 400 grams this is a massive amount with a high dollar value people don't get pounds of pills a normal person couldn't use this in a year so we're going to have to contact our hsi agents and they take it from there whether they would like to do a further investigation on it [Music] all right so what'd we end up finding approximately a little over a kilo coke baggies cash scales how much cash do we think we found about 600 bucks see china we're still counting it yeah so that's crack two right right how many bags of crackers we got five bucks we got loose and the uh subject is still uh not willing to speak to us yet is that correct not yet okay well this is good with this kind of weight in his possession maybe this will uh make him more amenable to sharing what's going on with us [Music] for a neighborhood like this for them to be sitting on thirty thousand dollars worth of narcotics and just selling it willy-nilly is pretty significant our next steps on this are going to be trying to turn this into more of a federal case we're going to be looking to identify the broader network that we want to pursue for investigations and potential prosecution outstanding work good job excellent the residents are going to be able to sleep peacefully tonight knowing that these guys are not selling this amount of dope to the citizens of miami [Music] you

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 10,513,290

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, smugglers, cocaine documentary 2022, drug smuggling, national geographic documentary, national geographic channel, national geographic full episode, cocaine smuggling, drug smugglers, crime documentary 2022, Miami, investigation, Caribbean, Medication, illegal

Id: XJQpD3j5m0M

Length: 44min 24sec (2664 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 23 2022