Fentanyl Within (Full Episode) | To Catch a Smuggler

foreign [Music] what are you guys doing in Mexico I'm looking for a dentist appointment okay there you go thank you since Corona hit I've seen actually a lot more body carriers bringing drugs across go come on because we're not letting so much traffic come in she said her baby dad lives over there yeah right that doesn't make any sense two females were referred to me in secondary uh they were referred because their story not adding up where do you live I live in Ohio you live in Ohio yeah but I'm from India so what are you doing down here so you drove all the way down here from Ohio yeah what would drive was that whole day and what are you guys bringing from Mexico to the United States ourselves nothing else no so there's nothing in your bags there's no drugs on your person or inside of your person neither one of you okay cool lately there has been a higher rise with people between 20 and 35 smuggling narcotics when you guys started going through her bag and everything they both started whispering freaking out to each other and she kept reaching her hand under so she's probably in the smaller bag covered has sparked a lot of nutrients people who would never do it are doing it now simply because there's less jobs so they need the money we have been getting a lot of internal or hidden on their body so how long have you guys in Mexico for two hours I don't think I hope you said you were visiting your my daughter's daddy um [Music] can I just see him for myself her baby father lives in Mexico now because he got deported she only has one other Crossing normally most people if their family gets deported they go see them every weekend or more often than four months ago just doesn't make any sense doesn't add up where do you live I live in Tucson you live in Tucson now when I was asking them questions they kept Whispering back and forth to each other switching around in their seats negative but they didn't find anything on their bags at that point is requested for a pat down just to make sure they didn't have anything else on their person [Music] [Music] there's a bunch of packages in here from Netherlands so we're looking for narcotics anyway in Europe are pretty good packages to check so yeah we have Great Britain this is a package from the UK and position until you got a package coming from Netherlands says it has documents in it [Music] case but inside there's no CD doesn't look right so we're gonna take a look at that one I don't see any documents in here are you buying a video game it's not just gonna be blank like this and this is Puffy there's red flags all over this something interesting there's a Rocky substance we see a lot of MDMA from the Netherlands the person has put cards inside thanking them for being a good customer they're not going to get this order [Music] and we're gonna test what we thought because MDMA [Music] watch [Music] positive for MDMA ecstasy but this is a schedule one so it's going to be seas and it'll be destroyed foreign every time you cross the border you are subject to inspection some people get more inspection than other people sometimes that inspection is just as simple as a primary inspection of hey what were you doing Mexico other times when their story isn't adding up or something like that then they're subject to additional inspection sometimes that goes as far as a canine search or pat down search and you know that's all within our authorities of working at the borders [Music] no all right actually [Music] foreign [Music] all depends on what's going on the inspection that the officer is doing it [Music] no we're good I mean we did what we can so I'm good we just have to do our due diligence and once we have it done then we have to let them go you know there's only so much that we can do here all right take care of these take your bags have a good day thanks yeah see you never First Time in Mexico yeah we do have a lot of unhappy customers but at the end of the day everybody understands it's what our job is this is how we Safeguard America foreign [Music] thanks for everybody coming out today I greatly appreciate it we were recently contacted by JFK Airport they found a parcel label to individuals here in the Denver area that contained 123 grams of ecstasy tablets that had the logo Chupa chubas on them about 2014 2015 they hit the dark Market they're real popular with the party scene Rave scene specifically in the UK instead of MDMA key ingredient was PMA which acts like MDMA but it's stronger and it takes longer to hit so that results in a bunch of Overdose deaths in the UK that of course came quickly on our radar here because this amount of tablets coming into Denver could potentially have some uh some horrible effects so today we are doing a search warrant operation the tablets they're addressed to a mid-20s female usually PMA it's related to dark net and cryptocurrency so we're gonna be looking for drug packaging paraphernalia shipping Parcels devices phones anything like that just got to be safe today guys we hope to counter this person her residents were the package was addressed hopefully we get their cooperation and be able to work this case back from Denver to the overseas vendor that's potentially Distributing you know these types of tablets all over the world this is one of those cases where we're trying to stop something before it happens do we have any intel from surveillance at the residence if there's any movement I haven't heard anything from dpd all right 10-4 we're not sure what it's going to look like once we get inside so safety is the top priority today [Music] the third position of the back alley all right copy that we're just pulling in the side parking lot s of back door open the door I got someone on that side female he's coming let's go [Music] watch the back door open the door got someone on that side female she's coming not our Target brown hair so the team just entered the residence with the search warrants what we found was a roommate's girlfriend that was home our primary target wasn't home you mind if I just hang out with you right here okay we did find and identify the room that she stays in inside the apartment [Music] we'll start our search and then see if we can find anything [Music] search found some residue some small baggies of like white powdery substance you know possibly cocaine as well as a number of electronic items Target wasn't at the house we got some information that you might be at the boyfriend's house [Applause] okay all right so let's all go over to the next residence well we're gonna check this level again right we're the second largest seaport in the country biggest Seaport on the East Coast foreign this port has vessels coming from all countries ships carrying containers with anything from chemicals to scrap metal uh you name it it comes into this port [Music] the open containers we're looking for an narcotics we're trying to make sure everything's legitimate you have this Backscatter x-ray which when you walk along you'll get a picture so you can see if something's out of the ordinary our mission is to keep bad guys and bad things out of the country now you guys want to start up there's probably about three or four thousand containers discharging off this vessel today we're doing pop and Taps meaning random inspections we have limited time before these containers are loaded up on a train attracted trailer for distribution to the United States the more we check everything out the better the chances of us finding some narcotics today right here when we open the container we verify that the commodity matches the Manifest and check for any Contraband of any source more booze so this is good you guys sugar [Music] this is a probe of what it has just has divots inside of it if we happen to break into a kilo of cocaine there might be some white powder in the uh actual divot that should be all right the shipment here is good to go honey we had a load in barrels of honey just like this here's one barrel we may have to open it sounds a little Hollow it could just be less honey in one of the barrels it could be narcotics uh that's probably the only options [Music] on top of this oh [Music] [Music] there you go don't eat that honey Crow came negative the reason why it sounded a little different was because there was less honey in the container um as you can see it's very sticky keep moving [Music] we're doing in Mexico oh my grandparents they're trying anything hello what were we doing in Mexico you're visiting friends you say that like you don't know you don't know what you're doing in Mexico no Mexico huh in Mexico [Music] so when I was asking her very simple questions that we usually ask she was avoiding those and that is very strange [Music] yeah yeah yeah [Music] [Music] [Music] I checked her bags and there was nothing inside of her bags however it's like 100 and some degrees she's wearing a jacket she's wearing leggings so there's possibly something on her foreign countered they usually are not involved with the cartel initially but they are in like a struggling spot s [Music] oh you'll follow us we're gonna go that way because we're gonna search you like we said another red flag is when people object to a pack on what she did we do need to have supervisor approval so once we get approval they can't necessarily deny that pat down so from there we would take that step further Copo is a supervisor in there [Music] is another so not right now you don't have any jacket we need to search okay yeah are you understanding me this border there's a lot of smuggling that goes on through here you know we can't tell just by you telling us right we have to do the search and everybody is subject to search all right okay usually everyone's pretty compliant just because it they don't have anything they don't have anything all right now we're gonna go over here yes there's possibly something on her that's why she's acting so suspicious so nervous so that's where I took that the step further foreign [Music] so she didn't have anything I really thought she did cool she had the behaviors of somebody that actually had something like the whole I don't have anything I don't have anything in there um why are you doing this and then she started crying she made it very difficult to where it's like it made it seem like she had something so like she just followed our whole like what we're looking for was that an adventure or not our Behavior her behavior was horrible today we were out on a Target that was attempting to receive ecstasy if these tablets are tied to overdose deaths you know in the UK we certainly don't want that uh that chemical those tablets here in our community our Target hadn't been at the house for maybe two three days uh she does have a boyfriend that lives about a mile from there so we're going down to the boyfriend's house to knock and see if our Target may be there and we'll see what happens so we can go see if anyone answers the door [Music] foreign our primary target wasn't here although we did a brief interview with a boyfriend of the target he says that pizza has no knowledge of her into that buying any extra seed although he recalls about a month ago someone asking her to use the address in a lot of these cases what we see is people using other individuals addresses to distance themselves from the criminal activity so we're headed to review that electronic evidence from you know the search warrants to determine who is the end person in this chain that actually ordered this package foreign looks like bags of chia seeds just seeing if there's any impossible breaks hidden inside of them currently there's nothing in them [Music] we'll take a look inside so we have a container here about 1300 kilos I believe of tea manifested in there all right up up heads up all right no it looks just like bags looks like rolls of burlaps yeah you can smell like all right it doesn't smell good good you really can't get into that whole container it's too much stuff in there anything it'll be in the back I guess so we'll seal it up we'll get it out to the warehouse oh Mike see we didn't see any tea so at all so it's in the back somewhere so we'll get it to the warehouse we'll check it out we'll have everything taken out and that's what we'll get a better look at it all right we'll see [Music] foreign [Music] I got no blade in here [Applause] foreign but it doesn't smell very good check it out it does look like a tea but it doesn't smell very good okay it does smell like cat leaves contain amphetamines and are legal in the United States in most European countries however in the Middle East in the Horn of Africa there are no restrictions on its use or distribution and in Israel cot has become a party drug they usually go to areas that have large Muslim populations the Muslim people use this not only for its hallucinogenic properties but also as an appetite suppressant there are certain times of the year when they have to fast should be good with this one this is a Consolidated shipment which means you have two shipments in one container we have all the pallets are labeled which one belongs to which first one how many Pilots let's make sure it matches up with the paperwork it has the same shipper one is going to Boulder Colorado uh the other shipment is going somewhere in New Jersey so they're going to take samples from different parts of the container and you're going to take all those samples to the CVP laboratory and let the chemists the scientists let us know if it does have the alkaloids to prove that it is narcotic foreign [Music] how's everything going good good you get anywhere with any of the uh the electronics yeah I finished the extraction on her iPhone what'd you find here's the report let me show you so we had a search warrant on our initial targets phone we imaged it we're able to pull a logical extraction which is the files the chats yeah there's a lot of good stuff between her and her boyfriend about you know his roommate being involved we have iMessages and texts between her and her boyfriend's roommate so really we're talking about another individual yeah here's the first conversation with her boyfriend's roommate and she's asking for some stuff some Molly she's asking do you have Molly yeah I mean he says I have lots of it but then it gets pretty quickly into you him asking her about a package talking about the package coming he sends the tracking number receipt he's ordering it he's tracking it and then he's telling him he's telling her when it's coming it's looking then like the roommate oh yeah of the boyfriend had something to do with oh yeah definitely we have a new Target which is the roommate of the boyfriend based on the chats it's clear that he was communicating with the first female Target to receive the parcels they never really talk about it again I think that's because the of the interception because we have it all right so clearly there's a pattern of her receiving packages for him yeah she seems to be unwitting as to the contents she's just a drop for him what we're kind of seeing here today is an individual taking advantage of someone else for the receipt of you know Controlled Substances so they can get in trouble but we need to talk to uh this fella oh yeah with an eye looking towards a potential search warrant I'm going around you guys ready yeah let's do it how do you know each other you know what are you guys doing in Mexico take care can you put your Backpacker here what are you bringing back with you how long were you there in Mexico I think the fact that a lot of people are unemployed depressed on the pandemic is increasing the demand for Narcotics boy you gotta go boys so we are definitely on high alert here in The Pedestrian area I'm gonna search you with my dog we're gonna run a lot more operations with canines trying to find those drug loads coming on people or in people I don't see any follow me this way the trends are for sure picking up we had a body carrier come through our pedestrian Port earlier internally carrying what we suspect to be narcotics we're going to be testing it to see what it is this subject here was referred by the primary officer she basically said that she had a short trip all the way from Washington down to Nogales for one day which for us that isn't that doesn't make sense two nice station we found that she was a internal care for some type of pills we're going to be testing it here today [Music] [Music] he's testing positive [Music] so let's put this on the scale and see how much we have 231.2 grams that's pretty good seizure for Pure Fentanyl each of those pills are very very dangerous anytime we find a low like this it's a great day but it reminds us to stay vigilant to use any means necessary to get their drugs to the borders do not move anybody could be smuggling narcotics so we have to keep looking Finance learned Pat her down [Music] he's on our left side do not move okay okay we're gonna find everything no get my dog alert to you so just stand by we're gonna do a pet downtown the breed the Belgian Malinois is just phenomenal their nose is so much more stronger than what we pick up on the all they know is work work so this one right here later before they walk that way you smoke marijuana okay until you do she said she smokes so that might be it sometimes if they like smoke weed or something like that there's still residual odor and it gets stuck to their clothes thanks everyone for coming out today uh this is a continuation of the search warrant she was receiving pills which was involved with some overdose deaths over in the United Kingdom which made this a you know a huge public safety issue for us here in Denver to try to figure out you know where these are coming from found a lot of great digital evidence that led us to the house that we're going to today so we have a warrant today the target he's the roommate of the boyfriend of our previous Target we're gonna see if he'll talk to us but we're definitely there looking for electronics or anything like that so everyone be safe you guys know what to do Ryder Aaron radio check fine clear we're gonna start creeping what's particularly important about this case again is the potential for you know these pills to cause overdose deaths here in our community so we're out in more in our Public Safety and investigatory role to try and stop you know the flow of these counterfeit type tablets getting into the community we'll go to the door knocking announce you know police with a search warrant uh we'll wait to give a chance for the residents to come down and open the door and then if that does not happen uh we will access the the residents uh the best way we can is this wall in the front all right so let's make sure we separate the two of them today we're going to be processing two seizures of cot we had to send it to the lab for the laboratory to tell us that it does have the hallucinogenic properties and the lab analyzed this and told us it is dried Cod this is a significant amount of cot that's come into the country yeah it is right now they're unloading the container palette by pallet taking it over to our pallet jack that also gives us a weight so kilo is 429.5 6 pounds all right so that's that one hey pop can you separate these so is this the second seizure this is gonna be the second one okay it was a Consolidated load which came out to a total of almost 7 000 kilos it's just something that started recently that was our third significant seizure and again that's all in the last few months it usually comes in smaller amounts Express Consignment through the airport fifteen thousand pounds so pretty significant as far as I'm concerned that's what they said it's on the next one next stop in secondary right now we have a gentleman who came down here at 4am to look for a dentist right in the middle have a seat okay the dentist here open later but they're not open that late so the story just didn't make sense to the primary officer do you have anything on your person no that was in search Okay arms straight up all right what is it do not move canines learned all right canine's learning Fentanyl he went into secondary they asked him if he had anything on him he said no the dog alerted uh to his groin area and he immediately said yes that he has some fentanyl pills down there he had about 176 grams of fentanyl pills inside of him that were double wrapped with condoms that's a lot of pills to be inside somebody so we seized the drugs and he'll be sent to the local authorities where they will continue on with the prosecution you want to escort him with me you know escort him we're gonna take him the head outside hey go ahead Markham be careful don't overstep yeah take little tiny babies got the rock star Dave good boy you had a good boys yes good boy I think the dog is probably one of the best tools to have honestly good boy they always always seem to just Amaze you you know [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] open it after we made entry into the residence we found a target of the investigation the agents are talking to the individual who we believe is the actual recipient of this package or who ordered the package online and one more thing for the search warrant is written in there for biometrics so we got to see your finger a portion of the warrant talks about Biometrics and using you know face or fingerprint to open up a phone we're just completing that step right now I'm not asking for your permission it's like in the court you are required to do that foreign confident almost cocky in some sense he does kind of know obviously why we are here [Music] I was willing if you saw more with me yeah people looking for stress relief and everything we found a numerous electronic items in the house that we're going to be taken back to our forensic lab to be analyzed our next steps are to conduct forensic analysis see if we can't determine where this packages came from the source of the drugs the overseas vendor on the dark web this is uh definitely the key to it [Music] [Music] what's important about this particular case is to try and stop you know the flow of these tablets and potentially you know causing injury and or death to people in the community that may find themselves taking them okay great today we did exactly that and I consider what we've accomplished a true success [Music]

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 3,712,030

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, To Catch a Smuggler, drug smuggling, drug smuggling documentary 2022, drug smuggling videos, documentary 2022, drug seizure, drug smuggling 4k, illegal cases, Mexico, dark web, deadly party, drug linked cases, Overdose, crime solving skills, Drug overusage, Nogales

Id: gJMS_uVWQS8

Length: 44min 24sec (2664 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 12 2022