Party Drugs (Full Episode) | To Catch a Smuggler

[Music] foreign 11th time South Florida will welcome the Super Bowl back to Miami in 2020. needless to say this will bring a whole lot of people here to South Florida [Applause] [Music] are you attending yeah you're going to the Super Bowl yeah we've got the Super Bowl on Sunday so we know a lot of people are going to want to party so we know the Smugglers are gonna want to get in a piece of that to your passports where are you going today we're looking for Narcotics and illegal activities such as human trafficking and prostitution and you live here I live in Boston in Boston we're trying to have our community safe so let's get to work we're at our arrival gate or flight coming from in Colombia we brought a virtual officers out here we're gonna interview as many people as we can euros foreign she may be tied to people that are dealing narcotics or sometimes that organization also profits off of prostitution [Music] foreign drugs ecstasy Coke and ketamine and the new drug that's coming out now is called tusi it's very popular now right now we're just gonna see it's narcotics wise she has anything on her and uh we'll go from there foreign [Music] [Music] all right tonight I've been doing a control delivery uh basically we're contacted by HSI mobile they intercepted a truck battery the truck battery was smuggled across the Southwest border and then it was going to head up this way into Atlanta the driver he admitted that he was transporting narcotics in a hollowed out battery didn't know what kind of Narcotics he was carrying but agreed to cooperate with us they're going to contact their source and source to hopefully drive out here and take custody of the battery once we get a little bit away from the meat location we're going to apprehend whoever's in the vehicle at the time we don't know who's coming so just be alert watch for counter surveillance and uh you know just anything that's out of the ordinary all right let's take a look at the battery in Mexico they have plants that just make these batteries specifically to transport narcotics heroin coke meth anybody got any alligator clips put on this thing see if it's hot let's see if it Sparks what they'll do is they'll hollow out the cells inside the battery and they put a huge metal plate at the bottom of the battery because batteries are heavy so they don't want them to feel light so it works from that they'll go ahead and put a motorcycle battery in there so if somebody comes out there and checks the battery they'll still get 12 volts and think it's normal we don't know what's in the battery there's really no way of us finding out without tearing the battery up because everything's sealed tight like it's factory made so that's just something we'll have to find out later all right that's it okay the cooperator has the battery in his truck and he's going to try to bring it to the predetermined location our plan is to set up around this local business hopefully we'll see an exchange between two vehicles a guy comes up picks up the battery but we just received this information six hours ago we have no clue at all who's picking up anything which is the scariest part of this job because we don't know their criminal history we don't know if they're bringing guns to the meat but that's what our group does best is we we rally up when we need to make sure everybody does everything right make sure everybody goes home right now we're just hanging into her bags to see if she has any narcotics on her foreign wow make it out um he's testing a few little bottles to see if they're tested positive for any type of narcotic [Music] Circle it was negative so I'm satisfied with the bag narcotics wise we didn't find anything but she was a subject of interest and the guy she's linked to sometimes leans to prostitution so that might be the other Avenue we're digging into to see if maybe she's coming for that maybe he's running narcotics and girls we just got one yeah operation Renegade is a effort here at the airport to identify foreign Travelers that are seeking to engage in the illicit sex industry and the deeming that it is Super Bowl weekend we're getting a lot of girls that are coming to work so we're gonna ask her further questions if it turns out to be nothing so be it but if it does I hope we get some good Intel to disrupt these human trafficking and prostitution organizations foreign [Music] this is the parking lot where the transaction supposed to occur where the cooperator is going to meet with the source said we're going to spread out through the parking lot and some other local businesses in the area all together we've got somewhere around 20 agents doing this control delivery this evening around the Dollar Tree I wonder if we can park over here and get a long eye I don't want to get too long all right the white Dodge Mark directly in front of Dollar Tree about two rows out foreign ER was instructed where to park in the parking lot here the truck has arrived and is standing by now waiting for the unknown source here in Atlanta to meet with them just keeping his headlights on I'm guessing he's doing that so whoever's coming can figure out where he is a vehicle pulling up to the truck passed on by this store has blue lights flashing oh they got a uniform car sitting there the cops are probably inside for a shot looking or something if the person who's supposed to pick up the battery sees lights it may spook them and then they won't show up foreign car sitting there the cops are probably inside for a shot looking or something [Music] hey guys bad guys are a hard no they will not come out tonight they want to meet early in the morning I can guarantee you that the bad guys just got spooked by the police activity in the area we're going to come back in the morning probably pretty early and get things started again you know unfortunately we're on Doper time and sometimes it goes fast sometimes it doesn't and it's going to go it's just going to go tomorrow [Music] foreign approximately a year ago we used camera footage of CCTV to identify a possible career that came in pretty clear from the Bahamas he did not have to pass through customs he did not have a check-in bag he went down to the baggage carousel took a bag off and then got into ataxia through our follow-up investigation we've confirmed the bag was loaded with kilos of cocaine so it is our belief that there is an internal conspiracy at the airport in Nassau Bahamas the drugs are being introduced by a person that works at the airport that bag with cocaine then flies to New York's JFK Airport then it's coming down the domestic side here where the Karu is taking it away and then the drugs have handed off to the local distributor this is a picture of ataru from last year uh he's pretty distinguishable with his striped shirt because it's like a bumblebee we called him the Busy Bee this is the first time he's coming back to New York since then and only staying until Saturday so we believe he's smuggling cocaine again today we're gonna try and catch some bad guys tonight we're gonna do surveillance everybody's gonna be in plain clothes right but have some sort of police mocking we'll follow him till he gets to the baggage carousel we'll see if he picks up the suitcase and at that point we'll hit him before he gets that elevator for the taxi all right counter surveillance be on the lookout for it we're gonna get moving she seems too clean for Comfort maybe she's new to the game they're testing her out first we share for Super Bowl weekend so I don't want to sound rude but she looks kind of young maybe someone's sick fantasy it's messed up but it's true we know that some of the vulnerable females from South America get picked up by the cartels and they sometimes are forced into prostitution so in this case we're trying to make sure that she's safe and trying to see exactly what's going on English [Music] hey she's from here so yeah Asia okay yeah with your heart so I'm starting Instagram I found a social media account where she seemed to have taken a lot of iron type professional photos she takes trips around the world she has a very uh Prestige group of friends that have money she travels a lot for a teacher those trips are paid for because teachers don't make that much in Colombia we're trying to verify how she's able to afford all this travel if she can explain that it will help us verify her story who bought your ticket for this trip okay [Music] [Music] foreign yes do you have a picture supposedly she was a backup singer for an international Performing Artist so we're just going to try to verify that information she has pictures with him he's also into modeling so we dug a little deeper and we were able to verify that she was indeed a backup singer but she also does a lot of modeling and she's also done some acting it explains why her travel expenses are usually covered by other people so she's good to go today even though Our Last Passenger ended up being a legitimate traveler we can't let our guard down while these sex trade organizations continue to plague our society see VPP would stay vigilant 24 7. we were waiting for Lowe's to come in on a flight from the Bahamas we have approximately 26 people out here working this up we're gonna have one CBP officer with one HSI agent we're going to have the NYPD Port Authority spread out we're trying to cover every in and out of exit every possible scenario hopefully we're going to take the guy down and affect the arrest [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] we had to surveillance in place it was great we made the rest everything went pretty smooth hopefully the guys loaded we seized the drugs and then we'll take down this transnational criminal organization foreign [Music] anyway okay Venezuela it's a Transit point with nakati's coming to the country we're trying to stop that Trends oh okay so we're looking for Behavior body language anything that seems other than normal we just saw this guy he was a little fidgety trying to avoid our eye contact so at this time I wanted to take him a little bit more check his back and see what's up regalos foreign okay [Music] foreign I think yeah it's scheduled four he has a prescription he's visiting no he's from here it's like maybe a month supply can you let it go yeah you can let it in okay this is just one we missed but we're just gonna keep going just get the next one okay the problem is worse now we got a girl there all I've been told was a female um that she was possibly loading so we're gonna go see I'm gonna go the same spot we're set up to meet at last night and the cooperator will make the transaction with the source the place over here with his Dollar General plenty of groups of cars to blend into I got eyes on the cooperator just in the parking lot the cooperator has arrived The Source here in Atlanta gave us a description of the car he'll be arriving in we got the target vehicle and play he's coming in the parking lot right now that little hatchback yeah it's not an SUV it's not a van it's a hybrid thing the target car is rolling around in the Walmart parking lot yeah Cooperators stand out of his truck right now put up and he's swollen on the back of the truck all right bad guys moving in that direction he's pulling up on the driver's side of the cooperator's truck watch out kids there's drug trafficking going on yeah Cooperators staying out of his truck right now all right the driver of the truck retrieved the battery and is taking it over to the gold Toyota and looks like he might be putting it in the back seat all right package is in the Toyota gold Toyota is pulling off Madison's right indicator he's right here next to us you got ahead of us about to make a right and we're at the uh red lights he's number one in the lane to turn left we have a trooper standing by to assist us with a traffic stop and then from there we'll conduct the investigation to find out what type of narcotic is actually in the battery okay let's let this guy go a little ways and definitely not out of Douglas County we'll get him on the interstate I imagine came from the Bahamas he wasn't supposed to have a bag he came out was it a baggage carousel and picked up a large Blue duffel bag which we believe was not checked in now we're gonna search see what we find yeah all the way to the bottom the side of the bags pull the zipper open what do you got just close just keep pulling nothing yeah there's nothing there we found nothing in it but we're going to continue to gather evidence we're gonna check your body searches person and we'll see what happens from there they should go we're gonna check your body [Music] done what do you got okay research this person and one of the AIDS discovered that he had pellets hidden in his roaring area so we're going to test what type of drug it is positive for cocaine did you get the weight 260 on the nose roughly a quarter kilo probably ten thousand dollars right now we're processing the defendant the defendant is being charged with conspiracy to import a controlled substance the way these pellets are they're pretty consistent with people that swallow pellets so we're going to get an x-ray on this guy because not only are we concerned about more drugs but we're concerned about his safety a hell of burst you're pretty much dead you can get over those in a second foreign [Music] we have a girl that's coming from Amsterdam she is traveling for five days she came back with different containers creams shampoos lotion there's about four five six months the thing is there's no scent of that shampoo right nobody travels with six seven bottles of shampoo you test that already I'm gonna take a good look [Music] foreign [Music] okay awesome interesting Academy is a street drug that they're using as precursors to cut into 2cb which is a popular club drug right now testing all these yeah positive Academy yeah we're looking at about six Keys Academy we have Super Bowl week going on so it's big money it's a big Market out there for Academy especially here in Miami so it's a really good stop that the officers made [Music] [Music] [Music] I got an eyeball on the driver of the gold car foreign [Music] is we'll follow the vehicle and once we're far enough away uniform Patrol will go ahead and stop the car so you see him he's right up next to that tractor trailer with these traffic stops the Troopers go up and they talk to the guy but you don't know if he's armed you don't know if he's got other drugs or other instruments in the car that could harm the Troopers so something could happen the dangers are still there oh definitely he's riding that truck's bumper it's against the law in Georgia to follow too close we gotta move hey if y'all can get over the trooper's coming up right now all right here we go blue lights wrong yeah I'm stopped on the side of the road I'll be behind the Troopers state troopers were able to get uh traffic violation following too closely on the target vehicle [Music] copy so we just found out the driver of the vehicle does not have a driver's license while operating the vehicle in the public roadway the driver is going to be arrested here momentarily since this person has no driver's license we're going to impound the vehicle take it back to the local jurisdiction Sheriff's Office search the vehicle take custody the battery and do a further investigation to determine what type of illegal narcotics in the battery fans want to get Super Bowl gear but fake NFL gear has Federal authorities cracking down [Music] got it okay Super Bowl is going to be hosted this year in Miami and we expect a lot of counterfeit items are going to be sold so today the operation is focusing on counterfeit products specifically NFL products what is that look we got one there that looks like textiles stop it let's take a look at that we got that one and this other one here we got one Jersey here there we go more jerseys probably close to 100 some of them are just thrown in but if they were authentic the packaging would be a whole lot better they're cheap the material is not going to be as flim csds are let's see what we got on this box looks like some hats I see a lot of different teams there though you have bills Titans so it's not just the two teams that are going to Super Bowl it's not just the 49ers and the Chiefs you know San Francisco Kansas City typical counterfeiter they just counterfeit a whole bunch of products and they stick it together in one large box look at the colors on these the poor quality you get one legitimate product if you were to put it face to face you will see aspects that are different you might purchase authentic hats for 35 dollars some of them go as expensive as forty dollars you know your typical NFL jersey 175 180 bucks whoever buys these things thinking that there are legitimate items they're being robbed that's a good little find right there hold on we got something there yeah we might want to look at that one right there look like it had a metal inside of it let's see what we got on this box here we go NFL Super Bowl championship rings yep we got more of the same thing Super Bowl rings from like years past and it just has like misspellings we found one of the Rings that instead of saying Super Bowl said gooper Bowl off with a G these things actually have a high value that's a good find right there we're gonna detain the shipment we're gonna seize it we took a counterfeit off the street you know things like that is what gets you proud of the job that you do we're gonna go we got the car back we're doing an inventory search on the vehicle right now trying to make sure it's no weather building our cars in the car or Firearms money and things along those lines we good due to the unknown substance inside the battery and some type of sealant wrapped around we're not going to open ourselves so for our protection we have fire department Hazmat come out and respond and open up the battery for us to find out what substance is inside yes 100 percent so that's a portable x-rated device and it'll show for any voids or any anomalies such as packages or something like that it didn't reveal a whole lot which means it's probably packed pretty tightly in there my belief would be cocaine or heroin in the battery it could be fentanyl uh we don't know fentanyl is one of the most dangerous substances out there right now any type of exposure to it can be life-threatening so therefore we're gonna have an open air area to open up the battery to keep any exposures down [Music] thank you excellent job we hammered into it real quick and some grayish chalky substance came out you want to get a test kit yeah [Music] and it's green that's positive for heroin we went ahead and tested and tested positive for heroin but they're going to go ahead and peel the plastic sides off to reveal the kilos that are in there and then try to methodically pull those out so that we don't damage the kilos anymore than they were on the first hit I mean you can feel it a metal plate on the bottom and a metal plate on the side that's to give it the weight it's nice yeah I feel like a real battery somebody's just transporting a battery you're not going to think that it's got anything bad in it but these specifically are made to conceal illegal narcotics in this instance it was smuggled across we really don't know how it could have come across in a plane to Texas and then a car picks that one battery out of 20 that were on the airplane up throws it in the back of a car or a truck and drives it out to Atlanta five once you're done get them to hose this off today's investigation was successful we prevented five keys of heroin from getting into the streets and communities of the city of Atlanta [Music] [Laughter] foreign multiple pellets of cocaine that were concealed on his person consistent with someone that might swallow pellets of cocaine all right I'm ready we don't know that this guy's loaded but he had 250 grams which seems like a really small weight to me to travel all the way here all right so now we're going to see if the X-ray is positive or negative foreign they confirmed that it was negative so there's no presence of any foreign bodies within the intestine we can get them out of here oh God I'm gonna walk back to that room where we just were okay he admitted to the previous drug trip and he says he's not really sure what happened on this trip because the drugs didn't come in the suitcase but they were supposed to it's been a long day most of us started at least 12 hours ago and it's been some twists and turns along the way but you know we got our guy so overall win foreign it is a disappointing night for Niners fans in the end it's the Chiefs who are taking home the Vince Lombardi Trophy [Applause] it's been an exciting few weeks here in Miami as the region opens its doors to football fans from around the world for Super Bowl 54 . between last year's game and this year's games we have collectively skis over 176 thousand counterfeit items with a value of more than 120 million dollars in addition to these seizures law enforcement officers have made criminal arrests in relation on human trafficking forced labor identity theft drug smuggling just to name a few our success heavily relies upon building effective Partnerships with HSI special agents cep officers and state and local police departments around the country so these record-breaking numbers affirm law enforcement's commitment to protecting the health and safety of American consumers the economy the legitimate businesses from criminals excluding fan enthusiasm here at Super Bowl 54. foreign [Music]

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 6,332,738

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, party drugs, prostitutes, counterfeit goods, Miami, Super Bowl, drug case, border patrol, drug smugglers, mind blowing, explore with us, documentary 2022, party drugs pills, national geographic documentary

Id: NZtHl-jbmiY

Length: 44min 24sec (2664 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 20 2022