Stash House Takedown (Full Episode) | To Catch a Smuggler

foreign [Music] flights coming from the Dominican Republic which is a source control for narcotics especially cocaine platform you don't know how a drug trafficker looks like they use all people young people the more people you stop the better chance you have to get something hi you have your passport and you're coming from Santiago Santo Domingo um your flight's not in here it's upstairs okay follow this is a young kid kind of lost he didn't know where to go now for his connecting flight he didn't want to make any eye contact I found that strange anybody asked you to put anything in your bag everything is yours okay so how long you were in the Dominican Republic and what do you do here you go to school work so the school you know it's open so you stay there for a whole month what happened with that oh right now I'm actually too small but uh are you okay you're too jumpy what's going on so how old are you now [Music] who pay for your ticket for your plane ticket your brother and North Carolina or where oh in Jackson California Washington California have you ever been in California I just came from California okay you came from California going to the Dominican Republic yeah come pay attention so you came from California here and then Dominican Republic [Music] and what is the plan what are you gonna do now okay what is this Xbox why are you going on Xbox can you try that for me let me know this is something that we always gotta check because we have found drugs inside our Xboxes speakers Electronics radio TVs any item so you took the Xbox right foreign let's see what we get with this one this is narrow he's been my partner for the last five years we're here at the mail facility and we're just looking for narcotics we're looking for heroin ecstasy fantennial marijuana and lately we've been getting a lot of cocaine if there's odor is gonna find it there's something there huh piece of learning to the package in this box for coming from Panama but I don't I gotta learn on the box can you check it out please you got it bro this one was going to Georgia I'm gonna run it through the X-ray and take a look and we'll see what's going on yep there's definitely something wrong with that box now covers the fun part we had to open the box [Music] brand new clothes it looks like the gift or something but maybe that's just to try to convince us that it's good but we'll check it out maybe it's in the Box the only way to tell is cutting it or probing it see if I can get under here [Music] that's glued really good this is definitely something wrong those boxes are unusually glued like this [Music] there we go it's loaded around the perimeter it's got something concealed inside the flaps of the box it could be any drug it's not a lot right here but it'll light up [Music] that blue stuff is detergent you can smell it this is mascular chemical odor the narcotics it's fortunate the canine has a really good scent so for him obviously it didn't work and the X-ray machine doesn't care about smells it doesn't look very you know we have eight packages total go test it real quick we're gonna use a thermal scientific Gemini and it'll send a laser beam through the material it'll tell me what it is oh it's cocaine hydrochloride 278.4 grams a little over a quarter of a kilo now we're going to do a seizure report or document everything where it's coming from who it was going to we're going to call HSI maybe do a controlled delivery or maybe it ends here and we just season narcotics and it gets destroyed they're pretty good at it they put brand new clothes they send you the receipts so you think it's a legitimate purchase it was a good try they get an A for effort it just didn't work out for them thank you foreign everything's okay that's good okay so it's nothing in there you can put it away hang out here I'll be back I'm gonna check the chicken we took the bags everything was clean but I trust my instinct he told me this brother came for his ticket and I would like to verify all the information that is possible he said he went from California they are but now he's gonna go to North Carolina if you say a month come on foreign was purchased by home address is North Carolina that's probably his brother yeah all right I'll do some research about his flight and everything was okay all right let's put everything away the back was negative the Xbox was negative so he's good to go for me when you go out the door make a left and then we're gonna go upstairs all right have a good day some people they're nervous to be nervous so I guess we gotta move on yes [Music] yes all right so we got information that a large quantity of methamphetamine was smuggled from Mexico and has come to a local Stash House and has possibly been distributed from this location so what we're going to do today is we're going to do some physical surveillance on that Target location see what kind of activity is going on in the house we did start doing surveillance three or four days ago on this residence and we've seen somebody moving back and forth was he driving he was driving a black pickup truck we do believe he's a drug dealer but we don't have that probable cause to kick his door right now hopefully if everything goes well we'll be able to do a search warrant inside the house and take off this large quantity of drugs so that's it ready to roll ready to roll for your check loud and clear I'm gonna go ahead and do a drive-by and see if I can see any other cars that we haven't seen before see any other people moving out see the activities of our main target just to kind of get a feel of a pattern so just beyond this White House and this is what we believe to be the Stash House he's got a light blue door so it's very easy to identify all right so we're gonna drive by it [Music] we think that this bulk low to methamphetamine is probably sitting in this house hopefully we'll see some kind of deal go down where these drugs are being exchanged [Music] thank you we're gonna run all these boxes through the mail facility we get narcotics every day you name it we've seen it loaded sneakers coffee beans radios hard drives electronic equipment nothing surprises anymore it's like every day you get something new this one was a negative definitely not narcotics that doesn't look good it says Sporting Goods equipment and two fans I don't see the reason to send fans they got them everywhere this package was coming from a source country Trinidad and Tobago and it's going to a demand country Australia the value is very high over there for any type of narcotic something doesn't look right seems like cheap plastic but in the image it looks too thick the only way to really look if you don't like the image you take a quick peek inside see that right there that's not supposed to be there that's why it looks thicker in the X-Men machine they usually glue them in and they're not hard to pop off try to see if we can peel back a little bit of it so we can see what's under it and whatever it is it's wrapped in aluminum foil no see it's loaded you can see that it's white I'll test it real quick broom with some pink above it it's hard to see but it's there it's positive it's cocaine we have 806.4 grams I can tell you what it's gonna go for now nothing one's pretty good guys foreign go ahead and tell your passenger we're gonna take her to a private room and I'm gonna head up there we have a female passenger coming now from the Caribbean we'll start with this one one of the officers randomly select her she had a short trip she went for a few days but she had a huge bag with her and I want to see why the back is so big what she has in there check everything you gotta fill every panel the size bottom can I see The Purge that was so heavy something else in here oh wow surprise what is this something was inside behind the line and of the purse a package on each side of the bag give me the test kid remains theater there we're gonna test what you bring in here foreign [Music] it's just an advocate or function just in case a nightmare well this is reality 1.167 what was it in the liner yeah yours you understand you were transporting narcotics into the United States so at this point the more you give me the better this is going to go for you so do whatever you kind of help yourself [Music] in position with an eye on the target door all right Temple the target left what we believe to be the stash house probably about an hour ago but we didn't have enough people up here at the time to follow him I was able to see him walk out and he didn't have anything in his hands so he may be running some errands but we don't know our Target's driving a black Dodge Ram pickup truck so now it's just a waiting game oh this might be good [Music] The Target just arrived back oh yeah he's sitting in his black truck oh he's moving right now he's out of the truck he's got a small bag he's looking around quite a bit that could be money that looks boxy kind of like if you have a stack of cash who knows it's gonna have to be something certain to find the right amount of probable cause to take it down the bag he had in his hand when he went into the Target locations so to me that looks like he went and picked up some cash from somewhere and then we've got a train it's about to be out of my view I have a train that decided to stop for some reason right in front of me yeah copy them coming out of the house can't tell what he's got in his hands you still got eyes on them no I could barely see under the train every cabin the bags could be some math ready to go he's in the truck he's backing out I turn the roll over there a little bit oh shoot he's moving right now he may be going to a drug deal and I am blocked oh he's moving right now we got a possible drug dealer with possibly the drugs in this car and I am blocked come on train I'm awesome he might be going through the neighborhood I'm gonna try to get in front of him all right let's see yeah right here so that's him right there black Dodge Ram yeah I just met him at the intersection going northbound so our Target pulled out and we've got some guys that are following him right now we're gonna try to catch up to him yeah he just turned left into the shopping park ing right now all right let's get in behind them I just don't want to get too close [Music] all right so the target's vehicle is parked in front of that thrift store so he's just sitting in his truck out in the middle of the parking lot right now his truck's right there facing away from us basically more speculating what he's actually doing here but with his mannerisms as far as parking way out from the store not going in that's very suspicious activity kind of makes you think that he's waiting on somebody to show up which would be great if he drops that bag to somebody and we can get that guy taken off down the road then we're going to have our probable cause to get in that house thank you right here I know you're upset so we're gonna make him as comfortable as we possibly can I'm gonna release one hand okay most people once again once again we're genuine some are just trying to make people feel bad hit some tissues we have kids right have one is three I know it's hard but you gotta just try and relax at this point you just help yourself okay mistakes happen now you fix them who gave you the purse how do you know is I see a boyfriend or just a friend um what's his name [Music] what's his last name you don't know his last name but you've known him for years right um who are you supposed to give this to all right listen listen an agent's gonna come here right they're gonna ask you the same questions you got to try real hard to remember his last name it's up to you whether you want to cooperate or not okay we've contacted HSI they'll do some further questioning on her and see if we can get some other information for anyone that might be connected [Music] [Music] his truck all right so in the gold 4Runner pulled up next to our Target the driver getting out all right so what guy he's getting his truck getting his truck all right he's uh in the truck right now white male from the gold vehicle got in the passenger seat of our Dodge Ram and he's meeting with our Target right now did y'all see anything in the driver's hand of the Forerunner open up the passenger side door and throw something in a consumer it wasn't when you see an item come from one vehicle and go to the other vehicle most people would be able to determine that that's possibly a drug deal that just occurred before working out Target vehicle leaving them all right copy we will focus on this gold Forerunner all right the vehicle is headed towards the exit [Music] here we go I'm the driver to the Forerunner threw something in his back passenger seat and we're following him North right now he's hitting 75 Southbound all right entrance and copy them Temple waiting to make contact Georgia State Patrol guy getting on to help us with the traffic stop right here on the left windows all right here we go and blue lights are on here [Music] foreign GSP is deploying the canine on the Forerunner they're doing a search of the vehicle right now all right here we go hey will you grab that Peg I won't take it to the bag and put it out on the back of the corner [Music] thank you there's the bag that's the same bag that came out of the house this came from our guy the bag is loaded so we got math there's a gun appears to be a Glock probably a couple grand in cash he had a set of scales hello apparently our guy in the Dodge been stressing out barely on the phone about something it's possible the gold Forerunner got a text off to him saying hey dude I just got pulled over by the police you need to go ahead and secure him and the location if he spooked that much there is the possibility that he could start flushing everything that's in that house yeah copy them all right all right bro bye bye so we're close to a thousand grams in just one bag so we're looking at two kilos of methamphetamine we're looking at about 10 grand let's throw this in the back of my van all right they got them guys yeah copy our guys just detained the guy driving the black Dodge that delivered the meth so it's a great day so far but we just keep growing next we're gonna try to move into getting a search warrant from the house that we know it came from I would venture to say that there's going to be a lot more meth in that address so we're going to continue the investigation from here foreign drugs United States that are worth a very good amount of money willingly or unwillingly or no knowledge or knowledge it doesn't change anything right now we're gonna talk okay the main focus right now is to see if she's telling us as much as she does know because she obviously knows the main guy I know your birthday was yesterday did you go down for a birthday trip or what yeah what did you do when you were down there you know I went out to eat we went to some parties pictures on your birthday trip down there no no did you have a hotel right in the state when you went down there no I stayed with him we'll go paid for your ticket did you find that weird um I felt was trying to court me again so you went down there with the purpose of celebrating your birthday with him and you don't remember his last name guy for a good period of time that's like a first date thing hey what's your name this is my name yes that is true that's hard for us to believe did he tell you what was in the purse or what it was for no never told me all he told me was that it was for his friend's mom and you don't remember what friend's mom she did not he never told me like the friend's name or anything he never told foreign let me explain kind of how this this is going right like you're in a very bad situation you have a good job and you have a kid but he took advantage of you whether he played on your love or he played on your vulnerabilities you basically set you up because you took all the risk and right now you're doing a lot of protecting of him because you don't want to get him in trouble but remember who ultimately got you in trouble you have to start being honest with us is there anything you want to tell us that you want to change or like hey I remember his last name now or anything like that [Music] is there anything you want to tell us like hey I remember his last name now or anything like that I believe he told me maybe in the beginning but like I can't say it so what did he tell you I think all right so was he gonna pay you for this trip no he never talked about money he never talked about anything did he tell you what was in the purse or what it was for no never told me all he told me was that it was for his friend's mom you have to have some knowledge because you have to know what risk is involved I I don't I never even touched the bag I saw it did I question it no should I have I I guess I don't know I don't I saw nothing notes that I haven't ever think he would but you're in that situation and that's super don't even know I understand that do you have any pictures no text messages [Music] yeah that's him okay [Music] you trust me I'm not holding anything back we can text him right now and tell me what to tell him so you can hear whatever you need to see I don't even care like I have nothing to do with this like I wanted jeopardize I understand I think myself just take a deep breath take a deep breath typical passengers like this that are not told a lot she is cooperating with us and so we're gonna go for it from there all right we're gonna call the prosecutors and we're gonna finish our paperwork do you have any questions real quick okay come follow us as now we've gotten most that we could get out of her we'll still process her and we're going to have a discussion and make a final decision whether we prosecute but different things she told us and other leads we can follow down the further the case the United States stands ready particularly in the area of law enforcement in the fight against Wildlife trafficking trafficking says we value trinkets more than we value these magnificent animals in the wild we will stop the poachers we will stop the profits to address this transnational threat we're on the way to uh air cargo warehouse in Miami we just got a call from the senior Wildlife inspector with U.S fish and wildlife service the shipment we're going to look at is coming from South America and it's going to a country in Asia this is a common tripping route for a lot of smuggled wildlife and the Importer has had a previous violation so we just want to go check the equipment and see if what it is [Music] right here yeah we got an alert of a possible shipment containing uh illegal Seafood products this is that we have a total of 18 boxes so we're gonna check to make sure that everything is in compliance uh and let's see what we get foreign let's take a look sea cucumbers fish bladders in this case the species on the shipment we don't regulate it this bus is good to go with a try open another box oh wow wow we got sharp fins I've been checking this type of commodity for the past two or three years and in order to trade shark fins between countries you need a special permit at a quick glance we have three species two of them most likely in violation so let's see if they have any documentation whatsoever let's tape it up and then let's take it all right this is a good catch guys so now we are going to transport the boxes to the U.S fish and wildlife service office of law enforcement in Miami so that we can do more detail examination and also ID the fins and making sure that everything is documented it's a really big seizure we've gone through two boxes so far out of 18. this is just the beginning all right I got the search worn in hand and we are headed over there to you guys hopefully this bulk flow to methamphetamine is sitting in this house but I don't know we'll just have to wait and see once we get in there all right we have the main target detained that's one threat down so we'll go ahead and knock on this door hopefully there's not another person in there with weapons of any kind and we'll uh start searching [Music] [Music] outdoor sportify like that God I hope so outdoor sportify like that God I hope so come out towards there from the back of the front all right I'll say we're all clear all right let me go figure out what's going on they made entry there are no other people in there so we're going to go ahead and start the search process anything through that backside nothing back there no nothing he's got dope somewhere I mean I'm sure once we start digging in here oh here it is big box full of dope and yeah there's a bunch in there bags filled with meth big box of money in the back too that's good during the search of the residents we found probably about 40 or 50 000 in cash a loaded handgun and a cardboard box that has multiple gallon bags filled with meth uh very similar to those two gallon size bags that we just took off the traffic stop earlier now we're in the process of getting rooms labeled and getting some pictures then we'll pick up all the evidence from here and take it to our office with the evidence that we seized on a traffic stop this is like a big ass bag of ice I don't know how much math it is right now we'll just have to wait and see once we figure stuff out but it's a good haul we're getting a good chunk off the street today foreign we brought the shark fins back here to the warehouse and we're just helping fishing Wildlife process and go through it let's do this let's start feeling number two this way the shark fin trade it's a very lucrative Market approximately a 100 million sharks are taken yearly to make the famous shark fin soup shark fin soup in Asia can go from a hundred dollars to 400 600 of both we have a mix of species some of them fall into The Endangered Species Act and they require permits to be exported so far we have silky sharks great hammerhead this is a tiger shark this is a pectoral fin this shipment came in with no permits and that's why make the entire shipment illegal so this box is done so now we can do let's get our total number on that one box number one in this shipment we have an approximate total of 1400 pounds it'll go for 500 a pound so this shipment's worth approximately seven hundred thousand dollars we're looking at thousands of shark fins this is the largest seizure I've ever been a part of of working for CBP now for 10 years it's a sad day for conservation and for sharks in general there's hundreds of animals that were illegally obtained on this shipment however it's a good day for us because it directly affects the revenue from illegal surfing trade [Music] [Music] so what we're doing is testing this to see if it tests positive for methamphetamine [Music] put just a little sample in here this one should test blue [Music] so that's a positive test for methamphetamine the purchasers like big shards it makes them feel like they're getting the best stuff in the world but math is math so they're each a kilo a piece there was 19 bags from the house and then two that we seized on a traffic stop all in all we got approximately 21 kilos of methamphetamine worth approximately 105 000 on the street along with the drugs we made two arrests and we seized two handguns and approximately sixty seven thousand dollars in cash I'm extremely happy anytime we can take methamphetamine off the streets it's an incredible day for law enforcement [Music]

Channel: National Geographic

Views: 10,614,846

Keywords: national geographic, nat geo, natgeo, animals, wildlife, science, explore, discover, survival, nature, culture, documentary, perpetual planet nat geo, photography, full episode, drug smuggling, to catch a smuggler national geographic, documentary 2022, drug trafficking, national geographic documentary, catch a smuggler, to catch a smuggler nat geo, national geographic documentary full episodes, drug smugglers caught

Id: AUFQ44Y3TRM

Length: 44min 24sec (2664 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 01 2022