Speaker 1: I've said this once before. It's not your problem until
Speaker 1: it's your problem. I think what we've seen in the
Speaker 1: past is people will see, you know, these organized crime
Speaker 1: groups having conflict within themselves, and it's okay, that's okay,
Speaker 1: it's over there, it doesn't affect me. But when you're
Speaker 1: having these sorts of shootings occurring where it's close to
Speaker 1: playgrounds or shopping car parks and it is close to you,
Speaker 1: it is then your problem.
Speaker 2: So this is it. This is the end of the line.
Speaker 3: You last heard from my colleague News Corp Australia's national correspondent,
Speaker 3: Stephen Drill back in episode three when he was in
Speaker 3: a Narco tunnel underneath the US Mexico border. But right
Speaker 3: now he's standing alone on a road full of multimillion
Speaker 3: dollar properties where there's one that really stands out.
Speaker 2: This house is like it kind of looks like a spaceship.
Speaker 2: It's it's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Stephen's back home in Australia.
Speaker 4: I'm in a street in Melbourne. It's the city where
Speaker 4: I live. You might call this a leafy area. A
Speaker 4: leafy area is shorthand here in Melbourne for posh. The
Speaker 4: street is full of very old English trees, and I'm
Speaker 4: standing in the shade of one, which is good for
Speaker 4: my lack of hair.
Speaker 3: Despite the tree cover, it's still hot out. The sun
Speaker 3: is fierce in the blue sky. Growing up in Australia myself,
Speaker 3: I can remember just how hot it gets.
Speaker 4: Black Wall, Black Gate. The door set well back just
Speaker 4: the underground garage here would probably be bigger than my
Speaker 4: entire house.
Speaker 3: The house has white wolves, a home, cinema, a gym,
Speaker 3: and big glass windows overlooking its private pool.
Speaker 2: Now I'm just walking up to the front door.
Speaker 4: I mean, this place looks like it's worth ten million dollars,
Speaker 4: which is exactly what it was bought for just last
Speaker 4: year by a man police allege is a member of
Speaker 4: a money laudering syndicate called Long River.
Speaker 3: The Long River Operation allegedly laundered hundreds of millions of
Speaker 3: Ossie dollars.
Speaker 4: And I'm just about to knock on the door of
Speaker 4: this ten million dollar house that is alleged to be
Speaker 4: the proceeds of crime.
Speaker 3: Stephen reaches out, presses the button on the intercom. His
Speaker 3: heart beats faster.
Speaker 2: No answer.
Speaker 4: As a journalist doing these jobs, we even know what
Speaker 4: kind of reaction you'll get on a doorknock like this.
Speaker 4: What the police are saying is that people living here
Speaker 4: brought this swanky property with criminal profits.
Speaker 2: Nothing. I'll try again, but this.
Speaker 3: Time someone answers. I'm Fiona Hamilton and from The Times,
Speaker 3: The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. This is the
Speaker 3: final episode of Cocaine Inc. Episode eight, bringing it Home.
Speaker 4: So far in this series, I've been to Columbia and
Speaker 4: Mexico looking at where the cocaine business starts in the
Speaker 4: coca plantations and how the drug is exported. Fiona went
Speaker 4: to the Netherlands, where ports like Rotterdam act as distribution
Speaker 4: hubs for this global industry. David was in Northwest England
Speaker 4: looking at the retail arm of the business, the street
Speaker 4: level dealers. Then he followed the money trailed to Dubai,
Speaker 4: which led to a maze of different companies dealing in
Speaker 4: gold investment and trading. It felt like we lost the
Speaker 4: trail at that point. What do the world's cocaine bosses
Speaker 4: actually do with the money they've made from their crimes?
Speaker 4: Does criminal money end up buying beautiful homes in suburban
Speaker 4: streets in cities like the one where I live? Trying
Speaker 4: to answer that question is how I ended up back
Speaker 4: home in Australia standing outside his house looking at how
Speaker 4: those allegedly involved in organized crime take their profits and
Speaker 4: spend it.
Speaker 5: Hi, my name's Stephen Drill, journalist. I just was wondering
Speaker 5: if the place has been seized by the police or
Speaker 5: what's happening with it now.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to touch base. Are you the owner
Speaker 2: of the property?
Speaker 4: Okay, so I don't have permission to record, meaning you're
Speaker 4: not going to hear the conversation. I can't see the
Speaker 4: person I'm speaking to, but it's a woman. I guess
Speaker 4: she's in her thirties.
Speaker 2: She sounds weary.
Speaker 4: I try explaining how the Federal Police have just rated
Speaker 4: twelve high street money exchange stores across the country and
Speaker 4: are saying this house is linked to them. They're calling
Speaker 4: it the most significant money laundering investigation in Australia's history.
Speaker 2: The police allege the.
Speaker 4: Company operated a bit like a bank, providing a system
Speaker 4: for customers to transfer money in and out of the country. Only,
Speaker 4: according to police, some of the customers will organize criminals
Speaker 4: and their money.
Speaker 2: Hundreds of millions allegedly.
Speaker 5: Came from cyber scamps and what the cops call trafficking
Speaker 5: illicit goods, which would be the kind of business we
Speaker 5: followed around the world in this series. At the front
Speaker 5: door of the ten million dollar.
Speaker 4: House, the woman I'm talking to seems to hesitate, and
Speaker 4: a man takes over the conversation. He doesn't say who
Speaker 4: he is. When I ask, he says, they don't know
Speaker 4: anything about police rates. They've just moved in and they're
Speaker 4: only tenants, he says. The owners aren't at home right now,
Speaker 4: so they can't talk. Puzzled and disappointed, I say thanks
Speaker 4: and walk back out.
Speaker 2: But something's nagging at me. So there's someone living in there.
Speaker 5: Now, let's go and see what else there is here.
Speaker 2: I'll just come knock on the neighbor's door.
Speaker 4: Now, this might seem weird trying to talk to the neighbors,
Speaker 4: but as a journalist, I've lost track of the number
Speaker 4: of stories I've got just by knocking on doors. Does
Speaker 4: anybody else in the neighborhood know something anything? When you're
Speaker 4: working on a story like this, you never know what
Speaker 4: tiny bit of information might be the missing piece that
Speaker 4: helps you solve the puzzle. And I want to know
Speaker 4: how this house might be caught up in the Long
Speaker 4: River Syndicate. So I try some neighbors doors.
Speaker 5: The dog is certainly home there, but it's a little
Speaker 5: white fuck your dog. Nothing too scary, which can happen
Speaker 5: sometimes on door knocks.
Speaker 2: But I'll keep moving.
Speaker 4: Because all I know is what the federal police are saying,
Speaker 4: that the Long River Syndicate provide organized crime a way
Speaker 4: to move their money here without it being traced by
Speaker 4: the authorities. Money that could have come from allegedly trafficking,
Speaker 4: A list of goods which could be drugged, like cocaine. Now,
Speaker 4: the house immediately next door, she has a some string
Speaker 4: tied around the gates.
Speaker 2: It doesn't look like you can come into that one.
Speaker 2: Hell from there, I just pressed the doorbell, see if
Speaker 2: anyone comes out.
Speaker 5: Do you understand why I think the effort is worth it,
Speaker 5: spending hours in the hot sun knocking on strangers doors.
Speaker 5: I need to take you back a few days to
Speaker 5: when I got a call from a source.
Speaker 2: This call was unusual. The source said something was going
Speaker 2: to happen.
Speaker 6: I can't tell you too much about it, but they.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't say what.
Speaker 4: They just said to be free on a certain day,
Speaker 4: so I knew it was going to be big. In
Speaker 4: the meantime, I waited, I kept looking at the cocaine business,
Speaker 4: which seems to be on a bull run.
Speaker 7: In the almost thirty years I've been in law enforcement
Speaker 7: and intelligence, I haven't seen the scale of cocaine that
Speaker 7: we've seen consistently hitting our shores in the last twelve
Speaker 7: to twenty four months before in my career.
Speaker 4: This is Matt Rippon, Deputy CEO Intelligence at the Australian
Speaker 4: Criminal Intelligence Commission or ACIC.
Speaker 7: The main reason is because of the profit margin to
Speaker 7: be made. There are a lot of logistics and arrangements
Speaker 7: that need to be made between uplift from the style
Speaker 7: of coca leaf in Columbia, for example, to make it
Speaker 7: all the way to the streets of Sydney or Melbourne, etc.
Speaker 7: So it's a real global enterprise.
Speaker 4: We're talking in Matt's headquarters. It's a hard place to find.
Speaker 4: There's no marking on the bill. Security is tight inside
Speaker 4: these walls. Law enforcement spy and criminals. They access messages,
Speaker 4: monitor the movement of people and cocaine.
Speaker 7: The law enforcement actually been really successful in recent years
Speaker 7: in seizing some really large consignments of cocaine. You may
Speaker 7: recall one point eight ton of cocaine was actually seized
Speaker 7: in Peru.
Speaker 2: One point eight tons.
Speaker 4: I do some mental calculations, as I learned at the
Speaker 4: port in Cardagena back in episode three, the value of
Speaker 4: cocaine changes depending on where it is in the global
Speaker 4: supply chain. In Peru, where it was seized, that one
Speaker 4: point eight tons might have been worth around five million
Speaker 4: US dollars. Wholesale, it's almost four million pounds or seven
Speaker 4: and a half million is STI dollars. While the time
Speaker 4: it's trafficked all the way to Australia and sold by
Speaker 4: the gram on the streets of Sydney or Melbourne.
Speaker 2: That value rises by a lot.
Speaker 4: It could be worth more than three quarters of a
Speaker 4: billion dollars US over six hundred million pounds or one
Speaker 4: point two billion Ousie dollars. Another way of looking at
Speaker 4: it is that much cocaine would be enough to supply
Speaker 4: every user in Australia for six months.
Speaker 7: That seizure was actually linked to one of the highest
Speaker 7: level threats to this country. So attached to that syndicate,
Speaker 7: you had another one point one ton of cocaine that
Speaker 7: came into New South Wales from Panama.
Speaker 4: When he talks about high level threats to the country.
Speaker 4: Matt means it much of Australia's cocaine import are thought
Speaker 4: to be linked to an international cartel known as the Kinahans,
Speaker 4: the Irish cocaine cowboys, who are currently thought to be
Speaker 4: in the United Arab Emirates. The Kinahans are being investigated
Speaker 4: around the world, including over links to the Islamic militant
Speaker 4: group Hezbollah and Iran's intelligence services. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 4: the US government offered a five million dollar bounty for
Speaker 4: information leading to the arrests of the gang's leaders.
Speaker 8: Buzz of today, the Kinahan transnational criminal organization joins the
Speaker 8: ranks of Italy's Camorra, Mexico's Los Zetas, Japan's Yakaza, and
Speaker 8: Russia's Thieves and Law Also as of today, the result
Speaker 8: of these sanctions, these individuals are immediately served from the
Speaker 8: US financial system and any assets brought property under US
Speaker 8: jurisdiction are immediate blocked.
Speaker 4: At this moment, the Kinahans the suspective of hiding out
Speaker 4: in Dubai, where David was in the last episode. Together,
Speaker 4: these different interlinked criminal groups represent a huge international challenge
Speaker 4: to any single police.
Speaker 7: Force in twenty twenty three. In February, you had two
Speaker 7: back to back large cocaine importations, three hundred kilo importation
Speaker 7: off the coast of Western Australia, and then you had
Speaker 7: three point two ton seased in New Zealand.
Speaker 5: That's a lot of money in one shipment. That's billions
Speaker 5: of dollars of street value.
Speaker 7: It is billions of dollars. And the interesting thing here
Speaker 7: is that because of the profit margin that can be
Speaker 7: made from coca leaf all the way through to finished
Speaker 7: product on the ground, they can afford to lose a
Speaker 7: particular consignment. It's not a good outcome for them, but
Speaker 7: they actually factor in losses into their business model like
Speaker 7: any good company structure would.
Speaker 4: Fact In Rotterdam, where Fiona was in episode four of
Speaker 4: this series, research suggests authorities sees just over half of
Speaker 4: all drug shipments. Other law enforcement people I speak to
Speaker 4: say the average might be less. Roughly one in four
Speaker 4: cocaine shipments is picked up. Either way, the cocaine traffickers
Speaker 4: still make a profit, although that doesn't stop them lashing
Speaker 4: out when a shipment is lost.
Speaker 3: Good morning, first of breaking Years, and we are three
Speaker 3: hours into a gangland man hunt in Sydney.
Speaker 2: A man executed in Sydney.
Speaker 4: A bloody gang war has caused more than twenty deaths
Speaker 4: in recent years.
Speaker 5: Another man hunt is under way tonight after the daylight
Speaker 5: shooting of a former biking.
Speaker 4: Sparked by a dispute over a missing shipment of cocaine,
Speaker 4: now thought to have been seized by the Federal police.
Speaker 9: A man has been shocked dead in a front yard
Speaker 9: at Fairfield Heights in Sydney's Tit for Tat gangland war.
Speaker 7: Organized crime groups act like a genuinely global business, but
Speaker 7: what we're seeing in the environment that's been somewhat different,
Speaker 7: particularly in the last three to five years, has been
Speaker 7: collaboration across organized crime groups that traditionally wouldn't work together.
Speaker 7: We're seeing cocaine importations where you have Mexicans working with
Speaker 7: Chinese organized crime, working with outlaw motorcycle gangs in Australia
Speaker 7: to make sure that they compartmentalize their business appropriately to
Speaker 7: protect the head of the syndicate, but also to make
Speaker 7: sure that they capitalize on the capabilities that they all
Speaker 7: have at various points in the supply chain.
Speaker 4: That complicated supply chain where cocaine can travel through several
Speaker 4: different countries, passing between different criminal groups who are now
Speaker 4: working together. That's a strength of the modern drug operation.
Speaker 4: The person who's ultimately in charge is not exposed.
Speaker 2: He or she is like the.
Speaker 4: Chief executive, safe inside their boardroom, while different groups from
Speaker 4: different countries handle all the actual work.
Speaker 2: But listening to.
Speaker 4: Matt, I learned that this is also a weakness because
Speaker 4: the longer the chain becomes, the more weak links it contains,
Speaker 4: meaning more opportunities for law enforcement to find those links
Speaker 4: and break them. The day comes when my source had
Speaker 4: told me something big is going to happen. Before dawn,
Speaker 4: hundreds of Australian Federal Police officers launch raids across the country.
Speaker 4: They see expensive looking cars and haul them away with
Speaker 4: tow trucks, carry battering rams up to the gates of
Speaker 4: expensive looking homes, and send uniform cops into twelve high
Speaker 4: street money exchange stores in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
Speaker 4: The stores are part of a national chain with bright
Speaker 4: professional signs, shining white counters, smartly dressed staff and this
Speaker 4: promotional video playing in the window.
Speaker 9: Niha Wa Shu Gary Hardgrave. For almost twelve years, I
Speaker 9: was an elected representative in the Australian government five years
Speaker 9: as a minister, including in immigration. As of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 9: I'm joining the board of Shunxiang Currency Exchange the further overseas.
Speaker 4: And getting a former Australian government minister like Gary Hardgrave
Speaker 4: to promote it would have seemed a real seal of
Speaker 4: approval to the.
Speaker 2: Chang Jiang Currency Exchange to Australia.
Speaker 4: Chang Yang is Mandarin Chinese, it translates as Long River.
Speaker 9: The Australian government has strong oversight, but shun Xiang Currency
Speaker 9: Exchange has an even higher level of reliability, with water
Speaker 9: tight security processes in place to guarantee the safety of
Speaker 9: your facts.
Speaker 4: There's no suggestion Gary Hardgrave, the former government minister, knew
Speaker 4: anything about what was allegedly going on at Changing. He's
Speaker 4: not been accused of any wrongdoing and would later say
Speaker 4: he'd cut all ties with the company and had no
Speaker 4: day to day involvement in its operations. But this morning,
Speaker 4: looking at the scale of the police operation, the cops
Speaker 4: walking out carrying computers and stacks of paperwork, it became
Speaker 4: clear this really was as big a deal as my
Speaker 4: source had promised.
Speaker 10: This is the most significant and complex AFP led money
Speaker 10: laundring investigation in the nation's history.
Speaker 4: This is Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Demeadow speaking
Speaker 4: at a press conference following the raids in October twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three. I'm sitting among the press pack, frantically typing
Speaker 4: to get down his work.
Speaker 10: The AFP alleges the chang Jing Currency Exchange is a
Speaker 10: front for a mining laundering syndicate that transfers dirty money
Speaker 10: for large criminal enterprises.
Speaker 4: The police allege Changjang transferred over ten billion Aussie dollars
Speaker 4: just over the past three years. That's over five billion
Speaker 4: pounds or nearly seven billion US dollars. Most of that
Speaker 4: was legal, the cops say, but they also allege criminals
Speaker 4: were allowed to move money in and out of the
Speaker 4: country by mixing it in with the legal transactions. In
Speaker 4: this way, the Federal Police allege around two hundred and
Speaker 4: twenty nine million Aussie dollars was laundered, money from what
Speaker 4: police call a serious violent.
Speaker 10: Act money laundering is not a victimless crime, and.
Speaker 2: Also money from trafficking illicit goods.
Speaker 10: Even after more than twenty years in law enforcement and
Speaker 10: as a former law myself. The amount of money allegedly
Speaker 10: laundered still surprised me.
Speaker 4: The police call it an industrial scale operation. Seven people
Speaker 4: were arrested in the raids. Some could face life imprisonment,
Speaker 4: the cops say, although the accused insist they're innocent. According
Speaker 4: to the cops, they'd been living the high life. I
Speaker 4: keep typing taking it all in as the press conference continues.
Speaker 10: By eating at Australia's most extravagant restaurants, drank wine and
Speaker 10: saki values and the tens of thousands of dollars, traveled
Speaker 10: on private jets and drove vehicles purchased for almost four
Speaker 10: hundred thousand dollars. One alleged offender lived in a home
Speaker 10: worth more than ten million dollars.
Speaker 4: That's the ten million dollar house, the one with the
Speaker 4: gleaming white walls that looks something like a spaceship where
Speaker 4: we started this episode.
Speaker 6: Hi, how are you going?
Speaker 2: My I's Steve on the journalists.
Speaker 4: So, now that I know my source is correct and
Speaker 4: this is a big deal, I want to know more
Speaker 4: about this alleged money laundering operation.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: My name's Stephen Drell. I'm a journalist.
Speaker 5: I just was wondering if the place has been seized
Speaker 5: by the police, or what's happening with it now. I
Speaker 5: just wanted to touch base. Are you the owner of
Speaker 5: the property?
Speaker 4: When the people inside so they can't help because they're
Speaker 4: only tenants and have just moved in. I start talking
Speaker 4: to the neighbors because if the cops are right and
Speaker 4: this house was bought by people caught up in international
Speaker 4: money laundering operation, then this could be the very last
Speaker 4: step in the kind of global criminal business we've been
Speaker 4: following ever since the Cokerfields in Colombia, where the money
Speaker 4: made by organized crime gangs is moved into a new
Speaker 4: country and those involved allegedly spend it on seemingly legitimate
Speaker 4: purchases like fast cars and fancy houses or like this house.
Speaker 6: Just wanted to talk about your neighbors.
Speaker 2: Have you near people moved in recently? So I got
Speaker 2: chatting to a neighbor.
Speaker 6: Is there new tenants in the house or same people?
Speaker 6: But there's no there has there been any removal trucks
Speaker 6: or no removal trucks that's from the same people there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, appreciate it.
Speaker 4: It's hard to hear on the audio what the neighbor says,
Speaker 4: but he's just told me he hasn't seen anybody moving
Speaker 4: in recently, no removal trucks. Wondering about that, I stand
Speaker 4: in the shade of a tree, get my phone out
Speaker 4: and reread news reports of the police rate. Now I'm
Speaker 4: just going back through the news articles because I think
Speaker 4: I may have missed a trick here. I know that
Speaker 4: there was a husband and wife who were arrested, so
Speaker 4: I'm just going through now and checking which of the
Speaker 4: people it might actually be. Now, there were three people
Speaker 4: who were granted bail, and now I'm not going to
Speaker 4: use their names here in this podcast, but there were
Speaker 4: three people granded bars. So it's possible that the people
Speaker 4: who were grounded batt are those people we just spoke
Speaker 4: with on the intercom.
Speaker 2: Perhaps weren't genants.
Speaker 4: But were actually the people accused of being involved in
Speaker 4: this money laundering syndicate. According to the police charge sheets
Speaker 4: which were tended in court, the couple who bought this
Speaker 4: house a part of what the police are calling the
Speaker 4: Long River money laundering syndicate. That syndicate was named after
Speaker 4: the chain of Shining money exchange officers that were raided
Speaker 4: last October. Investigators have traced millions going into the bank
Speaker 4: accounts of one of the owners of this house. The
Speaker 4: police also alleged that some of those who were arrested
Speaker 4: coached others to create company structures and false documents to
Speaker 4: conceal the proceeds of crime. The charge sheets use what
Speaker 4: seems like the language of accountants talking about different businesses,
Speaker 4: beneficiaries and assets, funds, transfer instructions, taxable declarations. This all
Speaker 4: feels a long way from where I started this series
Speaker 4: with Jose the Columbian police officer who lost his legs
Speaker 4: to a landmine, fighting a bloody war in the drug plantations, A.
Speaker 11: War on drugs.
Speaker 1: I mean times have changed the AFP, we don't focus
Speaker 1: on commodity with matured our approach.
Speaker 4: Kirsty Schofield is the Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner in
Speaker 4: charge of the Forces Crime Command, meaning she oversaw the
Speaker 4: investigation into alleged money laundering by the chang Xiang Currency Exchange.
Speaker 4: In person, she's all smiles, tan skin. She could be
Speaker 4: an Aussie surfer, but that hides an inner toughness. As
Speaker 4: a detective, she worked CANi terrorism, an organized crime we
Speaker 4: caught up after the chang Xiang police raids, but it's
Speaker 4: an open investigation. So Kirsty wasn't going to talk about it,
Speaker 4: but from what she would tell me, it's obvious that
Speaker 4: Kirsty knows the cocaine business. She's thought about it deeply.
Speaker 4: Any major cocaine bust that involves Australia or Australian police
Speaker 4: based it over thirty offices worldwide comes across her desk.
Speaker 11: It's much bigger than a commodity.
Speaker 1: It is a global business and we really do look
Speaker 1: at it as a whole business.
Speaker 11: We just don't target the drugs.
Speaker 4: Where this is relevant is the idea of accountants. Kirsty says,
Speaker 4: there are professional criminal groups out there who provide a
Speaker 4: service to other crime gains, helping them process their profits,
Speaker 4: moving money in and out of countries and taking a
Speaker 4: cut in the process.
Speaker 11: We look at the finances.
Speaker 1: We actually try to disrupt the whole business model. We
Speaker 1: look at the key enablers of what constitutes their business structures.
Speaker 1: We make it hostile onshore and offshore wherever they're operating.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, you're saying it's asrupting the business.
Speaker 5: I mean that comes to the next point of are
Speaker 5: necessarily trying to arrest everybody? Is that the most effective
Speaker 5: way of curbing the drug businesses and the drug trade.
Speaker 1: I don't think we can arrest our way out of
Speaker 1: this at all. So we are really focused on targeting
Speaker 1: those people that when we take them out, it has
Speaker 1: a significant impact on their ability to run a business.
Speaker 1: Who is it that moves their money? We take their money,
Speaker 1: We take the money in the profit out of the crime.
Speaker 1: Who is it that they really for their logistics? And
Speaker 1: you'll find there'll be a key person across several organized
Speaker 1: crime groups that helps with logistics, and we'll target that person.
Speaker 4: Kirsty's saying this reminds me of a line from an
Speaker 4: old movie called Wall Street about a young stockbroker who
Speaker 4: wants to make his fortune in New York during the
Speaker 4: nineteen eighties.
Speaker 11: Money never sleeps, Paw.
Speaker 9: Just meet eight hundred thousand Hong Kong Gold.
Speaker 2: It's been wired to you.
Speaker 4: Money never sleeps. That's Gordon Gecko played by Michael Douglas
Speaker 4: in the movie. The young broker starts making money, only
Speaker 4: it corrupts him. It becomes like the money is in charge.
Speaker 4: He can never stop. Kirsty says, the same is true
Speaker 4: of those working in the illegal business world.
Speaker 11: They do not stop. They are twenty four to seven.
Speaker 1: They conduct multiple business deals at the one time, and
Speaker 1: they are motified by money, greed and ego and that
Speaker 1: drives them.
Speaker 2: It's power that's led to more conflict.
Speaker 11: That's right. It's all over money.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: They want to control certain parts of the business, so
Speaker 1: the conflict is generally associated with that. What's happening now
Speaker 1: is people are getting caught in the crossfire. They no
Speaker 1: longer do that sort of business away from public attention.
Speaker 1: They're more comfortable to do it in the public arena.
Speaker 5: When we've send dead bodies in Sydney streets where kids
Speaker 5: are walking past, that's right. So it's coming to people's
Speaker 5: doorsteps now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've said this once before, it's not your
Speaker 1: problem until it's your problem. I think what we've seen
Speaker 1: in the past is people will see, you know, these
Speaker 1: organized crime groups having conflict within themselves, and it's okay,
Speaker 1: that's okay, it's over there, it doesn't affect me. But
Speaker 1: when you're having these sorts of shootings occurring where it's
Speaker 1: close to playgrounds or shopping car parks and it is
Speaker 1: close to you, it is then your problem.
Speaker 5: And what would you say to say someone who's taking
Speaker 5: cocaine this week, candid insat Sydney or London, because it's happening.
Speaker 2: I mean, we can't pretend that it's not.
Speaker 1: Just don't do it. Sometimes I feel that just forces
Speaker 1: on deads. I find that one of the complicated factors
Speaker 1: is how do we explain to those taking drugs of
Speaker 1: reasons not to do it because they feel it's part
Speaker 1: of their life.
Speaker 2: Where do you stop and what do the police just
Speaker 2: say up?
Speaker 5: Do we give up? Do we just let this go?
Speaker 5: Or how do you actually keep trying to fight against
Speaker 5: the criminal organizations?
Speaker 1: The option to give up is not there. I mean,
Speaker 1: what would it look like if we did give up?
Speaker 1: What does it mean for the world. There's all these
Speaker 1: other part of society doing the right thing. There's just
Speaker 1: such an inequity in it. And is it hard, yes
Speaker 1: it is? Is it worth it? Definitely? It's not just
Speaker 1: about arresting somebody. That's old policing mentality. It's very different.
Speaker 1: We look for different ways to do business. We look
Speaker 1: at all forms of disruption make it hostile for them
Speaker 1: to operate wherever they are.
Speaker 11: In the world.
Speaker 4: After speaking to Kirsty, that idea stays with me. The
Speaker 4: police are looking for different ways to do business, because
Speaker 4: the old way of doing business by simply trying to
Speaker 4: arrest the people selling the drugs, isn't working. Standing outside
Speaker 4: that ten million dollar house, I decide to go back,
Speaker 4: determined to find out who owns it. I'll reach out
Speaker 4: and try the intercom again. The man answers again, I
Speaker 4: don't have permission to record the conversation. But this time
Speaker 4: he and I get talking. It's not easy talking through
Speaker 4: the intercom. It keeps cutting off after a few seconds,
Speaker 4: so one of us has to press the button again
Speaker 4: to talk, and the man on the other end keeps
Speaker 4: pressing that button like he really wants to talk to me.
Speaker 4: I ask, be you sure you're not one of the
Speaker 4: people involved in the Long River alleged international money laundering operation.
Speaker 2: He says, no, but they are relatives.
Speaker 4: You can't say where his relatives are right at this
Speaker 4: moment that does say that police phrase came as is
Speaker 4: shocked to them all. The man says his relatives are
Speaker 4: innocent of what police say about them, their entrepreneurs, successful
Speaker 4: business people. He says, is international politics involved, maybe some
Speaker 4: racism because the people who have been arrested have Chinese heritage,
Speaker 4: and the charges are not proven. He starts talking about
Speaker 4: how the police announced having seized are four hundred thousand
Speaker 4: dollar Mercedes. But what didn't get said was that his relatives'
Speaker 4: business men dealing with millionaires and billionaires, and according to him,
Speaker 4: you can't do that if you're driving around in a
Speaker 4: Toyota or Rayande. He says the police only found seventeen
Speaker 4: thousand dollars in cash during their raids, which was actually
Speaker 4: a gift for a baby's first birthday. He doesn't say
Speaker 4: who the baby is, only that its parents were taken away.
Speaker 4: I think he means they were arrested, leaving the baby
Speaker 4: waking up in the night crying for mummy and daddy.
Speaker 4: He goes back to how the police were talking about
Speaker 4: lavish lifestyles, including a private jet. He says they actually
Speaker 4: got a deal like a subscription where they could fly
Speaker 4: on private flights that would otherwise be empty, which he
Speaker 4: says made it cheaper than flying with a commercial company.
Speaker 4: Apparently the private jet also looked better. He says, his
Speaker 4: relative reputation has been tarnished. Their bank accounts have been frozen.
Speaker 4: There are one hundred and fifty employees who don't know
Speaker 4: if they have a future. We stand there talking for
Speaker 4: what feels like half an hour. The intercom keeps cutting out,
Speaker 4: but he sticks at it, pressing the button on his
Speaker 4: side to keep going.
Speaker 2: He keeps coming back.
Speaker 4: To the point that his relatives were just business people,
Speaker 4: and the police don't understand the business. Eventually, the conversation
Speaker 4: comes to an end. I go to turn away. Then
Speaker 4: somehow the door opens. The man I've been talking to
Speaker 4: from outside the house is standing there, looking surprised, like
Speaker 4: maybe he pressed the wrong button on the intercom and
Speaker 4: didn't mean for the front door to open. We're face
Speaker 4: to face. I reach out and shake his hand, and
Speaker 4: I believe.
Speaker 5: What he's told me that he's not one of the
Speaker 5: people allegedly involved in this money laundy operation, meaning he's
Speaker 5: just like so many people we've met during this investigation,
Speaker 5: and innocent who's paid the cost of an alleged criminal
Speaker 5: business operation that spans entire countries. This man was left
Speaker 5: holding the baby. He says, he'll pass my name and
Speaker 5: number onto his relatives.
Speaker 2: They never call walking away.
Speaker 4: I think that was extraordinary, and at the same time,
Speaker 4: it was very ordinary. Face to face, we were just
Speaker 4: two people standing in the doorway of a house not
Speaker 4: far from where I live. After spending months on this investigation,
Speaker 4: I've ended up back in my home city. Walking to
Speaker 4: my car, I look up and down the road at
Speaker 4: all the houses and think about where this journey's brought us,
Speaker 4: Following the money to where the police allege the trail
Speaker 4: ends with ten million dollars being spent on a nice
Speaker 4: house in a wide street in a leafy suburb in
Speaker 4: a pleasant city.
Speaker 2: Very ordinary.
Speaker 4: He could be any house on any street near where
Speaker 4: I live, or you do.
Speaker 11: So.
Speaker 4: Looking back over this entire series, we have Fionna David
Speaker 4: and I got to.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 12: Following the money from Colombia to Mexico, the Netherlands, the UK,
Speaker 12: to the UA and Australia. We found a complex and sophisticated,
Speaker 12: multi billion dollar operation and.
Speaker 3: It's only getting stronger. If Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord,
Speaker 3: helped create the modern cocaine industry and.
Speaker 9: He lead Colombian police unit killed Pablo Escobar in a shootout.
Speaker 3: Then his death in a shootout in nineteen ninety three
Speaker 3: certainly didn't kill it.
Speaker 1: Columbian authorities say its message to other drug lords is
Speaker 1: to surrender or.
Speaker 2: You will be killed.
Speaker 3: In fact, production expanded in the years after and is
Speaker 3: now at record highs, with.
Speaker 4: People living in our two countries Australia and the UK,
Speaker 4: the top two highest cocaine users in the world. In Colombia,
Speaker 4: I saw how government policy of trying to stop the
Speaker 4: industry by cracking down on cocaine supply just isn't working.
Speaker 12: When alas May let I arrive at their cinic, I
Speaker 12: create so much, but I.
Speaker 5: Am the only people who really lose out are the
Speaker 5: farmers and the cops send to enforce this policy, who
Speaker 5: don't always come back.
Speaker 2: And I say to May that forgive them.
Speaker 5: In Mexico, I learned its demand that drives the cocaine business.
Speaker 2: I'm down here here in a Naco tunnel.
Speaker 4: We're about eighty minutes from the Mexican border, and to
Speaker 4: be honest, it's just quite frightening.
Speaker 5: There's some timber today with a drug multiplying in value
Speaker 5: as it moves through each stage of the supply chain.
Speaker 3: In the port of Rotterdam, the cocaine industry is now
Speaker 3: so vast it uses the same shipping containers as any
Speaker 3: other global business would to move its product. The industry
Speaker 3: corrupts everything it touches.
Speaker 2: We have a big problem in the bort of Rotterdam
Speaker 2: with cocaine.
Speaker 3: From port workers to gang leaders who have no regulator
Speaker 3: to turn to, so end up building themselves a torture
Speaker 3: chamber to adjudicate their business disputes.
Speaker 6: Sounds like what the fuck a torture sellers.
Speaker 12: In Merseyside, the same violence spills out onto the streets
Speaker 12: where cocaine is bought and sold, with vival gangs at
Speaker 12: war and innocent people suffer.
Speaker 2: I'd never go on there because you know what's from
Speaker 2: the wood church.
Speaker 12: I met other people prayed on because of their innocence
Speaker 12: or naivety.
Speaker 11: I couldn't believe how much it was.
Speaker 12: He became cash mules.
Speaker 10: And I thought, what the fuck have I got myself into?
Speaker 12: Carrying money over international boarders, exploiting differences between countries' regulations
Speaker 12: in Dubai while undercover. Some of the money might be
Speaker 12: for like drugs in the UK. I learned how that
Speaker 12: money can be traded through gold or through different accounting structures.
Speaker 3: Actually said al Filaci on there, but it's clearly him,
Speaker 3: He's clearly him.
Speaker 4: And then at home in Melbourne I found with police
Speaker 4: alage some of the profits of the money lauding operation
Speaker 4: are spent on a house that looks like a spaceship.
Speaker 4: And Mitt Kirsty, the Federal Police Assistant commissioner, who said,
Speaker 4: I think we.
Speaker 1: Can risk our way out of this at all.
Speaker 12: If that is true, what can we do instead. Maybe
Speaker 12: it's about looking at the cocaine problem differently in the
Speaker 12: way we've approached in this series. As a business, it's
Speaker 12: just a commodity that has to go from H tob
Speaker 12: By following the money, law enforcement can find new ways
Speaker 12: to disrupt the cocaine industry and its kingpins.
Speaker 1: We actually try to disrupt the whole business model. We
Speaker 1: look at the k enablers of what it constitutes a
Speaker 1: business structures.
Speaker 12: By learning how each link in the supply chain works,
Speaker 12: you can identify its weaknesses but also its strengths. It's
Speaker 12: not good enough to tackle it within state borders. Governments
Speaker 12: and countries need to work together.
Speaker 3: We know there's no easy answers, but we also know
Speaker 3: from personal experience of covering these crimes and those impacted
Speaker 3: by them, that governments have spent billions over the decades
Speaker 3: on the drug war and they're still not winning.
Speaker 13: Only omadors be sure.
Speaker 2: And you shall love it early.
Speaker 13: We need school of gospel.
Speaker 5: At the scene where she was killed, Ellie's family came
Speaker 5: to lay flowers for a woman they so deeply loved.
Speaker 3: Those running the cocaine business are as dynamic, roofless and
Speaker 3: motivated as any successful capitalist, able to respond at speed
Speaker 3: to market pressures in a way that government agencies and
Speaker 3: lawmakers simply can't. And fundamentally, the demand for what they're
Speaker 3: selling cocaine isn't going anywhere. So maybe dealing with cocaine
Speaker 3: ing on these terms like a business, like the business
Speaker 3: it is, we can find a new approach.
Speaker 13: This is not a video game, this is real life.
Speaker 13: You go to a fucking pupmar Christmas Eve with a
Speaker 13: machine gules if it was someone going there with a
Speaker 13: baseball bat and have a grievance with someone. That's standards.
Speaker 13: That happens every weekend. But you go somewhere with the
Speaker 13: machine matter when it is you go on, it's kill someone.
Speaker 3: Cocaine Inc. Was a joint investigation from The Times, The
Speaker 3: Sunday Times and News Corp Australia. The reporters were David Collins,
Speaker 3: Steven Drill and me Fiona Hamilton. The series was produced
Speaker 3: by Sam Chanterassak, with additional production by Andrea tz Evanson.
Speaker 3: The executive producers were Will Row and Dan Box. Audio
Speaker 3: production and editing was by Jasper Leak, original music by
Speaker 3: Tom Birchall, Social and video by Kissie Bray, Sho Burrow,
Speaker 3: Vanessa Graham and Chelsea Hardiman. Our legal team were Peter Samer,
Speaker 3: Richard Murray and Stephen Coombs. The compliance editor was Claire Telford.
Speaker 3: The UK production manager was Oliver Adamson. In Australia, the
Speaker 3: project was overseen by Lillian Salagh. In the UK, it
Speaker 3: was overseen by Cap Ford, the executive producer of The
Speaker 3: Times Daily podcast the Story. The head of Times Podcast
Speaker 3: is Tim Level and in Australia the podcast team was
Speaker 3: run by Shannon Hollis. But that's not quite the end
Speaker 3: of the series. We have two more bonus episodes still
Speaker 3: to come. In the first, David sits down with Stephen me,
Speaker 3: a former international cocaine smuggler, to talk about his wild
Speaker 3: ride with the Colombian cartels and why he left it.
Speaker 3: And I'll be sitting down with David and Stephen to
Speaker 3: answer your questions about the series. Don't forget to send
Speaker 3: an email to Cocaine Inc. At The Times dot co
Speaker 3: dot uk, or get in touch with us directly. Our
Speaker 3: social media handles are in the show notes for the series.