Speaker 1: Hi there, it's Fiona Hamilton here, chief reporter at the Times.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Cocaine Nick, our investigation into the
Speaker 1: cocaine business from the coca farmers to international money laundering networks.
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to all eight episodes, this episode
Speaker 1: will have spoilers for the whole series, so press pause
Speaker 1: on this and come back after listening to it all.
Speaker 1: And for those who have, we'll be answering your questions today,
Speaker 1: so thanks for getting in touch. Joining me are my
Speaker 1: two fellow reporters on this series, Stephen Drill from News
Speaker 1: Corp Australia. Hey they're Stephen. Hey, not too bad, thank you.
Speaker 1: And here we also have David Collins, Northern editor at
Speaker 1: The Sunday Times. Hi you, David, Hi, Fiola, Hi guys.
Speaker 1: How's everyone doing.
Speaker 2: I'm good, good, thanks. It's lovely evening here in Melbourne.
Speaker 2: I feel a little bit like I'm in London today.
Speaker 1: Well, well it's a wet, wet day. You're here in London,
Speaker 1: which it has been for several days in a row.
Speaker 1: So how's it going in the North, David.
Speaker 3: I can confirm a hat trick. It's raining in Manchester,
Speaker 3: but it always rains in Manchester. It literally always rains
Speaker 3: in Manchester. It's just a standard day.
Speaker 1: Here, right. So I think today we're going to get
Speaker 1: straight into listeners questions. We've had some really good questions
Speaker 1: and we've had some voice notes, so let's start with
Speaker 1: one of them. We're going to play the clip to you.
Speaker 1: This is Anne in Sheffield in the north of England.
Speaker 3: Is she going to say I really liked the podcast?
Speaker 3: Apart from that, David Collins, he's quite annoying.
Speaker 1: How did you know the first question?
Speaker 4: Hi guys, I've been really enjoying your podcast and just
Speaker 4: heard you shout out for questions, So here's one for you.
Speaker 4: I've been wondering what happens to the cocaine and all
Speaker 4: the things when they get seized, like money and weapons?
Speaker 2: Where does it all end up?
Speaker 1: So as asking what happens to the illegal items like cocaine,
Speaker 1: cash and weapons that get seized by the authorities, Steven,
Speaker 1: I'd like to go to you first on this one.
Speaker 1: Is this something you spoke to the authorities about?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've actually been in a warehouse in an Australian
Speaker 5: capital city. I won't say exactly where it is because
Speaker 5: there are places all around the country where there's millions
Speaker 5: of dollars worth of cars which are being stored. So
Speaker 5: these are criminals cars and the police they call them restrained.
Speaker 2: They're not seized.
Speaker 5: They're restrained until a huse criminals go through the courts
Speaker 5: and then those cars, if they are actually found to
Speaker 5: be process of crime, they get sold and that money
Speaker 5: goes towards crime prevention. So that's just cars, but there's
Speaker 5: also real estate that gets seized, like millions of dollars
Speaker 5: worth of houses, and then the cocaine itself.
Speaker 2: There's actually a bit of an issue with that.
Speaker 5: A lot of times they want to try and stop
Speaker 5: cocaine from getting to Australia because it costs quite a
Speaker 5: bit of money to dispose of, like actually getting rid
Speaker 5: of the cocaine itself and some of those drugs is
Speaker 5: quite expensive.
Speaker 1: Well, actually, that's interesting because I found an amazing story
Speaker 1: in Antwerp from a few years back where they have
Speaker 1: to burn all the coke that they're seizing, and they
Speaker 1: were seizing dozens and dozens of tons of coke and
Speaker 1: the gangs were actually trying to steal it back before
Speaker 1: they could get the chance to burn it all because
Speaker 1: it was not the quickest process, and so the authorities
Speaker 1: there were trying to thwart midnight raids by armed gangs
Speaker 1: into warehouses, and they had to move all the product
Speaker 1: into high security warehouses and put on armed guards themselves.
Speaker 1: So it added a sort of another aspect to an
Speaker 1: already pretty momentous task that they were that they were addressing.
Speaker 1: And David yourself, when you were investigating the Sunshine and
Speaker 1: Lollipops money laundering group, did the National Crime Agency tell
Speaker 1: you anything about what happens to the cash they can seize.
Speaker 3: I think it's exactly the same. It's taken under the
Speaker 3: Proceeds of Crime Act and it can be put back
Speaker 3: into law enforcement.
Speaker 2: So that's with the.
Speaker 3: Cash and then the cocaine. It's interesting someone was telling
Speaker 3: me that one of the issues with cocaine is it
Speaker 3: doesn't burn very well. I don't know if you guys
Speaker 3: have ever heard that, but apparently cocaine like they put
Speaker 3: it in these incinerators, but it's actually quite hard to burn,
Speaker 3: so it takes a long time to do and it's
Speaker 3: expensive as well, so they only do it at certain
Speaker 3: times when they've i think, built up a certain amount
Speaker 3: of it that they can then put through for kind
Speaker 3: of I think for expenses reasons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and presumably just finding the space to be able
Speaker 1: to do something like that. It's a pretty big endeavor
Speaker 1: when you're talking about huge, huge stashes of illegal drugs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. I mean I was reading this mad story
Speaker 3: where there was a country, I think it was Ecuador,
Speaker 3: where they'd see so much of the stuff they couldn't
Speaker 3: literally burn it in the because there wasn't enough time
Speaker 3: and the incinerators in the country they just couldn't manage
Speaker 3: the volume. So they went to the UN Office of
Speaker 3: Drugs and Crime and said, what do we do with
Speaker 3: olie coke? And basically the UN gave them this recipe
Speaker 3: to make it into concrete, so you end up with
Speaker 3: this like cocaine paste, where you can like there's literally
Speaker 3: buildings in Ecuador apparently built with like blocks which have
Speaker 3: cocaine in them, and it's a way to ma I've
Speaker 3: never heard of that before.
Speaker 2: That's a new version of cocaine Briggs.
Speaker 1: Okay, So on to the next question. This one is
Speaker 1: from Tabby in Sydney. Thanks Tabby. Why do the reporters
Speaker 1: go to such dangerous places to do this kind of work?
Speaker 1: And not just leave it to the police. So Stephen,
Speaker 1: what do you make of that question?
Speaker 5: That's a really good question, and it's one that I've
Speaker 5: had to sort of talk to my family about. When
Speaker 5: I went to Columbia, I didn't actually tell my mum.
Speaker 5: I just said I'm just going to the US, and
Speaker 5: I disappeared for a couple of weeks and Tyler after
Speaker 5: I got back. But we have to do these stories
Speaker 5: because it actually brings to life, really what is happening
Speaker 5: with the cocaine trade and what are the real the
Speaker 5: victims of it? And without knowing what these stories are,
Speaker 5: people who go out on their Saturday night and take
Speaker 5: cocaine and think, oh, it's a victim's crime. They'll never
Speaker 5: know And look, this may not change anyone's behavior, but
Speaker 5: if you don't actually try, then nothing changes at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also I thought what was really a very interesting
Speaker 1: aspect of your reporting, not only the human cost in
Speaker 1: Latin America and the way the trade works, but also
Speaker 1: sometimes the police put a lot of gloss on their
Speaker 1: siezures and the impact that they're having and the reality
Speaker 1: is somewhat different. And I think without journalists going and
Speaker 1: taking risks like such as what you've done and telling
Speaker 1: those stories. We can't really leave the whole narrative to
Speaker 1: them alone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the hard thing.
Speaker 5: It does take a lot of time and effort to
Speaker 5: get these trips going, and they're hard to organize. But
Speaker 5: you do need to be there on the ground to
Speaker 5: talk to people when that's not just a press release,
Speaker 5: when you can actually speak to people directly.
Speaker 1: What did your mom say when you told her the truth?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was like she was a bit confused. She's
Speaker 2: aady too, so.
Speaker 5: She was like, ah, I mean I did Actually I
Speaker 5: got a second life insurance policy to be quite honest,
Speaker 5: because I was just like, well, you never know, just
Speaker 5: because we went in helicopters as well. And yeah, she
Speaker 5: wasn't super happy. Well I was like, yeah, it's fine.
Speaker 5: But then when I actually did go, she was not
Speaker 5: super happy either. But it's going to be done.
Speaker 3: Sure you're around now, you bum from going back to Columbia.
Speaker 2: No, I bought like lots of T shirts.
Speaker 5: I bought T shirts from back and really brought calf
Speaker 5: for ones from the market there to buy off the kids.
Speaker 5: So I was all right, but yes, I think I'm
Speaker 5: barn from Columbia for a little.
Speaker 1: While and David, you went to Dubai. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit more about the challenges of reporting
Speaker 1: there and why you went there yourself and didn't just
Speaker 1: tell the authorities in Dubai what you'd found and leave
Speaker 1: them to crack on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I guess it's the same, similar to
Speaker 3: what Stevens just said. You know, I do think with
Speaker 3: this sort of report, you've got to be there. You've
Speaker 3: got to be on the ground, You've got to be
Speaker 3: speaking to people. You know, there's a lot of reasons
Speaker 3: for that. You know, you get the truth from the
Speaker 3: person's mouth if you do that, rather than through press
Speaker 3: releases or kind of through a PR office. But also
Speaker 3: it brings the story to life. You know, you can
Speaker 3: kind of cover the story of cocaine from quite a
Speaker 3: dry academic point of view and like a policy point
Speaker 3: of view, which always just think the power of journalism
Speaker 3: is in storytelling and telling something in an engaging way.
Speaker 3: We're not just talking about law enforcement and what they're
Speaker 3: doing in Columbia. We're hearing from them, you know, we're
Speaker 3: not just talking about corrupt port workers in Rotterdam. You know,
Speaker 3: you're with one who's telling us and I do think
Speaker 3: there's a power in that. Specifically on Dubai, I didn't
Speaker 3: necessarily feel at risk, you know, or in danger as such.
Speaker 3: It was more kind of the danger came from being
Speaker 3: identified by the UA government as a reporter kind of
Speaker 3: doing undercover work. There's not many media organizations have done
Speaker 3: that sort of work in Dubai, so you know, somebody's
Speaker 3: told me early on. It was one of our foreign correspondents.
Speaker 3: Dubai feels safe and everything's great until it's not. And
Speaker 3: that was kind of in the head a lot. It's
Speaker 3: kind of one of those where, yeah, it's all fine,
Speaker 3: great tourists go every year, it's not a problem until
Speaker 3: a police officer taps you on the shoulder and says,
Speaker 3: are you recording something that was always in our mind?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it really shows the importance of being there
Speaker 1: and actually probably leads us quite nicely into our next question,
Speaker 1: where we're going to stay in Australia for a question
Speaker 1: from Toby in Adelaide, who asks did you think about
Speaker 1: glamorizing crime when you were making the podcast and is
Speaker 1: that always a risk of this kind of podcast? So
Speaker 1: I might start this one off. I've covered crime for
Speaker 1: many years, and I think that that's probably a consideration
Speaker 1: in most of the stories that we do've always been
Speaker 1: mindful that you don't want to glorify the people behind
Speaker 1: these crimes. But like we've been talking about, it's a balance.
Speaker 1: You've got to get the information out there, you've got
Speaker 1: to tell the stories, and you've got to make the
Speaker 1: podcast as interesting and as engaging as you possibly can.
Speaker 1: But I think that's why we made a decision right
Speaker 1: from the beginning that we're not going to just look
Speaker 1: at the violence. We're going to step back, We're going
Speaker 1: to look at the business structure, how the whole business
Speaker 1: operates globally. Felt that that could be a constructive way
Speaker 1: to look at the industry and see if that would
Speaker 1: offer you insight. And I thought a good example probably
Speaker 1: of that is actually, David your staff, your brilliant episode
Speaker 1: on Ellie Edwards. Now you didn't go into the glorification
Speaker 1: of gangs behind that case. It was a really carefully
Speaker 1: done episode on the terrible human cost behind their crimes.
Speaker 1: Was that something that you really took seriously as well?
Speaker 3: I mean, I think those things as we know, you know,
Speaker 3: we've all reported on crime for a long time and
Speaker 3: it's kind of you know, I think as long as
Speaker 3: you do it, you've always got the back in mind
Speaker 3: that you know, the victim you make it victim lad
Speaker 3: or you always have the victims in mind, and certainly
Speaker 3: with that episode, you know, it's about giving Tim a voice.
Speaker 3: How the gangs work themselves is of interest to us,
Speaker 3: isn't it. We're talking about the structure of them and
Speaker 3: how they work economically and how they make their money.
Speaker 3: But I think, yeah, totally, You're right. It's about striking
Speaker 3: a balance. It's about not glorifying the lifestyle that comes
Speaker 3: with it. And I thought actually in one of the
Speaker 3: episodes where Paul Walmsley, who was one of Liverpool's biggest
Speaker 3: drug dealers, you know, I asked him how many drug
Speaker 3: dealers out of one hundred do you think get away
Speaker 3: with it? And he said none, which I thought was
Speaker 3: an amazing answer because I was just like, Wow, you know,
Speaker 3: do you really think that is that? Yeah? None? Not
Speaker 3: saying it always catches.
Speaker 1: Up and you're always looking behind you waiting for it
Speaker 1: to catch up. Yeah, and what about you, Steven.
Speaker 5: That was one of my major concerns with this because
Speaker 5: it is such a big project and I mean, if
Speaker 5: you look at shows on Netflix like NACo's or Griselda
Speaker 5: or those sort of things, it's almost gratuitous violence, and
Speaker 5: that's what I sort of wanted to.
Speaker 2: Try to avoid.
Speaker 5: And one of the interviews that I was sort of
Speaker 5: most moved by was when we spoke to Jose Fernando
Speaker 5: Kabaha Raider, the police officer in Colombia who lost his
Speaker 5: legs to a landmine, and that interview is probably one
Speaker 5: of the best interviews I've done in my twenty year
Speaker 5: journalism career. I actually was almost moved to tears when
Speaker 5: I was speaking to him, because he's just so positive
Speaker 5: when he's got every right to not be positive.
Speaker 2: He had every right to be angry, and.
Speaker 5: He sort of managed to, sort of as best he could,
Speaker 5: move on from it, but it just struck me. He
Speaker 5: put a pretty good positive spin on it when I
Speaker 5: spoke to him. But when I was having lunch with
Speaker 5: a couple of other police a few days later in Colombia,
Speaker 5: I mentioned that I'd spoken to him, and they actually
Speaker 5: were there that day. They were his colleagues on that raid,
Speaker 5: and the looks on their faces as they explained what happened,
Speaker 5: it was just horrendous. This guy was like white and
Speaker 5: it was five years later he was just yeah, he
Speaker 5: said they were under heavy gunfire after the bland mine
Speaker 5: went off and it went on for about half an
Speaker 5: hour following, and just getting that insight into exit ex
Speaker 5: actually what it's really like for people and for police
Speaker 5: officers there, and it was just pretty humbling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think telling stories from that perspective and
Speaker 1: really avoiding the glorification and just showing that human cost
Speaker 1: is so important. I don't know if it's true of Australia.
Speaker 1: There's a real debate about this in Britain at the moment,
Speaker 1: and we see that with dramatization of some crimes. So
Speaker 1: and you get a whole spectrum. You get the kind
Speaker 1: of the true crime, you know, which really feels like
Speaker 1: it's glorifying stuff, but then there's some really thoughtful productions.
Speaker 1: It's totally away from the drugs trade. But there was
Speaker 1: an it and drama about the Yorkshire Ripper. It was
Speaker 1: several episodes. It barely mentioned Peter Sutcliffe until the last episode,
Speaker 1: and it was all about the victims and the police
Speaker 1: officers and the police investigation. I thought it was a
Speaker 1: really interesting narrative change actually, and perhaps people are getting
Speaker 1: a bit sick of these things being exaggerated and glorified
Speaker 1: and victims being made victims over and over again in
Speaker 1: the retelling of their stories. And I think that's something
Speaker 1: that we really tried to avoid here and do in
Speaker 1: a sensitive way.
Speaker 3: It's interesting, isn't it with true crime. True crime is
Speaker 3: not necessarily a bad thing as long as there's a
Speaker 3: public interest to it. Oh, it doesn't go too far
Speaker 3: in the glorification. But if you can ask yourself what
Speaker 3: the public interest is, which I think we could all
Speaker 3: answer with this podcast in different ways, then you know
Speaker 3: that's a good test.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, let's jump straight into another question. We've got another
Speaker 1: voice note, and this time it's from Kathy in Sydney.
Speaker 6: Hey, guys, I'm listening from Australia. I really enjoyed the podcast.
Speaker 6: It's actually got me questioning a little bit this war
Speaker 6: on drugs that are always hearing about in the media,
Speaker 6: and we're hearing about it from the place too. I'm
Speaker 6: wondering now the police telling you guys anything different than
Speaker 6: what we're hearing in the public through the media about
Speaker 6: the war on drugs, and is the media responsible for
Speaker 6: making it seem like this kind of war drugs is
Speaker 6: the only option or that it's working, because it kind
Speaker 6: of doesn't seem like it is.
Speaker 1: What do you reckon? So we've all covered crime for
Speaker 1: a while, we've got our fair share of contacts. Steven,
Speaker 1: do you want to take that one first?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think this is a.
Speaker 5: Difficult one to answer, because the war on drug clear
Speaker 5: isn't working because you can still buy drugs everywhere here
Speaker 5: in Australia, and I presume it's the same in the UK,
Speaker 5: but it was when I was there a few years ago.
Speaker 5: But I think one of the things that would suggest
Speaker 5: that the police are doing something in Australia is that
Speaker 5: it costs so much here. It's about three hundred dollars
Speaker 5: a gram at least for cocaine in Australia. Sometimes some
Speaker 5: people say they pay five hundred dollars, which is about what.
Speaker 2: Three three hundred quid. It's a fair bit of money.
Speaker 2: So it's restricting some of the.
Speaker 5: Supply and keeping those prices high, which means that people
Speaker 5: are using a bit less of it.
Speaker 2: But I think we're never going to stop organized crime.
Speaker 5: There's always going to be somebody who is wanting to
Speaker 5: make cash when people are willing to pay sort of
Speaker 5: top dollar. It's about trying to reduce the number of
Speaker 5: sort of key figures. I mean, because I would rather
Speaker 5: one hundred drug dealers with a million dollars each than
Speaker 5: one drug dealer with one hundred million dollars. And what
Speaker 5: we've seen in the last sort of ten years or
Speaker 5: so is that there's fewer and fewer bigger players and
Speaker 5: that raises bigger problems of corruption and whether they can
Speaker 5: affect politics here in Australia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really interesting. And I mean when I speak
Speaker 1: to my contacts in the police in wider law enforcement
Speaker 1: about the war on drugs and they're talking privately, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they're proud of some of their operations, the
Speaker 1: way that they're utilizing technology and data and thinking of
Speaker 1: more complex ways to try and track gangs and thwart gangs.
Speaker 1: But there's definitely an acceptance that it really is a
Speaker 1: game of whack a mole and it's a problem that
Speaker 1: is infinitely bigger than the police, and that until people
Speaker 1: stop using these drugs, or there's some major development that
Speaker 1: curtails the trade, or there's some I don't know, breakthrough
Speaker 1: in policy that it will really be ever thus, and
Speaker 1: I do think they're very resigned to that, and that's
Speaker 1: why almost invariably when you interview someone about this stuff,
Speaker 1: they will always make that point that they can't stop it.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that your experience as well, David?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'd say that's pretty fair. It's slightly different to Australia,
Speaker 3: isn't it, in that the cost of cocaine a gram,
Speaker 3: says still is fifty sixty quid, which is, although it's
Speaker 3: not cheap, it's probably not as expensive as in Australia,
Speaker 3: but then it has to go a lot further, doesn't
Speaker 3: it out to Australia from South America, so the cost
Speaker 3: is added on as a positive. The one thing I
Speaker 3: do think the UK is good at is control over
Speaker 3: money because we've got quite strict money laundering laws. It
Speaker 3: is difficult to launder money, you know, for criminals in
Speaker 3: the UK it's not easy. They can get the drugs in,
Speaker 3: they can sell them, but what they do you do
Speaker 3: with the money, of even sticking cash and suitcases to
Speaker 3: go out to debay with it. That's quite a cumbersome
Speaker 3: thing to do, isn't it. If you could put all
Speaker 3: those millions into the UK banking system then they would.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of in a weird way, it does
Speaker 3: show that it's working. And when I speak to law enforcement,
Speaker 3: you know, for example, banks are very good at flagging
Speaker 3: when people are coming in with large amounts of money.
Speaker 3: Just on this story, I spoke to different hat and
Speaker 3: gardens gold dealers just to see how tight it is,
Speaker 3: and they were saying that they don't even take some
Speaker 3: of them don't even take cash anymore because the banks
Speaker 3: won't accept it. I do think that we do get
Speaker 3: some of it right.
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely, And then it's about the different radical ways
Speaker 1: I suppose in which that could eventually be tackled, which
Speaker 1: leads me nicely into another voice. Note this one's from
Speaker 1: Sam and Ilkley in the North of England.
Speaker 2: Hi, guys just want to say, firstly, great pod.
Speaker 7: But as I was listening, it just struck me that
Speaker 7: surely the only real way to disrupt the criminals and
Speaker 7: interrupt the money train, etc. Is to legalize cocaine, educate,
Speaker 7: regulate tax then the government can keep tabs on how
Speaker 7: strong everything is. It takes the cartels completely out of
Speaker 7: the picture, just like back in the day when alcohol
Speaker 7: was prohibited and al Capone came on the scene and
Speaker 7: all that.
Speaker 2: As soon as they.
Speaker 7: Regulated it again, that completely gets rid of that element.
Speaker 2: It's twenty twenty four now.
Speaker 7: They've been fighting the war on drugs since the early
Speaker 7: seventies and obviously failing. People are going to take cocaine,
Speaker 7: whether it's legal or not. Right as well regulate it right,
Speaker 7: thanks a lot of guys cheers, mate.
Speaker 1: So Sam's basically addressing this issue and questioning if you
Speaker 1: can't curb demand, then is legalization the answer? And that
Speaker 1: way governments can regulate and tax cocaine while also taking
Speaker 1: cocaine out of the cartel's hands, is the theory. We've
Speaker 1: had loads of comments and questions about legalization. What do
Speaker 1: you both think? Stephen? Can I go to you first?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting point.
Speaker 5: I actually was having a chat in Colombia with someone,
Speaker 5: a local there, and they raised to the point of, well,
Speaker 5: fifty years ago or even twenty thirty years ago, marijuana
Speaker 5: was illegal and it was also grown in Columbia and
Speaker 5: there was crop spraying and that was all a real issue.
Speaker 5: And now twenty four states in America have legalized cannabis,
Speaker 5: so things can change.
Speaker 2: I think The only way for.
Speaker 5: It to really work is if America actually change the rules,
Speaker 5: because if say Columbia legalizes a cocaine, well, the first
Speaker 5: thing would happen is that they would be banned from
Speaker 5: the banking system straight out. America would say, no, that's
Speaker 5: not happening. So it's going to be it would have
Speaker 5: to be a global change all at once. And I mean, god,
Speaker 5: you guys can't even agree on Brexit now, so I
Speaker 5: don't know if we're going to have a situation.
Speaker 2: Where we can agree on cocaine being legalized.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not exactly a great year of for international cooperation,
Speaker 1: is it. What do you reckon, David?
Speaker 3: It's a tough one. So a few weeks ago, I
Speaker 3: was actually just in I was in Germany right in
Speaker 3: the Peace for the Sunday Times. They've got an interesting
Speaker 3: situation where they've legalized possession of cannabis up to a
Speaker 3: certain amount. There are restrictions, but there's an issue in
Speaker 3: terms of when I was there, you can't buy it,
Speaker 3: although their coalition government would like to sell it in
Speaker 3: shops that's illegal. I'm not against legalization of certain drugs,
Speaker 3: by the way, because what I really like to see
Speaker 3: is more debate and honest political debate on it in
Speaker 3: the UK because this subject is like kryptonite. I mean,
Speaker 3: can you imagine kir Starmer coming out in the next
Speaker 3: few weeks with a new Labor government, even with his
Speaker 3: massive majority, saying we're going to have a chat about
Speaker 3: legalizing cocaine.
Speaker 1: It just errupped.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't it. I mean, the conservative middle classes, oh my god.
Speaker 3: So what I've seen in Germany is there's no point
Speaker 3: going to a halfway house. You've got to go whole
Speaker 3: hog on the law because if you have a situation
Speaker 3: where you legalize possession but buying it is still illegal,
Speaker 3: then that creates an environment for the drug dealers because
Speaker 3: they can sell more because they know people are buy
Speaker 3: it thinking the safe. If I'm caught with it, it's
Speaker 3: not a problem. So the underground market still exist there
Speaker 3: because you can't buy it anywhere else. You can grow it,
Speaker 3: but you can't buy it. So it's kind of at
Speaker 3: the moment, what I saw was like it was sort
Speaker 3: of boom time for the drug dealers because they haven't
Speaker 3: brought in that full of red meat kind of you
Speaker 3: can sell it in shops law. So I personally love
Speaker 3: to see more debate on it. I want to see
Speaker 3: the research, and yeah, if it works, if you can
Speaker 3: regulate it, if you can tax it and make a
Speaker 3: bit of money and cut out the black market, if
Speaker 3: you can create a substance that is safe, because that's
Speaker 3: the big one, isn't it. Can you create an alternative
Speaker 3: to cocaine? Or you know, is it safe? You know
Speaker 3: an eighteen year old? Yeah, you know, that's what parents are.
Speaker 1: So also where you draw the line, So you legalize cocaine,
Speaker 1: but if you don't legalize other drugs, then you risk
Speaker 1: that the market that exists for cocaine going underground. And
Speaker 1: I think there's some really big implications in terms of
Speaker 1: it may well reduce violence, It would certainly reduce the
Speaker 1: price of the product, but that would make it probably
Speaker 1: more desirable, and you'd get big corporations involved. Now they've
Speaker 1: got an incentive to increase profits, so increase use. And
Speaker 1: there's ramifications for addiction in relation to that. And I
Speaker 1: find it always interesting that people raise prohibition because of
Speaker 1: course we know that that tobacco is legal, but there's
Speaker 1: a big black market in tobacco, so it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: a panacea anyway. I mean I think it's really interesting,
Speaker 1: But I think you're right, David. We're just nowhere near there.
Speaker 1: Is it the same in Australia, Stephen, I mean, the
Speaker 1: furo that you'd get here if you were going to
Speaker 1: start talking about legalizing Class A drugs would just be
Speaker 1: that majority would be turned around quite quickly.
Speaker 2: I suspect, yeah, Actually it's sort of.
Speaker 5: It is controversial in Australia, and there's an experiment experiment
Speaker 5: happening right now the Act which is Canberra, which is
Speaker 5: where our nation capital is, and so people who aren't
Speaker 5: from Australia, it's this very strange place, a little bit
Speaker 5: like Washington in the middle of nowhere, but it's full
Speaker 5: of very very wealthy people in the average wages more
Speaker 5: than one hundred thousand dollars and it's basically full employment.
Speaker 5: In October last year, they decriminalized cocaine and ice and
Speaker 5: heroin Bazarrely, they wanted to decriminalize ice and heroin because
Speaker 5: they thought they'd be being elitist if they only legalized cocaine.
Speaker 5: That actually came out in a speech which was perhaps
Speaker 5: ill advised. So we don't know yet what's actually happened.
Speaker 5: So right now, if you get caught with one and
Speaker 5: a half grams of cocaine in Canberra, then you get
Speaker 5: referred to health authorities. You don't get taken in by
Speaker 5: the police. So it's really a wait and see of
Speaker 5: what will happen. Queensland, another state, has said we're going
Speaker 5: to have a three strikes rule and that's where if
Speaker 5: you get caught three times after the third time you
Speaker 5: might then get criminal punishments.
Speaker 2: But I mean, it's really in Australia, lots.
Speaker 5: Of young people doing it. I don't think. I mean,
Speaker 5: I don't think it really has any stigma anymore. And
Speaker 5: that's why I think the podcast is so interesting because
Speaker 5: it's really middle class. Now it's more common than not.
Speaker 5: It's posh people, the use of hitting record highs in Australia.
Speaker 5: So I think there's going to be more debate about this.
Speaker 5: The Greens, who aren't they're not hugely influential, but they
Speaker 5: do have a voice here in Australia.
Speaker 2: They're pushing for it, so we'll see how it plays out.
Speaker 1: As part of Cocaine Ink, we've all written articles they
Speaker 1: go alongside the podcast. You can read them online at
Speaker 1: The Times dot Com or Daily Telegraph dot com dot au.
Speaker 1: We've had a whole bunch of interesting comments from readers
Speaker 1: and we've picked out a few that I'd love to
Speaker 1: get your take on, guys. Firstly, an interesting comment from
Speaker 1: Times reader James. He read David's report on the wood
Speaker 1: Church estate in Merseyside, which you also go to in
Speaker 1: episode five of the podcast. That's the estate where the
Speaker 1: wood Church Estate gang is selling cocaine in using submachine
Speaker 1: guns in their spats with a rival estate, and James says,
Speaker 1: I live in Dalston in East London and have done
Speaker 1: so for a dozen years. The opening of the overground
Speaker 1: the train line improved the area and the area has
Speaker 1: certainly continued to improve. I have read academic papers about
Speaker 1: how violence has been reduced by improved public transport in
Speaker 1: American cities, just as it has been in Dalston. We
Speaker 1: now have more upmarket shops and cafes. And I put
Speaker 1: this all down to the two new overground stations, which
Speaker 1: are well used. Perhaps building a station could do for
Speaker 1: wood Church what Dalston Kingsland has done for my area.
Speaker 1: So David, what do you make of that? How much
Speaker 1: does public transport and infrastructure impact the prevalence of these gangs?
Speaker 3: I think it is a really important actually aspect, and
Speaker 3: it's an interesting point of the idea that tackling these
Speaker 3: gangs and organized crime it goes beyond simple law enforcement
Speaker 3: and sticking handcuffs on. It's a whole societal thing. It's
Speaker 3: the wood Church in particular reminds me of certain kind
Speaker 3: of valleys in Wales where it's like a fishbowl and
Speaker 3: it's kind of like there are kids on there. When
Speaker 3: you speak to them, you talk to about Liverpool like
Speaker 3: it's it is Dubai. It's so far away. I would
Speaker 3: never go to Liverpool. It's a few miles away over
Speaker 3: the river, but you just don't leave the kind of
Speaker 3: stuck on the wood Church estate with no opportunities. And
Speaker 3: I do think public transport better links, it increases your
Speaker 3: options educationally, jobs. Every single type of opportunity and chance
Speaker 3: that you can access comes by having really good trans
Speaker 3: bought links and the link to up place because everybody
Speaker 3: drives and a lot of these kids don't have cars,
Speaker 3: so they end up stop there and they get stopped
Speaker 3: into gangs. So yeah, I mean, I do think I'll
Speaker 3: get my high horse now as my other as Northern
Speaker 3: editor where you can edit this out if you wire.
Speaker 3: But the statistics per capita do say that the southeast
Speaker 3: of England per head, has more public transport investment than
Speaker 3: people in the Northwest. So I do think there's a
Speaker 3: big gap there and more investment needs to be made.
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, Stephen with you, are there any comparisons in
Speaker 1: Australia with isolated communities and crime rates.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's sort of. We have a lot of new
Speaker 5: housing estates. It's sort of Australia's house prices are stupid.
Speaker 5: The system just doesn't work, and what we've done is
Speaker 5: put just more suburbs just further and further and further out,
Speaker 5: Like some parts of Melbourne where I live can be
Speaker 5: better one hundred kilometers from the city and it's still
Speaker 5: considered Melbourne. So you've got people who are out there,
Speaker 5: the kids that there is no public transport, there's nothing
Speaker 5: to do, and there's no way to get anywhere. The
Speaker 5: buses really aren't very well used here and places parting
Speaker 5: parts of Sydney. Matt drew that there's just no cash around,
Speaker 5: So then it all starts to become a bit of
Speaker 5: a hopeful situation and all the money's funneled into the
Speaker 5: POSHA eastern suburbs and kids get left behind.
Speaker 1: Okay, we also have some interesting comments about money laundering.
Speaker 1: Several readers brought up cryptocurrencies and whether they're making it
Speaker 1: easier to move and launder money. What do you reckon, Steve?
Speaker 1: And I mean, from what I've reported on that area
Speaker 1: in the past, it's been pretty unregulated, but perhaps things
Speaker 1: are tightening up a little bit now.
Speaker 2: Just the wild West.
Speaker 5: Cryptocurrencies really are just mainly or that were set up
Speaker 5: and have been exploited by criminal groups, and they do
Speaker 5: have some small footprint. They can be traced eventually because
Speaker 5: they have to be traced in some ways because you
Speaker 5: have to prove that that money belongs to you.
Speaker 2: But they just bounce around so quickly.
Speaker 5: It was described to me as like being an atom,
Speaker 5: Like this is an electronic just going around and around.
Speaker 5: It moves so fast that you have to go and
Speaker 5: try and trace it through hundreds, if not thousands, of
Speaker 5: different transactions, which makes it really.
Speaker 2: Hard for police.
Speaker 5: I just think it's there should be more regulation and
Speaker 5: I don't really see the need for them. And we've
Speaker 5: got here in Australia when we watch the football as
Speaker 5: crypto dot com is the main advertisement, and like, I
Speaker 5: don't see the justification. Actually really makes me angry every
Speaker 5: time I sort of watch the foot like why are
Speaker 5: we promoting these things?
Speaker 1: What do you think? David? Was this something that came
Speaker 1: up as an issue in your reporting as well?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's one of those areas where I'm no
Speaker 3: expert on this, by the way, but I mean it
Speaker 3: always comes up as one of the weaknesses, if you like,
Speaker 3: in the system, and criminals will always, as we know,
Speaker 3: they will try on ninety nine things and if the
Speaker 3: hundreds works, that's what they'll do. And any chink in
Speaker 3: the armor, if you like, in the system is what
Speaker 3: they'll put the money into. And crypto definitely is obviously
Speaker 3: one of those one of those chinks because you can
Speaker 3: transfer money so fast around to people on the other
Speaker 3: side of the world. Stephen says, you know, ownership changes
Speaker 3: so quickly, and that's the whole key with money laundering.
Speaker 3: It's to move. The more links in the chain between
Speaker 3: the act of selling the drug and the money itself,
Speaker 3: the harder it is to be caught, you know. So
Speaker 3: it's going to help criminals. And actually I heard the
Speaker 3: other day that you know, one step further now is
Speaker 3: there are kind of the underground illegal bookmakers. I'm not
Speaker 3: sure you can even call them butt makers, but online
Speaker 3: casinos which don't have licenses, where you can use cryptocurrency
Speaker 3: to put bets on, you know. So that to me,
Speaker 3: it's just another way that criminals can move money.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also I suppose we've been talking about international cooperation
Speaker 1: and the lack thereof in some cases, and it's hard
Speaker 1: enough to get cooperation from some regimes to track money
Speaker 1: in the traditional sense, let alone digital currencies whizzing about
Speaker 1: all over the place that can be moved so rapidly
Speaker 1: and so easily, So it does seem to present a
Speaker 1: giant obstacle at the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Completely.
Speaker 5: And when you think about those illegal gamblings or the
Speaker 5: black marketing and gambling.
Speaker 2: If you have got a million dollars puddle on a
Speaker 2: horse race in.
Speaker 5: Australia, the actual black marker is about ten times that much.
Speaker 5: So there's this huge area of cash moving around, and
Speaker 5: that is criminal money, that is drug money that's being moved.
Speaker 2: And because if you if you haven't any earned to it,
Speaker 2: who cares if you lose?
Speaker 1: So, guys, we're nearing the end of our time together. Lastly,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you both about how you feel
Speaker 1: about the cocaine trade after working on the series. We've
Speaker 1: all worked in crime reporting for a long while. I
Speaker 1: spoke personally a little bit about my past reporting on
Speaker 1: young men and drug gangs in the podcast. Why did
Speaker 1: you both want to start looking into the cocaine trade?
Speaker 1: Can I start with you Stephen?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just wanted to really see how big this
Speaker 5: business was and look at it from the point of
Speaker 5: view of a business, not just a crime, because it
Speaker 5: seems like it's just got bigger than that, and from
Speaker 5: what we've found, that's probably a fair fair comment. I
Speaker 5: don't think we're going to stop the cocaine trade. It's
Speaker 5: a matter of trying to see where it can be
Speaker 5: limited or what can be done, or having that debate
Speaker 5: of whether we go and say, right, let's open the
Speaker 5: doors and legalize it. But the other issue with that
Speaker 5: is if everyone was doing cocaine so the rates were
Speaker 5: drinking alcohol, we don't have hospitals full of people with
Speaker 5: heart problems. It's not sort of a teddy bear drug.
Speaker 5: He's a serious drug, and that's possibly what we kind
Speaker 5: of forget and so many people when I've talked to
Speaker 5: them about the podcast what we've done. Particularly people in
Speaker 5: my age group in their forties friends have said their
Speaker 5: mate's husbands blew up their marriage because of the cocaine
Speaker 5: have it?
Speaker 2: Someone else, a guide a.
Speaker 5: Minute at the airport, talked about his mate and how
Speaker 5: he'd blown up his life as well. So there's a
Speaker 5: real cost to the users as well that perhaps sometimes
Speaker 5: gets overlooked.
Speaker 1: And what about you, David, what was your motivation for
Speaker 1: really wanting to do a deep dive into all of this?
Speaker 3: I mean, for me, I guess it's one of those
Speaker 3: subjects that it's always been there. But I didn't really understand,
Speaker 3: if I'm being honest, how it worked as a business.
Speaker 3: I knew that obviously, as most people do, that cocaine
Speaker 3: comes from South America and it gets shipped over to
Speaker 3: Holland and then in the UK. But how does the
Speaker 3: price of a gram of cocaine? How's that stayed the
Speaker 3: same for the last fifteen years when everything else has
Speaker 3: gone up in price? And why don't these massive seizures
Speaker 3: necessarily hit the cartels? And I've just I've learned, genuinely
Speaker 3: so much through both of your reporting as well. I
Speaker 3: guess One of the things that I like the most
Speaker 3: about our podcast series is that we do explain the
Speaker 3: economics of how organized crime works. And you don't get that.
Speaker 3: I don't think in a lot of crime reporting, just
Speaker 3: because podcast it does give you a chance to do
Speaker 3: a real deep dive and get into the real content
Speaker 3: of it. Hopefully you know that's going to make me
Speaker 3: a better reporter going forward when I'm speaking to law
Speaker 3: enforcement or criminals or whoever it is.
Speaker 1: And that gets us into the big question. I suppose
Speaker 1: perhaps one for you first st even having done all
Speaker 1: of this, what are your thoughts? Is the war on
Speaker 1: drugs futile?
Speaker 5: In a word, Yes, We're never going to stop people
Speaker 5: wanting to get high. I just like when America tried
Speaker 5: to ben alcoholic it didn't work. It's just a matter
Speaker 5: of how.
Speaker 2: Much you try.
Speaker 5: And I mean the other comparison is if you look
Speaker 5: at the war on drugs in Mexico, which really started
Speaker 5: in earnest in two thousand and six. I've had more
Speaker 5: than four hundred thousand murders there since two thousand and six.
Speaker 5: Advance has got so much worse because the cartailers have
Speaker 5: really sort of fought for their power so I'm not
Speaker 5: saying there's any easy solution to the situation. It's just
Speaker 5: when there's greed, when there's money involved, people are willing
Speaker 5: to kill, and there's a cost to all of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm afraid I tend to sort of take a
Speaker 1: bit of a pessimistic view about the futility of it all.
Speaker 1: What about you, David, Are you going to try and
Speaker 1: bring something positive to the table again or do you
Speaker 1: think it's all a bit futile?
Speaker 3: You know what I always said. I've just rewatched you know,
Speaker 3: The Wire. It's about the cops and the drug dealers
Speaker 3: in the US. It's like an amazing like drama series.
Speaker 3: And the series that I think is really interesting is
Speaker 3: where You've got that rogue district commander Bonnie Colwyn, And
Speaker 3: basically it's so futile and he's coming to the end
Speaker 3: of his career and he's seen how they twists the
Speaker 3: stats and nothing gets done, so he just decides to
Speaker 3: make a street in his district and legalize everything, so
Speaker 3: like you can go there and get cocaine, heroin, whatever
Speaker 3: you want. It's all on this one street. But in
Speaker 3: the rest of the district there's nothing, and crime stats dropped.
Speaker 3: I mean, I know it's only a TV show, but
Speaker 3: you know, he got in such trouble politically and it
Speaker 3: blew up in with the mayor's office and to the public.
Speaker 3: All the politicians and the police commissioner was like, this
Speaker 3: is outrageous. It's the work of one rogue commander. But
Speaker 3: behind closed doors they were like, but it has dropped
Speaker 3: crime thirteen percent in his district. So you know what
Speaker 3: I think is that, yes, at the moment, the way
Speaker 3: we're going about it is kind of futile, but it
Speaker 3: just needs more honest debate. And that comes from first, well,
Speaker 3: it comes from people being better at educated, but also
Speaker 3: it comes from politicians being brave enough to actually put
Speaker 3: this on the table and commission the research and say,
Speaker 3: you know, we're going to look at what works, not
Speaker 3: what works to get us elected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think there needs to be a change
Speaker 1: in public appetite to address this issue, and perhaps at
Speaker 1: this moment, with all the other major issues of public importance,
Speaker 1: that's going to be quite difficult. But that just means,
Speaker 1: you know, the scale of murders in Mexico on abating
Speaker 1: and all the other issues that we've spoken about. I mean,
Speaker 1: this really is a global crisis?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Completely?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Anything else anybody wanted to add?
Speaker 3: I've done my Bunny Colwyn anecdote. That's all I have.
Speaker 2: That was good.
Speaker 1: Well, that was great. Thanks so much David and Stephen
Speaker 1: for joining me today. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thanks Piana Tears, Fianna, Thanks Steven.
Speaker 1: If you haven't listened to the whole series, make sure
Speaker 1: to listen back to all the episodes they're out now.
Speaker 1: You can continue to get in touch with the team
Speaker 1: at Cocaine Inc. At The Times dot co dot uk.
Speaker 1: But for now that's it for Cocaine Inc. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this series or found it helpful or informative, please
Speaker 1: do tell all your friends and family about us and
Speaker 1: give us a review on your podcast app. It helps
Speaker 1: other people to find us. Lastly, thanks to everyone who
Speaker 1: got in touch, and thanks so much to everyone across
Speaker 1: the world for listening. Cocaine Inc. Was a joint investigation
Speaker 1: from The Times, The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia.
Speaker 1: The reporters were David Collins, Stephen Drill and me Fiona Hamilton.
Speaker 1: The series was produced by Sam Chanterassak. The executive producers
Speaker 1: were Will Row and Dan Box. Audio production and editing
Speaker 1: on this episode is by Martin Peralta, with original music
Speaker 1: by Tom Virtull.