WEBVTT - The 64 Million Percent Mark-up | 3 0:00:01.520 --> 0:00:06.760 In my opinion, it's stupid to look at cocaine trade 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.520 on a national level because this is an international trade. 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.360 It's just a commodity that has to go from A 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:15.720 to B. 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:20.200 Actually it works like regular trade, but it has a 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:21.439 dark side to it as well. 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.560 Just a recommendation, the you know, the labels with the information. 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.760 It's nothing because that's judicial evidence. See. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.040 Cartagena is a city on the north coast of Columbia. 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:44.800 It's picturesque, full of cobbled streets and brightly colored colonial 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:49.600 buildings that look out over the Caribbean Sea. Centuries ago, 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.960 wooden ships would arrive here to be loaded with gold 0:00:53.000 --> 0:01:00.920 bound for Europe. Today, Stephen Drill is at the city's port, 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:05.319 where hundreds of container ships still arrive every year, but 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.520 to be filled with another kind of precious cargo. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:11.240 That's with better security than this week. 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:16.080 Right now, Stephen's been shown into a locked room which 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.400 is mostly empty except for a huge pile of bags 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.080 stuff full of cocaine, containing the small mountain of drugs 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.840 that has been seized by customs in the past month. 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:34.959 Eight hundred kilo ceiling of two containers. 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:40.120 Think about that for a moment. Eight hundred kilograms of 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:44.720 cocaine seized in a single day, and no one seems 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:48.480 to think that's unusual. One of the customs officials goes 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:52.320 over and picks out a black duffel bag drags it 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:53.639 back across the floor. 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:59.800 This doesn't paches. 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:04.120 The book is usually fifty sixty. 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:14.519 The customs official opens the bagger, you can see the 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:18.960 dur and starts pulling out blocks the size of bricks, 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.480 which are shrink wrapped in black plastic labeled with the 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:27.040 name Juvonci. Inside is a solid block of white powder, 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.200 which has nothing to do with the luxury fashion house, 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:42.000 so white as brick after brick of cocaine is unloaded 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:45.480 on the tile floor, Stephen is told the street value 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:49.320 of this eight hundred kilo hall would be about six 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:53.399 hundred million US dollars. That's the total amount people will 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:56.880 pay for it in countries like the UK and Australia. 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:01.160 Six hundred million US is on most half a billion 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:05.560 pounds or nearly a billion Aussie dollars. It's pretty hard 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:08.760 to get your head around those numbers. But what really 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.480 makes my head spin is this. If you're the drug 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:16.240 gang hoping to sell this cocaine, then actually while it's 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:20.240 still here in Cartagena. It isn't worth very much at all. 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:25.000 In fact, if you were running an international drug smuggling operation, 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:36.240 it's the kind of loss you wouldn't even notice. I'm 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:40.400 Fiona Hamilton and from The Times, the Sunday Times and 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:47.360 News Corp Australia. This is Cocaine Inc. Episode three, the 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:57.360 sixty four million percent markup. I'll leave it to Stephen, 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.000 who's looking at this drug hall, to explain it. 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.960 Okay, think about it this way. In the Colombian jungles, 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.920 the raw coca leaves that are used to make cocaine 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.880 are worth about point zero zero zero six two US 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:19.039 dollars per gram. That's according to figures from the United Nations. 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.719 Now that's not much here in Cartagena. The price of 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.680 process cocaine it's much higher. It's about one point two 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:32.440 dollars per gram. And once it's shipped from here to 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:35.440 the US, where these blocks of coke were likely headed, 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:40.440 the price goes up again to thirty US dollars. And 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.200 that's the wholesale price, meaning the price paid by the 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:48.520 drug gangs. The retail price, so the price paid on 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.119 the street by cocaine users. That's more like one hundred 0:04:52.160 --> 0:04:55.480 and twenty dollars per gram. By the time the cocaine 0:04:55.480 --> 0:04:58.600 has been smuggled across the Atlantic to Europe, it can 0:04:58.600 --> 0:05:02.120 be even more expensive. And if it's moved all the 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:04.880 way to Australia, by which time it may have been 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.760 shipped through several different countries, the cost really goes up 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.880 as high as four hundred US dollars, meaning the difference 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.760 in price between raw cocaine and Colombia and cocaine brought 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:20.360 on the streets of Sydney is a sixty four million 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:28.159 percent markup, and those kind of profits can make people 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:39.440 commit violence. But also there's something else going on here. 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:45.040 While the markup is insane, there's another issue at play. 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.680 When the police make these big cocaine seizures, they're not 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:54.039 technically misrepresenting the figures, but what they do is pick 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:57.480 the very highest figure that they can, the street value, 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:01.560 which makes the size of that cocaine sea sound really 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.640 really impressive, when actually the value to the drug gang 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:10.440 involved is much much less, meaning the seizure isn't worth 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.240 what the authorities say it is. I'll explain that more 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.000 in just a moment, because as I'm starting to look 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:21.560 at the figures and getting ready to leave Columbia and 0:06:21.640 --> 0:06:25.840 head north to Mexico. I get told, wait, there's somebody 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:30.080 else you need to talk to, and not just any someone. 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:39.920 This is someone flying in by helicopter. Especially I've brought 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:42.640 us targes Menta Gerald, thank you so much for agreeing 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:46.000 to be interviewed. Thank you. This is the boss of 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:51.360 the Colombian National Police Force, Director General William Rene Salamanca Ramirez. 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:55.240 He's the man leading the war against the cocaine cartels 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:59.479 in this country. He's rugged, with close cropped hair, and 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:04.440 where's in uniform with gold buttons. Only days before our interview, 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.400 a drug gang killed one of his officers. Speaking through 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:17.200 a translator, I asked him how dangerous their job Isumbian. 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:23.800 It is a very demanding work. There are some settings 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:29.000 in the Columbian territory where we still need to be 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:34.040 accompanied by special detachment of security because of the security conditions. 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.960 There are many places around the country, in what we 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.920 call the deep Columbia, where there are very strong attacks 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:49.280 by terrorist troops. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.040 He talks about terrorists and an expression that's become common 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.680 in Columbia is narco terrorism. That word is used to 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.720 describe the actions of these commer or businesses. In Colombia, 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.360 I hired assassin charges as little as five hundred US 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:11.280 dollars to execute a police officer. About fourteen thousand people 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.480 are killed a year, some of them hacked to death 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:15.760 by drug gangs. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.000 See those criminality inquents. 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:24.960 All criminals and offenders are always rethinking the way they 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:30.800 add the plice forces around the world to reinvent yourself, 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:36.400 to be retrained and to learn in order to be 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:38.080 able to face these challenges. And Columbia is. 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:42.280 Not the exception. Columbia isn't the exception, he says. The 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:46.120 power of those running the cocaine business is international. It's 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:51.280 that sixty marked up driving the entire trade. 0:08:52.880 --> 0:08:56.560 So long as their supply and demand, there's going to 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:01.600 be a cost, and both stay be for this cost. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.360 And there are some many families that have lost through children. 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:13.679 And we're losing. Both societies are losing both thous trillions 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:15.480 and Colombians. 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:22.480 Both societies, he says, are losing from the drug trade. Now, 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.600 let's go back to those bags for cocaine bricks labeled 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.760 Javoni being unloaded onto the floor in the locked room 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.920 in the Port of Cartagena. The Australian police tell me 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:35.079 it's part of a Seizu're worth around six hundred million 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:40.120 US dollars, but actually that's not quite right. Sitting down 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:42.640 with a calculator on my phone, I'll work out that's 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:47.000 very much the maximum possible figure. Six hundred million is 0:09:47.000 --> 0:09:49.400 what it's worth only at the end of the supply chain, 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.040 when it's cut up, divided into those little ziplock plastic 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.720 baggies and sold by the gram on the street in 0:09:55.720 --> 0:10:02.840 Sydney or Melbourne. Do you understand why that's important. Imagine 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:06.600 you're having dinner at a really fancy restaurant because I'm 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.840 from Australia. Let's say it's the Opera House overlooking Sydney Harbor, 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:15.680 just about dusk. For dessert, you choose a crem caramel 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.240 from the menu. It cost you forty dollars and he's 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:24.439 made using another Columbian export sugar. That sugar has been harvested, 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:29.640 refined and shipped. Along the way. It's been bought and 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:32.520 sold in bulk by different companies or middle men who 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:36.840 each make a profit. Eventually it gets mixed with other 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.560 different ingredients. Sometimes it's baked, and then it's hand delivered 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.080 to your table, delicious as it is, you wouldn't use 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.719 the cost of that forty dollars pudding to calculate the 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.880 value of the sacoflour sugar lying at the docks in Carthagena. 0:10:51.840 --> 0:10:57.319 That'd be madness, except that's exactly what law enforcement all 0:10:57.360 --> 0:10:58.480 around the world is doing. 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.680 You At eleven more than one million dollars worth of. 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:06.959 Cocaine, forty million dollars worth of cocaine, thirty two hundred 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:11.280 pounds of cocaine street value seventy seven million dollars three 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.839 hundred and twenty million dollars street value of more than 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:16.559 one billion dollars. 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:18.800 In all drugs with a street value of one point 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:26.160 six billion pounds. 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.960 That eight hundred kiliground of coke laid out on the 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:37.199 floor in Cardagena isn't worth six hundred million, not to 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.280 the cartail who bought it and will need to replace 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.679 it to them here in Colombia. It probably costs less 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.920 than a million US dollars, So it'd be wrong for 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:50.240 anyone to describe it as a six hundred million dollar 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:55.600 blow against the drug gangs. And that's important because throwing 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.080 crazy numbers around about the cocaine trade helps nobody to 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.559 understand it. But if I do want to understand the business, 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:05.839 which I'm trying to, I need to follow the money 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:09.040 through the process of that sixty four million percent markup. 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.800 The next step is to travel out across the Caribbean 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:28.360 Sea over the horizon, heading north to Mexico. This is Tijuana, 0:12:28.720 --> 0:12:31.360 a gridlock city of over two million people that sits 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:35.040 right up against the Mexico US border. While most of 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.040 the cocaine that arrives in Mexico from Cartagena is carried 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:41.719 by ship, we flew and then drove north to get here. 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:45.960 Outside the car window, I can see the border wall 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.679 built by President Trump, made out of metal the color 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.120 of dried blood. It's one of the most contentious borders 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.960 anywhere in the world. Right now, on the Tijuana side 0:12:56.960 --> 0:12:59.280 of the wall, a dusty suburb is made of houses, 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.040 some of them only shacks made of wood and concrete. 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.720 On the other side are broad roads and luxury shopping 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.360 centers in the US city of San Diego. The wall 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.440 exists to prevent the illegal movement of goods and people 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:17.080 between the two countries, which is why it represents a 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.160 crucial barrier in the cocaine business between Latin America where 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.439 the cocaine is produced and those richer countries where the 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.720 drog can be solved for vast profits. Meaning to someone 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.079 in the cocaine business, this wall doesn't present a problem 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:36.120 so much as an opportunity. Looking up, it seems like 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.760 nothing could get through the wall or over the top 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:44.080 of it, which is why I'm going to go underneath it. 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:45.559 They put it like timbers. 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:49.680 Are they good engineers? Are they well built tunnels? 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:50.440 Or do they collapse. 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.240 I'm in a small restaurant serving fish tacos, and I'm 0:13:55.280 --> 0:13:58.160 told they have a really good spicy soup. It's not 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:01.120 really my go to meal, but it was really good. 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:03.959 It's here that I met an engineer from the Mexican 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.160 Criminal Investigation Agency, and I can't tell you his name 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:11.080 in order to protect him. He reaches out and takes 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.840 a paper napkin from the restaurant table. He starts sketching 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.160 the diagram of tunnels that he says go under the 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.280 wall on that US border. He's an expert on these tunnels. 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:23.840 It's his job to find them and shut them down, 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:29.600 and that makes him a target. So they don't just 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:32.560 dig it in They do it in a building, down 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.040 through a building, and then we're speaking to a translator, 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:42.000 so one building in Mexico to one building in the US. 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:47.600 Dozens of these tunnels have been discovered in recent years. 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:50.440 While it used to be the Colombians who dominated the 0:14:50.440 --> 0:14:54.720 cocaine business, nowadays it's the Mexican cartels that are the 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:59.400 big players. At the port of Cardagenia, a quilo of 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:03.360 cocaine my be worth around twelve hundred US dollars wholesale 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:08.320 in Mexico, that value can be ten times higher. Get 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.560 that killer of cocaine across the border to the US, 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:16.040 and its value doubles again. We finish our tacos and 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:19.840 head outside. The engineer tells me tens of thousands of cars, 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:23.760 trucks and people cross between Tijuana and San Diego each day, 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:26.120 but all of them can be stopped and searched by 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:29.120 authorities at the border. We walk up to the lock 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.080 gates of what looks like an abandoned warehouse within sight 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:36.360 of the border wall. The engineer's colleagues from the Mexican 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:41.480 Criminal Investigation Agency are waiting. They're dressed in black, they're 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:45.960 wearing masks and carrying automatic rifles. One takes a pair 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:53.760 of bolt cutters to the padlock guns raised. The police 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:56.720 go down into the basement of the warehouse. We go 0:15:56.800 --> 0:16:00.360 into the bathroom where next to a toilet cubicle, a 0:16:00.440 --> 0:16:03.240 hole has been smashed into the floor. It's maybe a 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.200 meter wide. The police go down into the darkness and 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:07.800 I follow. 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.080 So here we can see one of the chambers where 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.200 we can see the dorms, and part of the area 0:16:15.240 --> 0:16:20.880 where they had all the tools. In the front, we 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:27.880 can see their rule where they say all the cleaning. 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:37.440 Products this property, and then it's connecting to the other 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:38.600 property on the site. 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:45.200 These tunnels of vital assets for the cartels. They're precious. 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.320 They can take months to build by gang members who 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:51.320 live down here in the dark and dirt all throughout 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:55.880 that time. It's dangerous and dirty work. They're forced to 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:59.560 do it. They've made an error and this is their punishment. 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.080 Or if I don't dig these tunnels, their family will 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:03.520 be killed. 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:10.360 We have the border lane which connects them to the US. 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:14.680 The engineer tells me how the tunnels work. The entries 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:18.160 are hidden in buildings controlled by the cast holes, often 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.399 their warehouses, but really any building near the border can 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.880 be used. Cocaine is carried through the tunnels and emerges 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:26.400 through the floor of a building on the other side 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:30.280 of the wall. In San Diego, California. There are no 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:34.520 customs checks down here. It's a short journey. Even the 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.480 longest tunnel ever discovered was a little over a kilometer. 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.560 On the Mexican side, Tunnel entrances are found everywhere. There 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:44.480 was even one across the road from the main station 0:17:44.560 --> 0:17:48.439 of the country's police force, the National Guard. The tunnel 0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:51.200 went right under their feet. 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.760 And then when you go into the warehouse, then you'll 0:17:54.800 --> 0:18:01.399 find the property on the other side. In the US, what. 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:06.280 Looks it looks like we might be able to boy in, but. 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.159 We walk into a long, low corridor. The floor is black, 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:16.760 muddy dirt, and on our left, cut into the foundations 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:18.840 of the building is an entrance. 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:26.280 I'm down here in a Narco tunnel, or about eighty 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:28.880 minutes from the Mexican border, and to be honest, it's 0:18:28.920 --> 0:18:31.280 just quite frightening. There's some timber that's been put in 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:33.880 here to try and reinforce the tunnel, but it's wet, 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.800 it's molder. You can actually feel the moisture on the timber. 0:18:37.119 --> 0:18:39.959 As you're walking around, it's really really dark. We've got 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.560 some torches here and they're doing a bit, but not 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.119 that much. I've no idea how someone to live down here. 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.560 The air like. I'm actually trying to sucking air because 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:51.520 it's just really think there's not much oxygen. They have 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:54.080 sort of extractor fans that they use to try and 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:55.400 get air into it. 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:57.360 I'm actually trying to struggling to breathe here. 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:00.320 They've got to risk their lives every time they go 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:04.840 through the tunnel in case it collapses. It's just extreme 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.440 the lengths that people will go to to sell drugs. 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:17.320 Climbing out of the tunnel, I'm covered in mud and dirt. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:21.200 It's a relief to see the light again. The engineer 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.920 I met in the Fish Taco restaurant and the translator 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:26.879 walk out with me. They tell me the border is 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:31.000 riddled with these tunnels. No one knows how many. Over 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:35.760 the years, dozens have been discovered by authorities, but given 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.760 the border itself stretches for over three thousand kilometers, there 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:44.560 must be others down there. Later, after we've cleaned ourselves up, 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:47.520 the translator and I set out to find out more. 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.760 Felipe my name is Phelipe. 0:19:56.080 --> 0:20:02.000 Felipe is the head of Mexico's criminal investigation agency. He's 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:06.680 a broad man, square shouldered, the side party and black 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.879 classes wearing a dark suit. He looks more like a 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:14.320 bank executive than a policeman, the kind of person you 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.399 could do business with. I asked him to tell me 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:18.480 about the drug cartels. 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:25.040 They have involved a lot. Our main client or customer 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:29.680 would be the US. We know and we have the 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:34.960 evidence that there are lots of presence of Mexican cartails 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:42.040 in Europe, in Alexandro and other countries abroad. There are lots. 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:48.280 Of criminal organizations that come here to do some tourist 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.119 activities to try to obtain contacts. 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.159 They don't really operate in Mexico because the cartoons in 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:00.000 Mexico they have a really good control of all the activities. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:05.000 Is that they're on their teach. However, there are clients. 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:09.800 They don't look like they're criminals. There are just sending 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:11.840 messages across different places. 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.639 So the broker in deals, they are arranging shipments here 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:17.119 to buy from the cartels. 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:19.960 Yes, that's correct. 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:24.240 The cartails are building business relationships with organized crime in China, 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:28.399 Southeast Asia. The Middle East and Europe anywhere you can 0:21:28.400 --> 0:21:31.560 get a cargo ship or a plane to another. Way 0:21:31.600 --> 0:21:34.960 they are changing is through what other businesses would call diversification. 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:40.160 For the cartails, this has meant new product lines expanding 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:45.080 into other addictive legal and illegal drugs like methanphetamine and fentanyl, 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:46.880 a prescription opioid. 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.560 It is profitable because it's just a business. 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:55.520 In terms of the business operation. While cocaine has smuggled 0:21:55.560 --> 0:21:59.080 through the tunnels heading north, I'd also heard about guns 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:03.360 from the US on any other direction. I asked Felipe 0:22:03.400 --> 0:22:06.680 about it. 0:22:09.760 --> 0:22:18.560 That's our main concern because we verified that after three 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:22.600 or four days that someone purchased a weapon in Texas. 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:26.560 We have it here in Mexico and you only need 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:30.879 to have triber license in the US to be able 0:22:30.960 --> 0:22:32.720 to buy a gun. 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.680 Those high colorable weapons brought in from Texas have made 0:22:38.720 --> 0:22:43.200 Mexico quite simply frightening. The power of those guns make 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:44.080 murder easy. 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.960 Organization analysis the problems. 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:53.880 Between the different cartails. I normally they solved that through 0:22:55.960 --> 0:23:01.000 killing people, and unfortunately we have lots of corpse and 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:07.280 we have not been able to identify most people belong 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:12.040 to that, and there are lots of clandestine grapes. 0:23:14.359 --> 0:23:18.040 The wayfully Paid describes it, the Mexican place sometimes struggle 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:21.920 to find, identify, or't even count the tens of thousands 0:23:21.960 --> 0:23:25.120 of Mexicans every year who were killed in drug related murders. 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:30.040 As an outsider visiting his country, it's hard to come 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:33.520 to terms with that fact. But also as an outsider, 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:36.640 it's easy to think of it as a Mexican problem, 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:39.080 something caused by the fact the world supply of cocaine 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:41.560 comes from here and from nearby countries. 0:23:45.080 --> 0:23:51.240 It's difficult to combat such a serious crime, and Mexico 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:54.719 alone cannot do it. So we need to work together 0:23:55.400 --> 0:23:59.320 to find out the routes and different information about all 0:23:59.320 --> 0:24:00.920 this criminals activities. 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:07.440 Felipe says, Mexico can't do this alone. They need other 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:11.240 countries to help them, not just the US where cocaine 0:24:11.280 --> 0:24:14.920 is smuggled under the border in those tunnels much further afield. 0:24:16.200 --> 0:24:18.959 I'm thinking about that eight hundred kilo hall of cocaine 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:23.320 seized by police in Cartagena at the start of this episode. 0:24:24.920 --> 0:24:29.000 For centuries, ships have come to ports like Cartagena and 0:24:29.080 --> 0:24:33.119 others across Latin America and loaded up with commodities like gold, 0:24:33.400 --> 0:24:37.280 sugar or coffee before transporting them to where they could 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:43.040 make much more profit. Today, the same thing happened with cocaine. 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:47.280 To really understand that global business, we want to follow 0:24:47.320 --> 0:24:49.960 this trade and that's going to take us on the 0:24:49.960 --> 0:24:53.720 next part of our journey away from the US Mexico 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:59.000 border to another lucrative market, one that's over five thousand 0:24:59.040 --> 0:25:05.480 miles away across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. It's here 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:08.760 I'll hand the story over at Fiona Hamilton, the chief 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:16.640 reporter on The Times who started this episode. 0:25:17.400 --> 0:25:21.000 This is Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands. I've just 0:25:21.040 --> 0:25:24.359 got off the train. It's drizzling, it's gray, it's a 0:25:24.400 --> 0:25:27.320 little bit drab and cold, but it takes just a 0:25:27.320 --> 0:25:30.040 few minutes to walk over a busy intersection of trams 0:25:30.040 --> 0:25:34.160 and cyclists to reach the beautiful central area, the famous 0:25:34.200 --> 0:25:38.280 network of canals lined by old terraced houses and cobbled streets. 0:25:39.400 --> 0:25:42.560 I'm here though, because in recent years the Netherlands has 0:25:42.600 --> 0:25:46.600 become a key distribution hub for the international cocaine business. 0:25:49.320 --> 0:25:51.119 I used to work in a coffee shop in the 0:25:51.119 --> 0:25:56.119 Red Light district and there were people talking about what 0:25:56.320 --> 0:26:01.399 was going on in the marijuana and I find that 0:26:01.560 --> 0:26:06.399 quite fascinating because it's like a shadow economy where a 0:26:06.440 --> 0:26:10.320 lot is going on which normal public will never see. 0:26:11.320 --> 0:26:16.240 This is Valutllowman's I'm working for the Dutch newspaper her 0:26:16.359 --> 0:26:19.480 Baro and I'm covering the crime beat and I'm writing 0:26:19.480 --> 0:26:24.000 about organized crime. Wuta has spent fifteen years reporting on 0:26:24.040 --> 0:26:27.879 the drugs business. He says the Netherlands has a unique 0:26:27.880 --> 0:26:30.320 position in the global cocaine supply market. 0:26:31.600 --> 0:26:36.800 In my opinion, it's stupid to look at cocaine trade 0:26:37.920 --> 0:26:41.560 on a national level because this is an international trade. 0:26:42.440 --> 0:26:45.440 It's just a commodity that has to go from A 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:45.800 to B. 0:26:46.680 --> 0:26:50.280 Actually it works like regular trade, but it has a 0:26:50.359 --> 0:26:53.040 dark side to it as well. 0:26:53.240 --> 0:26:57.439 Somewhere in the noughties cocaine lords from South America started 0:26:57.480 --> 0:27:04.080 to target European market. What they did was they shipped 0:27:04.080 --> 0:27:09.120 it to West Africa, then they would move it over Morocco. 0:27:09.400 --> 0:27:13.040 They were smuggling hashis into Europe and they were using 0:27:13.119 --> 0:27:18.000 those old lines to smuggle cocaine into Europe. And who 0:27:18.040 --> 0:27:22.040 were involved in this young Moroccan guys who had family 0:27:22.119 --> 0:27:25.320 in the Netherlands, and they worked together with local guys 0:27:25.560 --> 0:27:29.000 and after a while they decided, okay, so let's shortened 0:27:29.040 --> 0:27:32.159 the line. So if we could get it directly to 0:27:32.240 --> 0:27:36.280 Antwerp or to Rotterdam, it's easier for us cheaper as 0:27:36.280 --> 0:27:39.200 well because we have to bribe less people. So that's 0:27:39.240 --> 0:27:45.320 when they started to shift the lines from Africa towards 0:27:45.920 --> 0:27:46.919 Rotterdam and Antwerp. 0:27:49.119 --> 0:27:52.400 Those two ports, Rotterdam and the Netherlands, where almost half 0:27:52.440 --> 0:27:54.960 a billion tons of goods moved through each year, and 0:27:55.040 --> 0:27:58.760 Antwerp in Belgium are the biggest in Europe. They sit 0:27:58.920 --> 0:28:01.560 in a huge river delta that connects the North Sea 0:28:01.720 --> 0:28:03.560 to multiple European countries. 0:28:05.320 --> 0:28:08.600 Most of the cocaine that get smuggled through the ports 0:28:08.640 --> 0:28:13.040 of Rotterdam and Antwerp is used for the foreign markets, 0:28:13.320 --> 0:28:17.680