WEBVTT - How Customs Works 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:07.480 It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know 0:00:08.080 --> 0:00:16.360 from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:20.479 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. Opposite me is one Charles W. 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:26.040 Chuck Chuck Tran Bryant. Nice call back, Yeah, Chuck Tran 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.880 call back? Yeah, the thing? Uh auditioned and won the rowl. 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:35.320 You've never acted like audition for anything? I mean sure, No. 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:39.040 I used to be in children's theater. Really yeah, interesting, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.280 I've never done that except my audition with you, of 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:46.160 course for this spot. That one really well, so good. Yeah. 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:51.960 So you're so kind, You're too kind. You're generous actress 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.680 I would say about each other Jenners so Chuck, Yes, 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.440 you just move on. Sure, okay, Um, if you've ever 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:04.000 had a hand anchoring for um African monkey meat, I 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.160 can tell you where in Europe to go get it. 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:11.240 Really yeah, you can go to Paris, to Charles de 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.800 gal Airport and they have monkey meat. They have bush 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:18.920 meat of all kinds. Apparently bush meat is what it's called. 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:21.920 Bush meat is another term for any kind of wild 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:26.240 game or unregulated game. You can make the case that 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:30.200 livestock that doesn't pass in through any kind of um 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:34.920 regulatory body sure is considered bush meat. But typically bush 0:01:34.959 --> 0:01:38.440 meat is um. A bush man goes out into the wild, 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.360 shoots a monkey through the head with an arrow, and 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:44.319 um chops it up and there's your meat. You can 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:48.920 also do that with um, crocodile. You can do that 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:55.360 with river hog, porcupine whatever. It is a little gross, 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.800 but they there was a study. I guess somebody noticed 0:01:57.840 --> 0:01:59.720 that there is a lot of bush meat coming through 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:05.960 UH Paris, and so these UH wildlife officials got together 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:10.120 with the customs agency there and over seventeen days they 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:14.040 searched one and thirty four passengers randomly, I guess, but 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:16.760 they were probably like, oh, you're coming out of Africa, right, 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:20.120 And they found that half of them were carrying bush 0:02:20.160 --> 0:02:24.440 meat and their luggage unrefrigerated luggage, like you opened up 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:26.560 their duffel bag and there was a lot of monkey 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:30.040 right there, as opposed to the refrigerated luggage that you 0:02:30.040 --> 0:02:32.799 you like, well, I mean you would like to think 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.560 that they would at least, you know, rig some dry 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:40.560 ice something. It is a little nasty um, but that, 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:44.600 my friend, is part and parcel for a day's work 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.359 for customs official, is it not? It can be. Let's 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:53.040 talk specifically about US customs for a second. Where did 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:58.400 it come from, Chuck? Where did this idea originate? Where? Chuck? Well, 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:00.440 you know, dude, I know everyone likes to think that 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.960 our founding fathers were just all about like everybody having 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.280 freedom and the government, no one owing government money for anything. 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.320 But that's not true at all. George Washington and the 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.360 Founding fathers in the first Congress actually said, you know what, 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:17.040 we are a struggling nation and we need to raise 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:22.440 some dough by way of tariffs on mm hmm, how 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:26.079 about imported goods? Right? And so they said sure. So 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:28.919 that was the birth of customs, right. Actually, we can 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:30.960 point to the very day that it was born. The 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:35.520 Terrifact of July four nine was passed on July thirty one, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.800 seventeen eighty nine. Uh and it did exactly what you 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.760 just said, right, Like you said, if you're carrying stuff 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:43.800 into the country, we get the taxi on it just 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:48.160 because it's originating outside of the country, right and then 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:54.200 right yeah, like Savannah, yeah, um, and uh so people 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:58.280 come in there funneled in through these ports, and they're 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:03.480 charged dough right big time. They Actually, I was staggered 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:05.440 by this. The U S Customs for like a hundred 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:11.440 years supported the entire government infrastructure. UM. By eighteen thirty five, 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:17.320 we had zero debt thanks to Customs revenue. And even today, 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:21.839 as far as I know, the Customs Agency is second 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:24.320 only to the I R. S in generating revenue for 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.280 the United States. Right, Yeah, I think I didn't get 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:29.080 a hard number, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:31.919 about thirty billion dollars a year that they bring in 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.520 billion dollars a year from almost what we bring in 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:41.640 for discovery. Yeah. Originally, Chuck, the Customs Service did a 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:49.320 whole lot of stuff, including UM Census Veterans Affairs UM 0:04:49.400 --> 0:04:52.960 and the National Institute of Standards in Technology was actually 0:04:53.000 --> 0:04:56.240 born out of the custom Service. They're the ones who 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.880 came up with our system of um way and standards 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:03.440 because they had to come up with the way to 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.680 describe stuff that they were seizing or taxing or that 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:08.920 kind of thing UM. And actually I wrote a really 0:05:08.960 --> 0:05:10.840 cool post on the metric system. I don't know if 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:12.479 you ever read it, but that's where I learned that 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:14.919 it was really cool. It's a cool post. And the 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:19.600 Coast Guard two was birthed from the Customs Office. That's right, 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:25.000 Jerry thinks you are hilarious anytime I mispronouncing some perfect titters. Um, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:30.440 so chuck. The custom Service did all this stuff, spawned 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.719 all these extra agencies, and then um pretty much stayed 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.480 the same for a while until two thousand three, Um, 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:42.080 when George W. Was in office. Uh, the Customs Service 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.760 became the US Customs and Border Protection. Yeah, part of 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.440 the Homeland Security Office department, which makes sense, I guess 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:58.479 in a way unless you have like a comprehensive immigration agency, right, 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:02.640 good point, um, And so pretty much their their main 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:08.200 job is to control or oversee the flow of goods 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.479 from outside the borders and and inside the borders out 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:18.560 right right. They are this thin blue line between you know, 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:24.320 free trade and total anarchy. That's a good point, thanks man. Um. 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:29.120 So they seize contraband, they process people, they process cargo. Um, 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:34.440 they enforce uh stuff is as laws as desperate as 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:39.599 bush meat importation to intellectual property law, Like if you 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.680 get caught with some you know, burn DVDs that are 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.479 clearly pirated, you're gonna get in trouble and you would 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:49.040 have gotten caught by the Customs Department, right all in all, 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:54.320 their enforcing about four hundred different provisions of law, right, Yeah, 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.080 and they like to refer to themselves as the oldest 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.520 law enforcement agency in the United States. And I think 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.719 the duty that scares me. And we're gonna say duty 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:06.640 a lot in this podcast. We should probably just get 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.040 it over with. Yeah, not d O O D y duty, 0:07:10.120 --> 0:07:14.120 d U T y duty, right right right, I just 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:18.960 want to clear that up, um and chuck. They they 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:25.720 oversee what's called exodus um cases. Yeah, what's that? Exodus 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.200 cases are? I guess that's kind of like broken arrow 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.800 or something like that. It's, uh, if you have weapons 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.880 or weapons technology, UM. Weapons intelligence is anything you can 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.680 destroy the US with or attack the US with. Customs 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:43.680 is on that and they deemed those exodus cases and 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.720 those are big time. Yeah. I just saw a guy. 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:47.840 I didn't look into it too heavily, but like in 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:52.200 the news this week, there's some custom sting operation where 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.480 this big businessman was selling like some sort of batteries 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:59.960 that help uh a missile launch to Iran or something. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:01.880 I don't know, I need to look it up. But 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:08.560 big stinging down type that is exodus. Um, I guess 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:13.280 if the urban legend about Saddam Hussein importing PlayStations to 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:18.520 use the very sophisticated chips in his guided missile. Yeah, yeah, 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.720 when I think the first PlayStation came out, that that 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:25.640 was an urban legend around it. Yeah, that's a silly one. 0:08:26.720 --> 0:08:30.400 So chuckers, Like we said, at the basis of all this, 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:35.559 it's the customs service in any country is charged with 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.640 keeping an eye on the flow of goods across the borders, right. 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.920 And one of the reasons why is because, as we saw, 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.880 George Washington and the founding fathers were hipped to the 0:08:44.920 --> 0:08:48.400 idea that being government and all, you can push around 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:54.120 guys who are importers exporters, right and um say, hey, 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:56.720 give us a cut. Well, yeah, the idea is kind 0:08:56.720 --> 0:09:00.839 of twofold. It's um. One is because America wants you 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:04.360 to buy American goods, but a lot of times, most 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.400 times goods from other countries you can buy cheaper. So 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:08.960 they say, all right, well, if you're gonna buy something 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.160 from over there, we want to want you to support America. 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:13.680 But if you're gonna do that, then we want to 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:16.360 get our our piece of the pie, right or they 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:22.320 will they charge duty on um. Say, uh, some breros 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.840 in Mexico. That's a good one. So there. So you 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:27.840 can get a sombrero here, but you're gonna pay like 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.640 seventeen dollars for it, the same sombrero, virtually the same, 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:35.160 except it was manufactured in Mexico. Mexico is a bad 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.840 example after NAFTA has passed. But let's stick with it, 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.760 shall we. Um, you can get that one for two bucks. Well, 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.240 the government's gonna impose a duty on it. So maybe 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.000 ultimately once you pay the duty and how much you 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:53.680 were being charged for the sombrero. You're actually paying nineteen 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:55.640 dollars for the Mexican one, where you can get the 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:58.000 seventeen dollar one here in the US, so you might 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:00.520 as well just get that. Well yeah, but that that's 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:05.359 if you're shipping like large. Like there's duty free exemptions. 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.680 We should go over that real quick. Yeah, duty free? 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:10.440 Explain it? Duty free is uh? In the United States? 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.160 You get a four hundred exemption if you come back 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:18.400 into the country from anywhere except a Caribbean basin country 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.400 or the Virgin Islands, Guam or American Samoa. So if 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:25.120 you come in from Europe, let's say you're allowed to 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.840 bring four dollars worth of stuff in uh, and you 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:32.280 declare it and um, four dollars worth of bush meat 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:34.760 of bush meat, and then after that you have to 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.640 start paying your tariff on that. And they they have 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:42.040 specific outlines for um like tobacco you can bring two 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.280 hundred cigarettes or a hundred cigars as part of that 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.640 under four hundred dollars. And alcohol, of course, you can 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:54.400 bring in one leader a booze duty free. And you 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.959 can bring in a curtain of cigarettes and a leader 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.640 of booze. Yeah, that's a party right there. You got it. 0:11:00.000 --> 0:11:01.559 And you know, a few cigars as long as they're 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:03.920 not Cubans, which we'll get to. But I did find 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:07.040 this interesting. Fine art and antiques that are at least 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:09.560 a hundred years old or not subject to tax really 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:11.240 no matter. I mean it could be like a ten 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.600 thousand dollar painting and no duty. What about a twelve 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:19.000 thousand dollar painting no duty? Huh? Ask me about folk art? 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.920 What about folk art? Chuck duty? Really? Yeah? Just fine 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:29.000 art folk The custom service has an opinion on art, 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:33.560 and the folk art is crappy. Yeah, or maybe not, 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.560 or maybe they think it's so great it should be taxed. No, 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.520 I don't think that's no. No, have you seen folk 0:11:39.640 --> 0:11:43.520 art before? Yeah? I had. I should say say this 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:45.960 real quick. When I was living in l A. I 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:47.760 went to a show with Emily, one of those shows 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.760 where they have folk art, and I thought that, wow, 0:11:51.000 --> 0:11:53.160 what a scam. He was like, I could I should 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:54.679 do this? And I came up with an idea to 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:59.320 drum up um buzz by calling, over the course of 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:01.160 like a year or different places and saying, hey, do 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:05.200 you have any art by Chuck Bryant, this artist, and 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:07.120 to the point where they had heard this name. And 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:09.480 then at one point I would enter these places and say, hey, 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:10.719 I'm Chuck Bryan. I didn't know if you want to 0:12:10.760 --> 0:12:13.240 cover some of my carry some of my art nice. 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:15.080 They'd be like, well, we've heard of you. Let me 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:16.920 see that piece of tin the east Lung paints on. 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:20.320 That's actually a brilliant idea, Chuck, somebody should go do that. 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.520 Why didn't you ever do it? Because it's fraud and 0:12:22.559 --> 0:12:26.640 it's not nicer ethical. I don't know that that's fraud 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.320 in the art world. No, Okay, I think that's just 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:34.760 normal business. You know, I didn't do it. I was lazy. Yeah. Um, 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:37.160 so that's duty free. That is very odd. Did you 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:41.520 find out why folk art is just that it is? No, 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:43.440 we could probably call and get an answer to that. 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:47.920 You want to call right now? Okay? Um, so we 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.400 covered duty free, right, yeah, And I guess we should 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.600 talk about big business. It's because there's two different kinds. 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:57.920 There's people, there's businesses that ship in and import tons 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:00.320 of stuff and ports of call, and then there's you 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.520 and I getting off an airplane. Well we should say 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.800 also that with duty free, the exemption applies to the importer, 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:10.839 not the customer. Right, So if we come back into 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.960 the States or yeah, if we come back into the 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.439 States and we say I could use a leader of 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.840 Scotch and the cartoner Dunhills, so we pick them up 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:22.280 and then we continue on into the United States, we 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:24.600 don't pay any duty. But if we do the same 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:27.920 thing at Charles de Gaul Airport, uh, and then coming 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:29.959 to the United States, we pay a duty because we're 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:33.160 still importing, right yeah, yeah, okay, so you're actually an 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.839 importer that that you're classified as an importer. Yea, So 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.600 big business Josh, millions of dollars worth of goods each 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:46.080 year UH is imported and are imported, and they kind 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.440 of keep track of it the same way as they 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.280 do with individuals. They like, they can't inspect every single 0:13:51.320 --> 0:13:53.960 thing or every single person, so they'll just kind of 0:13:53.960 --> 0:13:56.559 pick and choose. I'll open up a cargo container and say, 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.280 I'm gonna look at these seven boxes in container eight, 0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:02.640 and then the guy crosses his fingers that the cocaine 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:06.000 is not in those, you know gargo holds exactly. And 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.839 that's that's a deterrent in and of itself, the randomness 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.480 of it, all right. But at the same time, that 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:17.439 method means that tons and tons and tons of illicit 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:22.200 substances seep through our rather poorout border. And it's not 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:25.240 it's not just with big business too, it's individual travelers 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:30.480 as well. Like UM. Some countries use actual you know chance. 0:14:30.600 --> 0:14:32.800 They leave it to chance who gets searched. So they 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:37.880 have people passing through their borders at their airports press 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.320 a random number generator and a certain number will trigger 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:43.200 a green light which means you keep going, and other 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.360 will trigger a red light that means you're going to 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.760 be your rectum is about to be probed, or instinct, 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:52.120 which is my favorite, when the they count on the 0:14:52.160 --> 0:14:54.440 border agent to be the customs agent to be so 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.960 skilled that they can like eyeball you and say that 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:01.880 guy has something stuffed in a place that we should check. 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:04.640 Either that or the GDP of that country is so 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:07.240 low that they don't have enough money for a random 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:11.480 number generator. They rely on instinct, which comes with the salary. 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:14.400 That's a good point, Chuck. We we talked about illicit 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:25.840 substances cocaine, uh, marijuana, Um sure, So, like we were 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.120 just saying, the stuff is coming through all the time, 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:30.720 and Customs is aware of this. I don't know if 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:32.520 you knew this or not, but they know that they're 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:38.280 drugs coming across the border, and um, they have equipment 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.120 at their disposal right at the ports. We talked about 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.320 the random number generator. The US is fairly flushed with 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:47.440 with cash as far as UM customs go. So we 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:52.000 actually have truck size X rays that you can literally 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.240 they're big enough to drive a truck through at the 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:57.800 US Mexican border. Have you really you've driven through the 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.920 X ray before? What's it like? Were you inside? Uh? 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.760 What do you mean? Dangerous. Well, I means the same 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:08.520 as walking through an X ray, which is pretty dangerous. 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.240 But this is like a truck size X ray. Yeah, 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.400 good point. And din't really think about that. Yeah, been 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.200 over and across the border quite a few times. I 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:19.360 got you never carried anything unlicit. That's very smart, don't 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.920 you worry? Yeah? Um, we also have black Hawk helicopter 0:16:23.280 --> 0:16:28.000 citation jets at our disposals. Cigarette boats, yes, for catching 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.880 cigarette smugglers. No, those are the super fast boats like 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.320 Miami Bice is it? Apparently the drug smugglers that come 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.320 in like undercover of the night, really fast. And so 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.560 the Coast Guard works in concert with the d e A. 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:44.760 It's a joint effort and customs agents. It's not a 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:47.400 joint effort, no it is. I just thought that was 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.080 a funny pun. Yeah, so they're looking for, you know, 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:55.000 bad things. And I looked up you know they mentioned 0:16:55.000 --> 0:16:57.400 in here that people actually smuggle things in on their 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.760 person they'll go through customs instead trying to smuggle it 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.720 around customs, And uh, I thought they should have a 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:08.359 TV show called Smugglers Do the Darnest Things, because have 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:10.000 you ever seen I mean, I know you hear about 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.199 these stories from time to time. But the way that 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.280 these people trying to get drugs in the country, it's 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:18.239 crazy in their bodies. Remember the guy that made a 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.920 cast a foot cast out of cocaine. No, I hadn't 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:23.800 heard of that. I think we talked about them the webcast. 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:25.600 It was either that or we talked about they made 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.119 a dinet set. Like the plates and the bowls, we're 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.000 all made of cocaine. It's crazy. Uh. There was the 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:35.919 that was twenty kilow's of coke by the way, for 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.960 the dinner were. One thing they'll do is they'll put 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:41.000 it in a condom and feed it to their snake, 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.720 their pet snake, and then smuggle the snake in, which 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.159 I guess is easier than smuggling drugs. And I don't know. 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.280 That seemed like I wonder if people. I wonder if 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.600 the average customs agent is afraid of snakes like any 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:56.080 other person. Yeah, maybe so they figured that out. Frozen 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:59.400 sharks I saw her some I think it was Cambodia. 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:01.800 They had like forty frozen sharks and they were stuffed 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.880 full of drugs. Uh. And then the sad ones like 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.080 the when they smuggle them inside the dogs liquid heroin 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:10.560 inside the puppies. Remember that was a few years ago. 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:15.280 And then uh, this yellow lab had likety dollars worth 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:16.879 of cocaine and it's belly one time when they were 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.840 smuggling this dog in. It's a bad dog. He's a 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:27.120 good dog, bad people. Jerry slaughing again, So U how 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:31.679 how would you stop that? Though in an airport let's say, Well, again, 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.159 there's some the randomness of the whole thing serves as 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:39.880 a deterrent um two into intuition, as you said. And 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:44.080 dogs good dogs, not ones that are drug smuggling bad dogs, 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.879 but they kind of tattle on drug smuggling dogs. Good dogs. 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:52.480 Beagles specifically are good apparently not just for illicit drugs, 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:57.080 but especially for agricultural products. Apparently they're fine tuned to 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.840 sniff those out and bombs of course, which has nothing 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.080 to do with the customs. But I was actually in 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.800 I guess Atlanta. I don't know where I was coming 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.959 back from, but um, there was this cute little beagle 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:12.800 who walked up to this woman and just sat down 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.840 and looked up at her. And this customs guy was like, man, 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:18.840 we please come with me, and uh, turn out she 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:22.040 had fruit on her. Oh yeah, yeah, well you should 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.120 go ahead and mention that. Then well it's it's more 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.280 of a threat than you would think, right, absolutely. Um, 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:31.240 there's there's apparently a guy in the late eighties who 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:34.680 brought a piece of fruit, one piece of fruit back 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:39.000 from the Mediterranean and it was infested with Mediterranean fruit 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:46.080 flies and it contaminated and destroyed millions of dollars worth 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:49.280 of crops in California that year. That's crazy. One piece 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:54.040 of fruit. Have you ever driven into California? Uh? You got, 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:56.880 I've always flown in. Yeah, you gotta stop and they check, 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:58.840 they check your car. It's a real bummer too, because 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:01.320 when you make the Vegas to CA California trip, you're 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.520 coming back from Vegas and all you want to do 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:05.480 is get back to your house and sleep, and you 0:20:05.600 --> 0:20:08.440 gotta stop at this It's always backed up for miles 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.400 and they you know, it's the fruit, it's the agriculture. 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:14.040 Stop really yeah, And they asked they either ask you 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.560 to you know, do you have any fruits, vegetables or seeds, 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.600 or they just eyeball you in your car and like 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:23.720 we'll wave you through or or say stop. They rely 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:27.080 on intuition. See if you like a pair smuggler. Yeah, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.800 I always getting nervous. I don't know why. It's just fruit, 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.119 the drug, dogs, everything. They always make me nervous and 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:34.320 I never you know. Of course I don't have like 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:37.280 cocaine strapped on my belly, but it just makes me nervous. No, 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:40.240 I think that's pretty typical. And I think they make 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:45.280 everybody nervous. You know, you're being scrutinized, you know, and 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.240 nobody feels comfortable being scrutinized. Right, Or maybe it's a 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.359 the T shirt that don't scrutinize me T shirt. I 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.320 have one, right, I don't have drugs on me. Um. 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.879 Dogs also get taken onto planes, Chuck, I thought this 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:01.879 was kind of cool. Um, it's very roundabout, but it 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:03.960 makes sense. They'll take a dog onto a plane to 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:09.000 sniff around after everyone's disembarked, and if somebody had drugs 0:21:09.080 --> 0:21:11.600 on him or her, uh, he or she would have 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.040 left some sort of trace on that seat, so the 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.080 dog will like, say the seat right here. They'll look 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.280 up on the flight manifest who is sitting there, find them, 0:21:20.320 --> 0:21:23.280 and then take them to be thrown in prison. It 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:26.439 was Josh Clark, right, Black ghost to the sky. Uh. 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:28.560 The other cool thing too that we didn't mention was 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:33.520 the electro vacuum device. It's like a handheld dust buster 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:37.640 super dustbuster sort of, but it analyzes particles in the air. 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.879 So if you have cocaine packed in your suitcase, in theory, 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:45.280 there's probably some like residue floating in the air and 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.600 these things will sniff that out. Well, it's it's like 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:50.920 um poop, when you smell poop, it's an odorant. It's 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:55.120 an actual poop molecule that you're interacting with the same thing. 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.480 That's very good. What he just winked at me? What 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:06.120 else we got here? Oh, money's cash. You're not allowed 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.680 to take more than ten thousand dollars in cash out 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:13.600 of the country. But I would suspect that if you 0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:18.400 had nine, then you're probably a little suspicious. I don't 0:22:18.400 --> 0:22:20.920 know that for sure, or maybe that happens a lot 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.800 and and you're not suspicious. What do you think. I 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:28.160 think if if you're a penny over ten thousand bucks, 0:22:28.200 --> 0:22:31.840 they know it. I think if you get anywhere near it, 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.840 or if you declared ten thousand dollars, they check you. Okay, 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:37.880 I never lived I mean I never have more than 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:40.360 like eight bucks on me anywhere US. Yeah, I've never 0:22:40.400 --> 0:22:43.359 had ten thousand dollars in cash on me ever probably 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:47.800 never will of course not Chuck, you mentioned art. Customs 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:52.480 agents are also on high alert for antiquities, including once 0:22:52.520 --> 0:22:55.240 you remember when we invaded Iraq there was a huge 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:59.919 cultural ransacking. Their museums were getting looted. I mean, you know, 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:05.000 ancient stuff is just being moved out of a rock, right, Um, 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:10.439 once it's in UM, I guess us borders there's that 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:13.240 doesn't necessarily mean you're out of the woods. There was, 0:23:13.359 --> 0:23:18.400 um the example of customs finding a thousand year old 0:23:18.480 --> 0:23:21.679 Chinese sculpture that have been stolen from a tomb in 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:27.520 turning up um on Christie's auction catalog. I guess they 0:23:27.560 --> 0:23:31.919 monitor these, uh and then cross reference them, and they 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:36.080 found that it was going to be auction contacted. Christie said, hey, 0:23:36.560 --> 0:23:39.720 we're gonna be taking that and give it back to China. Right, 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:43.320 So that's a that's something. Yeah. And this news story 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:46.520