All language subtitles for Conspiracies.and.Coverups.S01E08.Secrets.of.the.Drug.War.1080p.DISC.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

How far back does
possible CIA involvement with

drug smuggling go?

I don't know, but if you
go back and you look at

the evidence, we were supplying
cocaine into the US

to finance the Contras.

And on the return trips,
we were bringing weapons.

My friends that were CIA pilots
were flying the cocaine

into US military bases.

So is this
a systemic corruption?

Yes, sir.

Let's face it.

There are so many government
conspiracies, it can be hard to

tell what's real
and what's not.

My name is Andrew Bustamante,
and I am a former

covert CIA intelligence officer.

And I'm going to pressure test
the most sensational,

ripped-from-the-headlines
conspiracy theories out there

to help you separate fact
from fiction.

Chaos is unfolding in
Mexico after the killing of

the country's most powerful
cartel leader.

The Mexican army killed
the leader

of the Jalisco
New Generation Cartel.

You're looking at him here.

February 2026.

The Mexican army takes out
El Mencho, and within hours,

violence erupts across
the region,

from Puerto Vallarta to
Mexico City.

The death of the drug lord

set off several hours of
roadblocks.

This was a Mexican military
operation, support from CIA,

and it seemed like a pretty
massive success, taking out

a cartel leader who was
trafficking fentanyl and other

dangerous drugs into
the United States.

So why doesn't this moment feel
more triumphant?

You can see the incredible
deadly power this cartel has

just south of
the US border.

How did they get so
rich and powerful?

The Jalisco New Generation
Cartel has declared that

they're going to be attacking
Americans next.

Agents with the US Customs
and Border Protection

are on heightened alert,

after new alleged threats
from the cartel.

Yes, a major cartel boss
is dead.

But the bigger question is,
what does that change?

Why are drugs still pouring
across our borders?

And why does it feel like
no matter how many raids

or arrests happen, the system
never really changes?

America's public enemy number
one is drug abuse.

We're just gonna
kill people

that are bringing drugs
into our country.

The fact that the war on drugs
seems to have little effect on

this tide of narcotics has
long fueled conspiracy theories

that the government doesn't
really want to win the war.

But even more troubling is
the idea that my own agency,

the CIA, has been accused of
working alongside

drug traffickers to move
their product into

my own country.

That makes this the most
personal investigation

for me yet.

In this episode, I'm going to
follow the evidence

from covert wars overseas to
the streets here at home.

I'm going to track down
a former DEA officer who says

that he saw the corruption
up close.

We were fighting ourselves.
We were the enemy.

I'll investigate how covert
operations from Vietnam to

Afghanistan may have shaped
the current drug war.

And to probe the idea that
the drug war has become a means

to control here in the US,
I link up with a privacy

activist who exposes a tracking
system originally built to hunt

drug traffickers that
he believes is monitoring

everyday Americans.

It's a very powerful tool
and a very dangerous tool.

All to answer a question that
might explain everything--

if the war on drugs is real,
then why are cartels wealthier

and more powerful than
ever before?

Because if the answer to that
question isn't what we think,

maybe there never really was
a war at all.

When you investigate
a conspiracy, the hardest part

is separating three things.

What's documented,
what shows up as a pattern,

and what do people believe
but still can't prove?

That's what
I'm trying to do here.

I'm on my way to meet
with a longtime colleague from

the DEA named Cele.

Cele made his career combating
drug trade, and I feel like if

I'm going to understand cartels
and how they operate,

I need to understand how drugs
cross international borders.

If drugs are the enemy
and billions of dollars are

spent on enforcement, why do
narcotics still make it across

the border every single day?

Cele, how did you get involved
in this war on drugs?

Well, first and foremost,
I come from a very...

patriotic family, military
and law enforcement family.

What got me really into
the war on drugs was

what I experienced in Vietnam.

I saw one of my friends
shooting up heroin and ODing

after a firefight, and that was
when I decided that I wanted to

be a drug agent.

After Vietnam,
Cele Castillo

didn't walk away from the fight.

He just found
a new battlefield.

He joined the Drug Enforcement
Administration in the 1970s,

chasing heroin dealers on
the mean streets of New York.

But by the early 1980s,
cocaine was exploding

onto the global stage,

and the DEA sent him into
the belly of the beast,

Central America,

ground zero for the cocaine
pipelines feeding

the United States.

So I asked Cele to show me
something most people

never see,
the cat and mouse game

between smugglers
and law enforcement.

Now, this isn't real cocaine.

What is this mixture that
you have here?

It's flour,
little bit of sugar.

My understanding is you also
added something to it to make

it smell like cocaine?

Yeah, you break it down
in the lab,

and then it's processed
with ether,

and you make it into
100% pure cocaine.

So what the dogs smell isn't
necessarily the cocaine itself.

It's the ether, yes.

If drugs are still
getting through,

is it because we can't
detect them?

Or is something else
going wrong?

To find out, I'm going to test
if we can get a substance that

looks and smells like cocaine
past one of the most common

lines of defense,
a trained drug detection dog.

So what we're doing is taking
the powder and masking it.

How do we actually do that?

The kilo itself is already
compressed and taped.

And then we sprinkle coffee
grounds mostly on top,

drop the coffee grounds
on there.

Cele shows me how
traffickers conceal drugs,

masking the scent with
coffee grounds and tape.

You go forward and then
you go sideways and--

- In a pattern.
- Yeah.

And hiding them inside massive
shipments of everyday goods.

It's not just about
beating detection,

it's about overwhelming
the system and relying on

the fact that no one has time
to check everything.

Now, I have a friend
who actually trains

drug detection dogs.
- Mm-hmm.

If I take this and I test it
against a trained dog...

- He's gonna miss it.
- But if we take them both?

- Yeah, he'll hit on this one.
- So if you'll hide
that one...

- Yeah.
- I'll bury this,

and I'll bury it under onions
and grapefruit.

OK.

You ready to go smuggle
some drugs?

Sure, let's go do that.

So here's what we're doing.

We'll load Celerino's vehicle
with the produce

and the containers of
mock cocaine.

One box of produce contains
the wrapped drugs.

Another box contains
the unwrapped one.

My SUV will be the control
vehicle, meaning there will be

no drugs in the car.

I'll go in first,

while Celerino hangs back for
our cue to come in.

Jordan, thank you so much for
coming out.

Absolutely.
Good to see you again, Andy.

Jordan Henderson is
a professional dog handler

who trains sniffer dogs for

law enforcement agencies all
over the country.

He has no idea which vehicle
the drugs are in.

If his dogs can sniff them out,
we can safely eliminate

border detection as the problem.

This is Atlas.
She's five years old.

She's a Belgian Malinois.

What language are you
speaking to her?

My dogs are trained
in Swahili.

It does aid us to say things
that the average person

doesn't know.
- Oh, cool.

She's trained dual purpose--
protection-apprehension work,

detection, and tracking.
- Wow.

Same with her daughter,
Agojie, up here.

So this is her daughter.

She's about 10 months now,

and she already certified in
odor detection.

Can you tell me a little bit
about how the dogs work?

Yeah.
So from the time that these
dogs are born,

their eyes aren't open.

So everything they do is
through their nose, right?

So they're trying to find mom
through her scent.

They're trying to find milk.

So we get the odor that the dog
is gonna be detecting,

and we put it on her stomach.

So since the dogs are
three days old, they're already

associating that smell with
the thing that they want most

in life, which is milk.

We'll just let her know what
we're doing.

Now, what did you just do with
what looked like a toy?

I'm just letting her know,
hey, I have something

rewardable for you to work,

and then give her
a search command.

And right now, I'm just
watching for any head snaps,

any interest in your vehicle
that you brought here.

What are the cues that you're
seeing, if you don't mind

kind of translating them for me?

Yeah, so right now
she's pretty flat.

She's checking door seams,
which she's trained to do.

I see her ears laying flat.
Does that cue anything at all?

Ears up would be interesting,
but she circled the vehicle

twice, and she's going,
hey, dude,

there's nothing here.

And I'm going to give her
her toy,

reward her for just looking.

Now for the real test,

to see if a Agojie will detect
the scent of cocaine

hidden in Celerino's vehicle.

- How are you, sir?
- And this is a Agojie.

I'll just have you step away
from the car

a little bit for me.

Yeah, mama.

So I saw a little
head snap there.

Another one right there.

I'm just gonna let her...

- Wow!
- Did you see that?

Ears up.

That's that look I was talking
about before.

So when she stops like that
and I put tension on the line,

we call it line checking.

I say, "Are you sure?"

If she stays there and pushes
into it, there's something here.

- OK.
- Send her back
to the car.

Wow, look at her go.

- You see that freeze?
- Yep.

- I line check her.
- Look at that.

Whoo!

So I'll pull out what she was
scenting on

and I'll take it out
of the way.

She's so fast, too.

Yeah, that box in
the back left corner.

There we go.

You want to reveal what's in
these boxes?

Absolutely.
Here we go.

Wow.

So inside this is a mock
cocaine concoction laced with

the same smell of real cocaine.

So it's got the ether smell
that would come

with genuine cocaine.
- Yeah.

In this box, we have
the same thing,

only it hasn't been

wrapped and disguised.
- Wrapped, ah,
yeah, yeah.

But we tried to disguise
them with onions, coffee.

Yeah, and that's not
gonna work.

They have so many nerve
endings at the end of

their nose that we can't even
conceptualize

their true potential.

This was a 10-month-old dog
that just nailed us.

- Impressed.
- I am absolutely
speechless.

- Jordan, thank you so much.
- I appreciate you guys.

- Thank you so much, dude.
- Awesome.

Yeah.
Come on, girl.

Here's what
the experiment showed me.

It's not that we don't know
how to find drugs.

We do.
The dogs work.

The detection works.

But that's only one part
of the system.

Because dogs can't search
every truck, every car,

every container
crossing the border.

Agents have to prioritize.

And the moment you rely on
human judgment...

that's where things can
break down.

That's where incentives
and corruption

can enter the picture.

Now what the cartels are doing
are sending their own guys into

the Border Patrol Academy.

Yeah, we had one guy that let
the trucks come in and he did

that for many years
and finally got caught.
- What?

Do you have evidence of this?

Yes, yes, it's very
well documented.

Jorge Jimenez was charged with
conspiracy to commit

wire fraud, paid off by
Mexican smugglers

to pass through
the I-19 checkpoint

without inspection.

If there's corruption
happening at the border,

how much further does
the corruption go?

- The highest level
of our government.
- Wow.

Cele's making a big claim.

He and others believe
the real vulnerability isn't

the border itself.
It's corruption.

He says it goes
all the way to the top

of the US government, even to
my former agency.

CIA are complicit in
the drug trade,

supporting covert operations.

And if he is right, that could
mean something very different

about how this system
actually works.

And Cele says he has
first-hand knowledge that

he thinks proves it.

Coming up, what if the reason
we never won the war on drugs

is because stopping drugs was
never the top priority?

We were the enemy.

We were the ones that were
involved in

drug trafficking, corruption.
- And then...

We'd be on military missions.

We'd land a helicopter
in a field.

Wherever you went,
there was poppy.

It was like corn in Nebraska.

2
Our experiment proved that
we know how to find drugs.

There we go.

So if the drugs kept moving,

the question becomes,
who was letting them move?

For Cele, that answer started
in Central America.

Because instead of just
finding traffickers,

he says he found
something else.

Some of us were putting
our lives on the line to fight

this so-called war on drugs,
but I ended up seeing

and realizing that
we were the enemy.

We were the ones that were
involved in drug trafficking,

corruption, you name it.

At the time, President Reagan
was obsessed with overthrowing

Nicaragua's communist
government, and he ordered

the CIA to train and help fund
a right-wing rebel army

called the Contras.

Now, the people that
are so-called Contras,

they're demanding a restoration
of the democratic goals

of the-- of the revolution.

And we feel obligated to give
them support.

But after Congress
banned military support for

the Contras,
the war didn't just stop.

According to Cele, the funding
just went underground.

As long as there is breath in
this body, I will speak

and work, strive, and struggle

for the cause of the Nicaraguan
freedom fighters.

We were supplying cocaine
into the US,

and on the return trips,
we were bringing weapons

to finance the Contras.

My friends that were CIA pilots
were flying the cocaine

into US military bases,

and one of them was in
Fort Worth, Texas.

If the CIA has, at times,
facilitated drug trafficking

during covert operations,
I want to know

how far back that goes.

So I'm reaching out to
Alfred McCoy, one of the first

researchers to investigate
the global heroin trade

and its links to covert
US operations.

How far back does possible
CIA involvement with

drug smuggling go?

In the Cold War, the CIA was
operating covertly,

and drug smuggling is simply
a manifestation of an alliance

that started with the dawn of
the CIA and the dawn of

the Cold War.

Whenever operatives during
the Cold War were sent to

conduct covert operations,
they needed local assets.

And the most likely place to
find them, time and time again,

was in this covert netherworld.

So the connection is really
through local people who are

already engaged in the drug
trade, is that correct?

That's correct, yeah.
Right.

When the Vietnam War started

in 1964-65,

the CIA mobilizes a 30,000-man
army, largely from

the Hmong highland population.

The CIA's war in Laos
is one of the least understood

chapters of the Cold War,
a conflict fought almost

entirely in the shadows,
with very few Americans even

aware it was happening.

A handful of CIA operatives
were tasked with running

an entire covert war,
building and directing this

30,000-man proxy army to block
communist expansion and disrupt

the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
the main avenue for

the communist North Vietnamese
to access South Vietnam.

McCoy was one of
the few Western journalists

who actually made it into this
hidden battlefield,

risking his life to document
what America was really doing

inside this secret war.

Now, those Hmong villages have
a very simple economy.

They grow sticky rice
for subsistence

and they grew opium.

And opium was
the source of cash

that sustained
those communities.

The CIA's Air America started
carrying the opium

for those villagers.

I started investigating.

I got an interpreter
and a photographer,

and I interviewed farmer
after farmer.

The story was the same.

They grew five,
maybe 10 kilos of opium.

They took the opium down to
the helicopter landing pad.

The Air America helicopter
flew in.

Hmong officers in the CIA
secret army got out, paid them

cash for the opium.

They loaded the opium on
the aircraft and the aircraft

flew off to the CIA base in
Long Tieng.

And if I'm understanding you,
the reason CIA was turning

a blind eye was because
the larger priority in

the region was being able to
protect Northern Laos,

keep the communists out
and ensure that

Southern Vietnamese forces had
the best opportunity to win

in the North?
- Exactly.

So suppression and cover-up of
this necessary complicity

in the opium traffic was

a necessary part of
that mission.

But that doesn't prove
that the CIA was

running drugs as policy.

What it does show is something
narrower and possibly

more believable.

When covert missions rely on
local allies already involved

in the drug trade,
narcotics were often tolerated

if the larger strategic goals
mattered more.

That's not the same
as ordering it, but it can

lead to the same results.

During the Cold War,
the objective was

stopping communism.

But ten years later,
when the US

went into Afghanistan
after 9/11,

that priority shifted
to terrorism.

Today we focus on Afghanistan,
but the battle is broader.

In the face of today's new
threat, the only way to pursue

peace is to pursue those
who threaten it.

The question is,
when the US

went to Afghanistan, knowing it
was the center of

the global heroin trade,
what did we do about it?

I'm reaching out to a former
"60 Minutes" producer who spent

months embedded with US
forces in southern Afghanistan.

How would you characterize
the coexistence of conflict

and drugs in Afghanistan?

The one thing I noticed
the most was...

poppy.

You know, it was everywhere.

And we'd be on
military missions.

We'd land a helicopter
in a field.

Wherever you went,
there was poppy.

It was like corn in Nebraska.

And you'd think that
if the US military

is gonna solve a problem
with drugs,

it would be doing it
in the middle of that.

But it wasn't anything
like that.

They were going specifically
after targets and they just

walked through the fields like
it was no big deal.

There was nothing on the ground
that showed me that they really

cared to eradicate the drugs
coming out of Afghanistan.

Different war,
same outcome.

Here's what's documented.

Covert wars where drug
production expanded

instead of disappeared.

Here's what shows up as
a pattern--

when larger strategic goals
took priority,

stopping drugs moved to
the bottom of the list.

And here's what's
still unproven.

Whether that tolerance was
policy or simply the cost of

doing business in the shadows.

Either way,
the result was the same.

The drugs kept moving
and eventually they came home.

2
If drugs weren't being stopped
overseas, the next question is,

did those same networks help
enable them here at home?

To find out,
I go back to Cele,

who believes the pipeline
didn't just exist overseas,

it reached the United States.

The Contra War unfolded at
the same time the United States

was entering one of the most
devastating drug crises

in its history--
the crack epidemic.

To keep the war alive,
Cele claims he discovered

the CIA was helping the Contras
traffic mass massive quantities

of cocaine into
the United States.

Drugs would fly north,
and then the planes would

return with arms.

Cele even provided
a sworn report

to the House Intelligence
Committee on what

he found, and has spent
the next four decades

making a claim that
still divides

investigators and historians of
CIA's secret wars.

There is evidence the Contras
in Nicaragua were smuggling

drugs to pay for their own
revolutionary operations.
- Mm-hmm.

But I haven't seen anything
that says that it was

sanctioned by
the US government.
- Yeah.

That distinction matters.

There's evidence Contra
traffickers moved cocaine,

and that some of those same
networks overlapped with

covert US operations.

What's harder to prove
is intent-- whether that was

tolerated, ignored,
or directed from above.

That's the line
I'm trying to find.

You're not going to find much

because everything was stopped
by the CIA.

If you look at the history,
you go back to

the French connection.

You go back to the Cuban exiles
that were running drugs.

You can always say, well,
there were individuals.

Yeah, but they were approved
and sanctioned by the CIA.

One of the most controversial
connections comes from

Los Angeles drug kingpin
"Freeway" Rick Ross,

who claimed he was supplied with
a seemingly endless

supply of cocaine by
a Nicaraguan trafficker

named Danilo Blandon.

Blandon, who is very well
documented as CIA asset,

he ran the smuggling of drugs
for the Contra,

delivering hundreds of kilos of
cocaine to Ricky Ross...

to start the crack epidemic.

He was approved by the CIA to
do all this.

What Cele's claiming is
just that-- a claim.

It's hard to prove whether
Blandon's drug pipeline was

part of an approved
US operation,

or if he was just a trafficker
exploiting a war for

his own gain.

The US government denies
any role in

fueling the nation's
crack epidemic.

But Cele's also not the only
one to raise that flag.

In the 1990s, journalist
Gary Webb published

a series called
the "Dark Alliance,"

linking cocaine traffickers
connected to the Contras to

the rise of crack in
Los Angeles.

I did a series that said that
the crack market in

South Central Los Angeles
had been created

in the early 1980s with
the help of

this Contra drug ring.

And it ended up being
a huge controversy.

His reporting ignited
a national firestorm.

I will tell you,
Director Deutch, as a former

Los Angeles police narcotics
detective, that the agency has

dealt drugs throughout this
country for a long time.

But Webb's reporting was also
met with fierce criticism.

Major outlets like the
LA Times, the New York Times,

and the Washington Post
pushed back hard,

challenging both
his conclusions

and the strength
of his evidence.

The controversy then prompted
a hefty two-year investigation

by the CIA's inspector general,
Frederick Hitz.

I want to make clear that
we found absolutely no evidence

to indicate that CIA as
an organization

or its employees
were involved in

any conspiracy
to bring drugs into

the United States.

Even if not all of
Webb's conclusions held,

his reporting forced a national
conversation about how deeply

these drug networks may have

overlapped with covert US
operations.

The least we could do is
develop public policy that will

indicate that drug trafficking
can never be used in any covert

operation, no matter what is
being attempted.

I met with Maxine Waters
and gave her my evidence

that I had,
my DEA reports

and pictures that I took at
Ilopango Airport.

I have a list of
all the pilots that ran

for the CIA.

Here's where
the evidence lands.

Some Contra-linked groups were
involved in drug trafficking,

and the CIA was aware of
those allegations.

But there was no confirmed
evidence of a coordinated CIA

plan to flood Black communities
with crack.

Either way, it leaves me with
the same question.

If drugs were moving through
these networks,

was it individuals
operating in the shadows?

Or something larger?

To find out, I need someone
who actually understands

how these operations work
from the inside.

Luckily, I have a source close
to me who could shed some light.

My wife, Jihi, who is also
a former CIA officer and spent

years working
counter narcotics.

I had this
conversation yesterday...

Mm-hmm.

...that CIA was actively
supporting the crack epidemic

in Southern California as part
of the Iran-Contra affair.

And the math doesn't
add up to me.

When you've got entire agencies
trying to fight the war on

drugs, and you have drugs
persistently present,

does that mean that
we're losing?

And if we are losing,
does it mean that we are

losing intentionally?

Because that's really what
the DEA guy was saying.

Well I mean, I think,
when you think about the CIA,

it has various missions,
various priorities,

and narco trafficking is
not the priority.

So if Iran took precedence,
then anti-narco trafficking

would be put
on the back burner.

That may be
the clearest answer yet.

Not that drugs were
the mission, but that

stopping them wasn't.

So if fighting drugs
would have cost us

the Iran-Contra opportunity...
- Mm-hmm.

...then we would
have put off the fight.

Correct.

To make sure that we were able
to get weapons into Iran.

So what's actually been proven?

In the late 1980s,

as the Iran-Contra scandal
unfolded,

Congress launched
investigations into

whether US covert
operations had intersected

with drug trafficking.

Witnesses were called to
testify under oath about what

they saw, including pilot
and convicted drug trafficker

Gary Betzner.

We found a recording from
the subcommittee investigation.

Did you use this modified
Comanche for drug flights?

- Yes, sir, I did.
- For cocaine flights?

- Yes, sir.
- From where to where?

From Columbia to...

the Middle District of Florida.

Where were you
operating out of?

- Lakeland.
- During this
1983 period?

Lakeland, Florida.

Were you ever tracked
by DEA or others

during this period of time?
- No.

OK.

You knew Richard Healy was
involved with flying

narcotics, correct?
- Correct.

Was Richard Healy also
involved in assisting

the Contras in Central America?
- Yes, sir.

So I feel like this verifies
a lot of what you and I have

been discussing as
probable explanations...

Mm-hmm.

...for how CIA may have
been involved.

Do I think CIA has like
a drug dealing arm?

No.
Do I think maybe

there were
some small operations

that happened?
Possible, yeah.

Coming up, I uncover how
the war on drugs has quietly

turned into a surveillance
machine right here at home.

2
So far, I've been asking
a simple question.

If we've been fighting the drug
war for decades,

why haven't we won?

Overseas, I'm seeing a pattern
where stopping drugs hasn't

always been the priority.

But here at home, we've spent
billions of dollars

trying to stop them.

So if the drugs are still here,

what exactly has all that
effort been doing?

To answer that question,
I'm turning to journalist

Radley Balko.

I'm trying to better understand
what the implications were for

the war on drugs here back at
home in the United States.

Well, the war on drugs,
I mean, it was a--

or is a generational
gradual erosion

of basic rights
and civil liberties

and a gradual sort of
accumulation of power by

government at all levels.

We also saw that a lot of
the provisions in

the Patriot Act allowed federal
law enforcement

to basically spy on
American citizens

without first
obtaining a warrant.

It was overwhelmingly used in
very traditional drug cases,

not in cases of national
security, not in cases of

suspected terrorism.

There were multiple threats
growing against

the United States--
domestic terrorists,

there were international
terrorists, radical Islam.

How do you differentiate
the impact of the drug war

versus any of those other

creeping, kind of
seeping threats?

You see this over and over
and over again.

A new crisis or a new sort of
external threat is presented to

the public as a reason that
we need to give the government

more and more power,
and then that power is

inevitably used in traditional
drug policing.

- Police!
- Police with a warrant!
Open the door!

Because the incentive for
police is to arrest

as people as possible.

They get money just for how
many people they arrest.

What Radley is describing
didn't happen overnight.

It was built piece by piece in
the name of fighting drugs.

And maybe not just to enforce
the law, but to expand control.

It sounds like you're making
the argument almost that

the war on drugs has been more
damaging to the American public

than drugs themselves?

There's no question
about that.

I mean, how much privacy are
we willing to

give up in the name of...

safety and security?

And of course, Ben Franklin had
the famous quote,

when you give up one for
the other, you get neither.

That's basically what
we've seen.

Drugs haven't gone away,
but our privacy has.

At CIA, we have a term
called blowback.

We use it when something
happens overseas

that affects us here at home.

What if, in this case,
that blowback isn't just rising

addiction and violence,

but also
the police response to it?

More enforcement,

more surveillance,
more control.

What starts as a covert fix
abroad ends up reshaping how

we're policed here at home.

As Radley points out,
that shift may have changed

something deeper.

How the government sees all of
us, not as citizens first,

but as potential suspects.

Which is why I'm meeting up
with Will Freeman,

an entrepreneur and creator of
an anti-surveillance app.

Will, thanks for coming, man.

When the war on drugs failed to
stop narcotics,

enforcement didn't shrink.
It expanded.

And surveillance
filled the gap.

One of the clearest examples is

sitting above our roads
right now.

License plate
readers, or ALPRs.

That tag just hit on
Maple and Fifth.

Companies like Flock Safety
have deployed these cameras

nationwide and are used by
thousands of law enforcement

agencies to build
a searchable record

of where vehicles
have been.

But critics say they don't just
track suspects,

they track everyone.

While these camera systems
have helped police with a wide

range of investigations,

they also raise significant
privacy concerns.

Some communities around
the country are coming together

to fight against what they say
is a concerning form

of surveillance.

So Will built a nationwide
platform called DeFlock,

where people can search
their areas for these cameras.

I want to know how bad this
privacy blowback from

the drug epidemic has become.

How many Flock safety cameras

are floating around in
the United States today?

So we know for a fact it's
at least 102,000.

That came from a public
records request.

But based on a bug that was
discovered, it looks like that

could be around 300,000.

But regardless, it's in
the hundreds of thousands.

- That's
a lot of cameras.
- Yeah.

So I built DeFlock.

Hundreds of thousands of
cameras built

in the name of stopping crime.

Will's answer to that system
was simple.

If you can't stop it,
at least make it visible.

Using crowdsourcing, Will built
a live database of these

cameras, turning an invisible
network into something you can

actually see and even avoid.

When you pull up this map
image, what is it that you see

through your eyes?

I see a society that
I don't want to live in.

I don't want to be watched
everywhere I go.

So before we even get into how
it works, I need to understand

the scope of it.

If I drove through my own
hometown right now,

how many times would I be
picked up?

All right, on the move.

I'll open the map
and I'll make it follow us.

Is that how you would use it
to avoid these cameras?

Yeah, you can enable alerts.

So it'll say like, "Hey,
you're coming up on a camera."

You can even program routes in.

So if you want to like go from
point A to point B and not pass

any license plate readers,
you can do that too.

Now, I don't really know what
these things look like.

I know you said that
they're fairly obvious.

So I'm actually really excited
to see what this looks

like up close and personal.

Yeah, in like almost
every case,

they have a solar panel
above them.

So we should be coming up on
that first signal, I think.

Yep.
I can see it right there with
the solar panel.

So yeah, if you turn
right here.

- Oh, I see it now.
- Yep.

- So this is it
right here, yeah?
- Yep, that's it.

I mean, that is the proverbial
eye in the sky right there.

This is a park I've taken
my kids to, so this is hitting

very close to home.

A lot of these parking
lots will have them at like,

all the main entrances so that
they can keep track of who is

coming and going.

Now, is it only able to
document a license plate?

Is it also able to
document people?

It will capture your face
through the windshield.

And these are being leased
by the city.

So what that tells me is that
the actual company itself has

the ability to constantly
upgrade its software.

Yeah, exactly.

They came out with an update
pretty recently that turns all

of these into video
cameras too.

They originally were--
only took still images.

So it wouldn't be hard to
upload it with facial

recognition software, with some
sort of signals intercept

software, because it's really
just software and antennas.

Right, as long as
the hardware is there, yeah,

they can make it do
whatever they want.

To be fair, Flock says
they don't collect

facial recognition data,
biometrics,

or driver information,
but we know the technology to

do so exists.

In my world, we call this
"pattern of life,"

mapping someone's movements
from scattered data points.

What's striking is that this
isn't happening overseas.

It's happening here,
on American streets, right now,

and most of us have no idea.

Coming up, I weigh the evidence
and answer the question,

is the war on drugs real,
or is it something else?

2
The more time I spend with
Will, the more I start to see

how something justified by
the war on drugs has spread.

All right.
Well, let's follow your map

and find the next one.
- OK.

It looks like there's a
big cluster of them here at this

intersection, not too far.

There's like one facing
every direction.

Make a left at the light

and go up a few blocks.
- You are right.

It is kind of unnerving
knowing that

our entrance and our exit are
all now like, stored.

Though Flock says
they typically only store data

for 30 days.

Yeah, most people don't think
about having their location

tracked when they go to a park
or go to a trailhead or

go to the store,
go to school sometimes.

Oh yeah, we got a Flock right
there, there.

Oh, I see them
right there on the posts.

Yeah.

So there's a camera right here
on this light post,

a camera right there on its own
dedicated posts,

and then there's a camera over
there on the other side of

that post.
- Yes.

So we've got three of
the Flock cameras.

Now, what is that white Triple
camera right there?

That is
a red light camera.

And I actually don't hate those
much because they only take

a picture of you when you run
a red light.

So just in this intersection
alone, there's 13 cameras.

- Yeah.
- Wow!

I mean, this is really a whole
new way of looking at the world

around you when you start
counting the number of cameras.

Yeah, there are more and
more of them every day.

Spending the day with a guy
mapping surveillance cameras,

thousands of them,
quietly tracking me, my family,

my neighbors--
it got me thinking.

Because if the war on drugs
hasn't stopped drugs,

but it has led to a system like
this, then you have to ask,

is it failing or doing exactly
what it was built to do?

So let's get back to
the question that started

this investigation.

If we've been fighting
the war on drugs for decades,

why haven't we won?
Here's what's documented.

During covert wars
in places like

Laos, Afghanistan,
and Central America,

drug trafficking repeatedly

intersected with
US intelligence operations.

They loaded the opium
on the aircraft,

and the aircraft flew off to
the CIA base in Long Tieng.

Here's what shows up
as a pattern.

When a larger strategic goal
took priority,

stopping communism,
fighting terrorism,

funding covert wars,
the drug trade was often

facilitated, or at the very
least, tolerated.

- So if Iran took precedence...
- Yeah.

...then anti-narco trafficking
would be

put on the back burner.

And in the 1980s,
those same networks didn't just

exist overseas.

In some cases,
they helped enable the flow of

cocaine into the United States.

What remains unproven?

There is no clear evidence that
the CIA set out to poison

America with drugs.

And here at home,
the system that was built in

response to those drugs,
the enforcement, the cameras on

every corner, the control,
that part is absolutely real.

And it's growing every day.

Drugs haven't gone away,
but our privacy has.

So is the war on drugs real?
Yes.

Is it working?
No.

And that's the part that should
disturb you, because the drugs

are still here.

The cartels are richer and more
powerful than ever before.

The government has more
enforcement tools,

more surveillance,
more control.

And ordinary citizens?

We have less privacy and fewer
rights than when we started.

So if this really is a war...

who's actually winning it?