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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:13,138 --> 00:00:15,808 Once a mostly harmless, leafy pick-me-up 2 00:00:15,890 --> 00:00:17,930 for the indigenous people of South America, 3 00:00:18,018 --> 00:00:20,688 the modern story of cocaine goes like so: 4 00:00:20,770 --> 00:00:22,690 Freud, Pablo Escobar, 5 00:00:22,772 --> 00:00:25,982 disco hedonism, Wall Street hedonism, 6 00:00:26,067 --> 00:00:28,277 crack, El Chapo, 7 00:00:28,361 --> 00:00:30,071 more Wall Street hedonism. 8 00:00:31,406 --> 00:00:33,656 Cocaine has been a target of law enforcement 9 00:00:33,742 --> 00:00:35,372 around the world for years, 10 00:00:35,452 --> 00:00:38,202 but it remains one of the most profitable businesses 11 00:00:38,288 --> 00:00:39,578 of the 21st century. 12 00:00:41,291 --> 00:00:44,541 So, what makes the cocaine business so bulletproof? 13 00:00:55,930 --> 00:00:57,520 I grew up all over the world 14 00:00:57,599 --> 00:01:01,349 because my dad was an economist who focused on developing economies. 15 00:01:01,436 --> 00:01:04,396 And then I wound up doing my undergrad at Oxford University, 16 00:01:04,481 --> 00:01:05,981 focused on international law. 17 00:01:06,066 --> 00:01:08,776 It was my last year there that 9/11 happened, 18 00:01:08,860 --> 00:01:11,400 and it completely shattered my universe. 19 00:01:11,988 --> 00:01:15,868 I wanted to understand what caused it and how it could have happened. 20 00:01:15,950 --> 00:01:19,700 So, I set about writing an algorithm that took historical data 21 00:01:19,788 --> 00:01:22,368 and processed it to predict the next attack. 22 00:01:22,457 --> 00:01:24,327 And it got the attention of the CIA. 23 00:01:24,417 --> 00:01:28,587 And I worked with them for almost a decade as a field operative, 24 00:01:28,671 --> 00:01:32,131 keeping WMD out of the hands of non-state actors, 25 00:01:32,217 --> 00:01:35,257 terror groups like al-Qaeda and their affiliates around the world. 26 00:01:35,345 --> 00:01:37,925 We're 18 years into the war on terrorism, 27 00:01:38,014 --> 00:01:40,934 and sometimes that can feel like the longest American war. 28 00:01:41,476 --> 00:01:45,186 But there's this other one that's lasted even longer, decades longer, 29 00:01:45,688 --> 00:01:46,978 the war on drugs. 30 00:01:47,899 --> 00:01:51,609 And just like the war on terrorism, it's cost millions of dollars 31 00:01:51,694 --> 00:01:53,204 and thousands of lives. 32 00:01:53,279 --> 00:01:56,909 And the only way we're gonna understand how to bring it to an end 33 00:01:56,991 --> 00:01:59,541 is to understand the economics that drive it. 34 00:02:14,801 --> 00:02:18,561 People out there are doing it bigger than I am, but, hey, good for them. 35 00:02:19,556 --> 00:02:23,176 As long as I got it and it's good, I'm always gonna have customers. 36 00:02:24,060 --> 00:02:26,310 This is what I'm doing, and this works for me. 37 00:02:31,025 --> 00:02:32,985 So, did you grow up around here, in Los Angeles? 38 00:02:33,570 --> 00:02:34,860 Yeah, I'm from Compton, yeah. 39 00:02:34,946 --> 00:02:40,946 Do you remember, as a kid, being around cocaine or dealing at all? 40 00:02:41,035 --> 00:02:44,115 Yeah, I seen how good it was when my pops was doing it. 41 00:02:44,205 --> 00:02:46,575 We had everything we wanted for Christmas. So it was like, 42 00:02:46,666 --> 00:02:49,876 "Hey, if I could do that when I have kids, I'm gonna do the same thing." 43 00:02:49,961 --> 00:02:52,301 There wasn't anything else that was gonna make that much? 44 00:02:52,380 --> 00:02:53,460 Where I came from? 45 00:02:53,548 --> 00:02:55,838 Nah, you could try to make a dollar, get a job. 46 00:02:55,925 --> 00:02:58,279 I make the same amount that they make in, what, a whole day? 47 00:02:58,303 --> 00:03:00,393 I make it... I can make it in 30 seconds. 48 00:03:00,471 --> 00:03:02,471 How do the economics of it work for you? 49 00:03:02,557 --> 00:03:04,743 What I'm dealing with, I'm only dealing with about four, 50 00:03:04,767 --> 00:03:06,767 you know what I'm saying, to five ounces at a time. 51 00:03:06,811 --> 00:03:08,981 An ounce is already like $900. 52 00:03:09,063 --> 00:03:12,233 How much more are you making when you sell? 53 00:03:12,317 --> 00:03:13,987 I'm probably doubling or tripling. 54 00:03:14,068 --> 00:03:16,318 - Wow. - Depends on who I'm selling to. 55 00:03:16,404 --> 00:03:19,954 - So, how does the structure work? - So, it's like a pyramid, you know? 56 00:03:20,033 --> 00:03:23,043 One big boss who comes down to another, then there's us. 57 00:03:23,119 --> 00:03:25,289 It's like that company, Avon. Remember, "Avon calling"? 58 00:03:25,371 --> 00:03:27,621 - Yeah, they used to go to the doors, yeah. - Yeah. 59 00:03:27,707 --> 00:03:30,127 The Avon lady used to buy from my dad. 60 00:03:30,210 --> 00:03:31,210 - No way. - Yeah. 61 00:03:31,252 --> 00:03:33,002 So, it was like, I knew what Avon was. 62 00:03:33,087 --> 00:03:35,217 Yeah, I knew exactly what it was. 63 00:03:36,257 --> 00:03:37,797 Dealing $20 bags 64 00:03:37,884 --> 00:03:40,354 is enough for Roy to provide for his family 65 00:03:40,428 --> 00:03:42,758 without running the risk of serious jail time. 66 00:03:43,431 --> 00:03:45,391 Anyone caught with more than a kilo 67 00:03:45,475 --> 00:03:47,805 can expect up to 25 years in prison. 68 00:03:48,811 --> 00:03:50,021 My dad, he did get caught. 69 00:03:50,104 --> 00:03:53,444 - What happened when he got caught? - They came to kick the door in. 70 00:03:54,108 --> 00:03:56,818 And I was about ten when that happened. 71 00:03:56,903 --> 00:04:00,113 My pops, he was doing, like, major, major stuff. 72 00:04:00,198 --> 00:04:03,238 'Cause I didn't want to see what my pops went through, that's a lesson. 73 00:04:03,326 --> 00:04:07,366 I only deal with a few ounces at a time, so that's just to keep me under the radar. 74 00:04:07,455 --> 00:04:10,285 So, my economics of it, it keeps me home and safe. 75 00:04:10,708 --> 00:04:12,128 My money stays consistent 76 00:04:12,210 --> 00:04:15,170 because these people that I sell to, they can't stop it. 77 00:04:18,132 --> 00:04:21,892 When you ingest cocaine, it tricks the brain into thinking 78 00:04:21,970 --> 00:04:25,560 you've had something incredibly, incredibly rewarding. 79 00:04:26,349 --> 00:04:29,439 There's this intense energy. 80 00:04:29,519 --> 00:04:32,769 It enhances the heart rate. 81 00:04:32,855 --> 00:04:35,975 Temperature goes up, your pupils dilate. 82 00:04:36,067 --> 00:04:38,607 And at the top, the glee, the joy. 83 00:04:39,696 --> 00:04:43,406 It enhances the levels of dopamine in the brain very rapidly, 84 00:04:43,491 --> 00:04:46,541 and that's what makes it very addictive, because you have to keep taking it 85 00:04:46,619 --> 00:04:48,749 to try to get back that high. 86 00:04:49,372 --> 00:04:53,002 But you can never get it back because the brain has changed. 87 00:04:53,084 --> 00:04:57,014 It can never get back to that original dopamine rush. 88 00:04:58,047 --> 00:05:03,087 In 2017, almost 2,000 tons of pure cocaine were produced, 89 00:05:03,177 --> 00:05:06,007 a 25 percent increase from 2016. 90 00:05:06,514 --> 00:05:08,814 And that production is feeding consumption 91 00:05:08,891 --> 00:05:12,691 by an estimated 18.1 million global users. 92 00:05:14,272 --> 00:05:18,442 The number of new users in the US has nearly doubled since 2013. 93 00:05:18,526 --> 00:05:21,856 And normally, a surge in demand would mean a surge in price, 94 00:05:21,946 --> 00:05:24,116 but that hasn't happened with cocaine. 95 00:05:24,574 --> 00:05:26,124 The price of cocaine in the US 96 00:05:26,200 --> 00:05:30,370 has stayed incredibly stable for a long time. 97 00:05:31,331 --> 00:05:33,541 The price of almost nothing else has. 98 00:05:33,624 --> 00:05:38,214 This is not a market where people compete necessarily on price. 99 00:05:39,422 --> 00:05:44,762 Rather, people compete on the reliability with which they can serve the market. 100 00:05:44,844 --> 00:05:46,764 So, let's start with the consumers. 101 00:05:46,846 --> 00:05:48,556 The way consumers choose their dealer 102 00:05:48,639 --> 00:05:52,019 is somebody who can reliably give them their drugs 103 00:05:52,101 --> 00:05:54,651 and who's not gonna be changing price a lot. 104 00:05:55,521 --> 00:05:59,481 The price of each gram of cocaine has stayed at around $100 105 00:05:59,567 --> 00:06:01,357 for over 25 years. 106 00:06:01,444 --> 00:06:03,784 An analogy would be in the video game industry, 107 00:06:03,863 --> 00:06:07,583 where the prices of video games have stayed constant around $60 per game 108 00:06:07,658 --> 00:06:09,078 for a very long time. 109 00:06:09,577 --> 00:06:13,077 And it's certainly not because technology has not evolved. 110 00:06:13,164 --> 00:06:16,084 It's because the price of $60 per game 111 00:06:16,167 --> 00:06:19,087 gives you a very effective coordination mechanism 112 00:06:19,170 --> 00:06:22,380 for how much they should expect to pay for the next video game. 113 00:06:22,965 --> 00:06:25,335 When we translate it to a market like cocaine, 114 00:06:25,426 --> 00:06:26,966 that's good practice, 115 00:06:27,053 --> 00:06:29,490 both for consumers, but also for the organizations themselves, 116 00:06:29,514 --> 00:06:32,104 because it's so dependent on reliability. 117 00:06:38,147 --> 00:06:42,107 Any successful industry requires stable supply and demand. 118 00:06:42,693 --> 00:06:45,113 And with an abundance of unoccupied land 119 00:06:45,655 --> 00:06:47,905 and the ideal growing climate for coca, 120 00:06:47,990 --> 00:06:50,950 Colombia is the largest producer of cocaine in the world. 121 00:06:51,035 --> 00:06:52,785 It's been that way since the '80s, 122 00:06:52,870 --> 00:06:55,370 when the American DEA and the local governments 123 00:06:55,456 --> 00:06:58,036 shut down the coke trade in Bolivia and Peru. 124 00:06:58,709 --> 00:07:00,799 In Colombia, the coke business thrived 125 00:07:00,878 --> 00:07:03,378 under the legendary cartel head Pablo Escobar, 126 00:07:03,464 --> 00:07:07,184 who, at the height of his power, was making $420 million a week, 127 00:07:07,260 --> 00:07:10,760 largely because his operation was completely vertically integrated. 128 00:07:11,305 --> 00:07:14,425 So, there is a parallel to be drawn between a normal company 129 00:07:14,517 --> 00:07:18,477 - and the Pablo Escobar world, right? - Right. 130 00:07:18,563 --> 00:07:21,443 IKEA is a very clear example of that. 131 00:07:21,983 --> 00:07:24,193 As a seller of furniture, 132 00:07:24,986 --> 00:07:28,106 IKEA owns their own forests in several parts of the world, 133 00:07:28,197 --> 00:07:30,617 so that they can manage the supply of wood 134 00:07:30,700 --> 00:07:33,740 in a more reliable way than purchasing wood from the open market. 135 00:07:34,495 --> 00:07:36,865 And they have their own milling operations, 136 00:07:36,956 --> 00:07:38,316 and they have their own designers. 137 00:07:38,374 --> 00:07:40,214 That's what we saw Pablo Escobar do. 138 00:07:40,293 --> 00:07:41,503 He was absorbing the profits 139 00:07:41,586 --> 00:07:43,626 from every single aspect of the value chain. 140 00:07:43,713 --> 00:07:47,053 He just took over producers, coca growers, 141 00:07:47,133 --> 00:07:49,093 the labs, the processors, 142 00:07:49,177 --> 00:07:52,677 then transportation and wholesale of cocaine 143 00:07:52,763 --> 00:07:55,313 to then, actually, last-mile distribution, 144 00:07:55,391 --> 00:07:57,191 which is partly what made him so vulnerable. 145 00:07:57,268 --> 00:08:00,978 Integration can make sense from a profit perspective, 146 00:08:01,063 --> 00:08:03,613 but because this is a black market, 147 00:08:04,066 --> 00:08:06,106 it's a very high risk that you're taking. 148 00:08:07,236 --> 00:08:09,236 Being cocaine's one-stop shop 149 00:08:09,322 --> 00:08:13,662 made Escobar a huge target for the DEA and the Colombian government, 150 00:08:13,743 --> 00:08:15,413 and when the Medellín Cartel collapsed, 151 00:08:15,953 --> 00:08:19,003 that vertically integrated model toppled along with it. 152 00:08:19,081 --> 00:08:22,081 That was a cataclysmic event that decentralized 153 00:08:22,168 --> 00:08:24,998 and completely restructured the Colombian drug trade. 154 00:08:25,087 --> 00:08:29,797 The national police managed to dismantle these large cartels. 155 00:08:29,884 --> 00:08:32,804 There is not one big cartel that owns everything. 156 00:08:33,346 --> 00:08:37,266 But... this brought us another issue, 157 00:08:37,767 --> 00:08:39,807 the hydra phenomenon. 158 00:08:40,478 --> 00:08:43,398 When you cut off the head... 159 00:08:43,481 --> 00:08:47,941 several smaller heads appear. 160 00:08:49,195 --> 00:08:53,235 We see the drug business has become more complex... 161 00:08:54,075 --> 00:09:00,615 in terms of tracking those who are linked at each stage of the process. 162 00:09:03,751 --> 00:09:06,711 Buenaventura is Colombia's largest port. 163 00:09:06,796 --> 00:09:10,546 It sends shipments to 300 cities worldwide 164 00:09:10,633 --> 00:09:13,803 and handles 60 percent of Colombia's imports and exports. 165 00:09:13,886 --> 00:09:18,266 Everything from consumer goods, like coffee and bananas, to drugs. 166 00:09:18,349 --> 00:09:23,099 Buenaventura is located between the sea, the Pacific Ocean, 167 00:09:23,187 --> 00:09:25,057 uh, which leads to Argentina, 168 00:09:25,147 --> 00:09:28,357 up to Panama, Mexico, USA, and Asia. 169 00:09:28,859 --> 00:09:31,819 So, this is the exit for all cocaine that's gonna go out 170 00:09:31,904 --> 00:09:34,324 - the Pacific route from Colombia? - Yeah, exactly. 171 00:09:35,491 --> 00:09:38,201 The port generates $1.8 billion a year 172 00:09:38,286 --> 00:09:40,076 in customs tax revenue. 173 00:09:40,162 --> 00:09:43,922 But the city and the surrounding regions see little of it. 174 00:09:45,418 --> 00:09:47,378 I mean, I've traveled all over the world, 175 00:09:47,461 --> 00:09:48,881 and it's rare to see 176 00:09:49,630 --> 00:09:53,010 this level of poverty sustained street after street after street. 177 00:09:53,092 --> 00:09:54,302 Such inequality. 178 00:09:54,385 --> 00:09:58,635 Is that what drives the cocaine trade in this town, do you think? 179 00:09:58,723 --> 00:10:01,103 The kids, when they are like five, 180 00:10:01,183 --> 00:10:03,393 uh... they are already in the streets. 181 00:10:03,477 --> 00:10:05,647 And when you're in the streets, there are gangs around. 182 00:10:05,730 --> 00:10:07,690 There is narco traffic around. 183 00:10:07,773 --> 00:10:10,483 And by the age of ten, 184 00:10:11,235 --> 00:10:14,655 they are already, like, being hired to be the bell-ringers 185 00:10:14,739 --> 00:10:17,949 that tell the gangs, like, "They are here. They are there." 186 00:10:18,034 --> 00:10:21,664 And the only thing they wish for is to do a cocaine run. 187 00:10:21,746 --> 00:10:26,416 They earn like a hundred thousand pesos, so it's like a lot. 188 00:10:28,377 --> 00:10:31,417 The promise of such riches 189 00:10:31,505 --> 00:10:33,465 compared to not having running water in your house 190 00:10:33,549 --> 00:10:35,589 - has gotta be pretty tempting. - Exactly. 191 00:10:35,676 --> 00:10:37,886 I've been hanging with them, and I ask them, like, 192 00:10:37,970 --> 00:10:40,720 "What is your dream? What do you want to be?" 193 00:10:41,390 --> 00:10:42,730 And they say, 194 00:10:42,808 --> 00:10:45,058 "No, we live in the present. 195 00:10:45,144 --> 00:10:47,234 We don't care about ten years ago... 196 00:10:47,313 --> 00:10:49,943 Further, because there is the possibility 197 00:10:50,024 --> 00:10:51,984 there's not going to be ten years further." 198 00:10:54,737 --> 00:10:57,317 One third of the population is unemployed. 199 00:10:57,948 --> 00:11:00,278 Forty-five percent don't have potable water. 200 00:11:00,826 --> 00:11:04,576 And 80 percent live beneath Colombia's poverty line. 201 00:11:05,206 --> 00:11:07,076 So, for so many here, 202 00:11:07,166 --> 00:11:10,746 the only viable way to survive is by working in cocaine. 203 00:11:11,754 --> 00:11:13,764 It's like a cocaine factory town. 204 00:11:17,802 --> 00:11:19,932 Two and a half hours outside of the city, 205 00:11:20,388 --> 00:11:23,718 the factory extends to the jungles of the Andes Mountains, 206 00:11:23,808 --> 00:11:27,268 where a cheap labor force kicks off the manufacturing. 207 00:11:27,353 --> 00:11:31,823 About 82,000 Colombian families depend on coca farming for survival. 208 00:11:32,483 --> 00:11:35,703 Unable to afford land of their own, they illegally farm 209 00:11:35,778 --> 00:11:39,868 on over 400,000 acres of public land. 210 00:11:45,287 --> 00:11:47,667 You plant a banana tree today, 211 00:11:48,582 --> 00:11:51,502 and in a year, you are cutting a banana bunch. 212 00:11:53,045 --> 00:11:57,005 And that banana bunch is going to be worth 5,000 pesos 213 00:11:57,800 --> 00:11:59,180 in the market. 214 00:12:00,886 --> 00:12:02,636 That's why we are forced to... 215 00:12:03,681 --> 00:12:05,521 continue growing coca. 216 00:12:06,684 --> 00:12:09,524 These crops generally grow... 217 00:12:10,855 --> 00:12:13,105 um... every three months. 218 00:12:15,735 --> 00:12:17,775 One of these sacks, uh... 219 00:12:17,862 --> 00:12:20,412 a sack like that fits about five loads of leaves. 220 00:12:20,489 --> 00:12:21,489 Um... 221 00:12:21,532 --> 00:12:24,202 Ten thousand pesos per load. 222 00:12:31,125 --> 00:12:33,955 So, then I have to, as a worker, 223 00:12:34,628 --> 00:12:39,968 do about six loads daily so that you can 224 00:12:40,050 --> 00:12:41,840 survive with your family. 225 00:12:44,513 --> 00:12:46,673 You need around one ton of coca leaves 226 00:12:46,724 --> 00:12:48,854 to produce a kilo of cocaine. 227 00:12:48,934 --> 00:12:52,984 And for that ton, farmers are paid roughly $500, 228 00:12:53,063 --> 00:12:55,943 a rate that hasn't changed in 30 years. 229 00:12:59,862 --> 00:13:05,242 To break the business, you need to generate possibilities 230 00:13:05,326 --> 00:13:08,576 uh... to generate income in a legal way. 231 00:13:08,662 --> 00:13:10,872 Otherwise, everything is going to be useless. 232 00:13:10,956 --> 00:13:12,326 In 2015, 233 00:13:12,416 --> 00:13:16,456 the Colombian government started an ambitious crop substitution program, 234 00:13:16,545 --> 00:13:19,915 hoping to convince coca farmers to replace their illegal crops 235 00:13:20,007 --> 00:13:21,047 with legal ones. 236 00:13:21,634 --> 00:13:23,144 But it's complicated 237 00:13:23,219 --> 00:13:29,389 because they need not only productive products, 238 00:13:29,475 --> 00:13:32,765 but they need stable markets. 239 00:13:32,853 --> 00:13:38,283 So with coca, they know someone is going to buy what they produce 240 00:13:38,359 --> 00:13:39,649 on a regular basis 241 00:13:39,735 --> 00:13:42,945 and they have relatively stable prices. 242 00:13:43,447 --> 00:13:44,947 With other products, 243 00:13:45,533 --> 00:13:46,953 this is not that clear. 244 00:13:47,034 --> 00:13:51,714 So, to be able to be articulated into the legal market, they need roads. 245 00:13:51,789 --> 00:13:55,839 And this demands a huge amount of investment. 246 00:13:55,918 --> 00:14:00,338 And I don't know if the Colombian government has the capacity 247 00:14:00,422 --> 00:14:02,302 to supply these public goods. 248 00:14:03,050 --> 00:14:06,890 So, the farmers are making logical economic decisions 249 00:14:06,971 --> 00:14:09,471 based on the incentives that are available to them? 250 00:14:09,557 --> 00:14:11,057 Indeed, indeed. 251 00:14:12,935 --> 00:14:15,265 But the incentives are extremely limited, 252 00:14:15,354 --> 00:14:19,694 not nearly enough to motivate coca farmers to switch to legal crops like coffee, 253 00:14:20,234 --> 00:14:23,574 which, unlike coca, has enormous overhead costs, 254 00:14:23,654 --> 00:14:25,244 wildly fluctuating prices, 255 00:14:25,698 --> 00:14:28,658 and is increasingly susceptible to climate change. 256 00:14:29,368 --> 00:14:32,748 For a farmer with little money and limited resources, 257 00:14:32,830 --> 00:14:34,790 coca is a hard crop to beat. 258 00:14:35,457 --> 00:14:38,207 This line of what's legal and what's illegal, for them, 259 00:14:38,794 --> 00:14:40,884 is pretty irrelevant... 260 00:14:41,463 --> 00:14:44,763 because when the government comes to them and says, like, 261 00:14:44,842 --> 00:14:46,722 "Well, what you're doing is illegal," 262 00:14:47,595 --> 00:14:50,675 they can say, "Well, who the fuck are you? Like, I've never seen you here. 263 00:14:51,098 --> 00:14:53,388 You've never cared about us for anything. 264 00:14:53,475 --> 00:14:56,725 And so, your definition of legal means nothing to me." 265 00:14:57,187 --> 00:14:59,607 When you look at legal versus illegal farming, 266 00:14:59,690 --> 00:15:01,530 I think we find it really comforting 267 00:15:01,609 --> 00:15:05,609 to try to frame these as good versus evil, black versus white. 268 00:15:05,696 --> 00:15:08,946 We like to think that the people who perpetuate these crimes 269 00:15:09,033 --> 00:15:11,123 are completely different from the rest of us 270 00:15:11,201 --> 00:15:13,281 and that we would never make the same set of choices. 271 00:15:13,662 --> 00:15:17,212 But in the end, based on my experience in the war on terrorism 272 00:15:17,291 --> 00:15:19,791 and on this journey exploring the war on drugs, 273 00:15:19,877 --> 00:15:22,167 these are rational human actors 274 00:15:22,254 --> 00:15:25,304 who are making predictable economic decisions 275 00:15:25,382 --> 00:15:27,552 based on the incentives that are available to them. 276 00:15:27,635 --> 00:15:30,885 Decisions that we all might make if we were in the same situation. 277 00:15:34,808 --> 00:15:36,388 I've never flown in this one. 278 00:15:36,477 --> 00:15:37,347 - No? - No. 279 00:15:37,436 --> 00:15:39,556 I've flown in Black Hawks, but never in these. 280 00:15:40,689 --> 00:15:44,189 But this is agile, versatile. 281 00:15:45,361 --> 00:15:49,411 Coca growing is only about nine percent of the cocaine business, 282 00:15:49,490 --> 00:15:52,490 but it's a major focus of counter-narcotics efforts. 283 00:15:52,576 --> 00:15:56,156 The government spends millions of US aid dollars on crop eradication. 284 00:15:56,622 --> 00:15:59,792 Part of the ten and a half billion dollars Washington's provided 285 00:15:59,875 --> 00:16:02,335 has funded these helicopters and weapons, 286 00:16:03,128 --> 00:16:06,918 intended to reach coca growth, far from the roads and infrastructure. 287 00:16:08,801 --> 00:16:09,801 In the late '90s, 288 00:16:09,843 --> 00:16:12,263 Colombia began using crop dusters 289 00:16:12,346 --> 00:16:14,886 to spray weed killer on coca fields. 290 00:16:15,557 --> 00:16:17,227 But in 2015, 291 00:16:17,309 --> 00:16:21,149 aerial fumigation was halted over concerns that the chemicals 292 00:16:21,230 --> 00:16:22,650 were causing cancer. 293 00:16:28,153 --> 00:16:29,823 And now, they do it by hand. 294 00:16:33,742 --> 00:16:36,412 The Colombian army, in their experience 295 00:16:36,495 --> 00:16:41,375 fighting drug trafficking and illicit crops, 296 00:16:42,001 --> 00:16:44,711 have found that... 297 00:16:45,212 --> 00:16:49,342 the militias hide explosive devices in the plants. 298 00:16:50,843 --> 00:16:52,723 These units are heavily armed 299 00:16:52,803 --> 00:16:55,763 because of the many insurgent and right-wing paramilitary groups 300 00:16:55,848 --> 00:16:57,598 involved in the drug trade. 301 00:16:57,683 --> 00:16:59,563 The nation's largest insurgent group, 302 00:16:59,643 --> 00:17:03,063 the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, 303 00:17:03,147 --> 00:17:06,727 reached a peace deal with the government in November 2016. 304 00:17:06,817 --> 00:17:09,487 But many FARC factions rejected the terms 305 00:17:09,570 --> 00:17:12,200 and continued to fund themselves, at least partially, 306 00:17:12,281 --> 00:17:13,911 by trafficking cocaine. 307 00:17:16,368 --> 00:17:18,768 A team first clears the area to guarantee 308 00:17:18,829 --> 00:17:23,209 that there are no explosive devices... 309 00:17:23,292 --> 00:17:26,342 so they can do the manual eradication. 310 00:17:36,180 --> 00:17:40,390 The team of eradicators manually dig with shovels 311 00:17:41,643 --> 00:17:42,813 from the root 312 00:17:42,895 --> 00:17:46,015 because when cutting with machetes, 313 00:17:46,106 --> 00:17:50,566 it leaves the root and the plant to grow back again. 314 00:17:58,243 --> 00:18:02,663 It's hard work, but we keep at it. 315 00:18:05,584 --> 00:18:12,134 Normally, on a daily average, we eradicate from two to three hectares. 316 00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:21,480 The new government's objective is... reducing 317 00:18:21,558 --> 00:18:27,768 existing crops by up to 70 percent in four years. 318 00:18:28,899 --> 00:18:31,539 I've seen this kind of thing in the war on terror: 319 00:18:31,568 --> 00:18:34,568 a ton of money spent with little effective result. 320 00:18:42,246 --> 00:18:45,916 Only 1,000 feet away from the eradication site, 321 00:18:45,999 --> 00:18:49,839 our farmers from earlier work their harvested leaves into a paste, 322 00:18:50,254 --> 00:18:51,804 the next step in cocaine production. 323 00:18:54,049 --> 00:18:56,139 So, as a coca farmer in this area, 324 00:18:56,677 --> 00:18:59,757 you grow coca and you do the processing yourself? 325 00:18:59,847 --> 00:19:01,407 Coca is grown in one place 326 00:19:01,431 --> 00:19:05,231 and loaded in another place, where it is processed. 327 00:19:07,563 --> 00:19:10,693 And as a coca farmer, do you also own the lab? 328 00:19:10,774 --> 00:19:12,194 Ah, yes. 329 00:19:12,609 --> 00:19:17,029 It is possible to get a little more than the normal price. 330 00:19:18,240 --> 00:19:21,030 Most farmers sell their raw coca to makeshift labs 331 00:19:21,660 --> 00:19:24,960 that then turn it into a paste before selling it to the cartels. 332 00:19:25,539 --> 00:19:27,419 But these guys built their own lab, 333 00:19:27,916 --> 00:19:31,416 working their way along the supply chain to capture more of the profit. 334 00:19:34,256 --> 00:19:37,546 The gasoline washes the coca leaf. 335 00:19:39,469 --> 00:19:42,559 After the leaves are mulched, they are soaked in gasoline 336 00:19:42,639 --> 00:19:44,469 and a small amount of sulfuric acid 337 00:19:44,558 --> 00:19:47,518 to extract cocaine alkaloids from the coca leaves. 338 00:19:54,276 --> 00:19:56,946 There you can see the gasoline, and here, 339 00:19:57,029 --> 00:19:59,199 you can see the product in the water. 340 00:19:59,281 --> 00:20:01,581 Once strained, this mixture will be 341 00:20:01,658 --> 00:20:03,788 the foundation for the final product. 342 00:20:04,870 --> 00:20:08,750 Is it the cartel that sets the price that they pay? 343 00:20:08,832 --> 00:20:12,962 Yes, mostly the cartels and criminal gangs. 344 00:20:13,045 --> 00:20:17,295 They are the ones who manage the prices. 345 00:20:18,300 --> 00:20:20,945 Even though these farmers are earning a little more 346 00:20:20,969 --> 00:20:22,799 by processing their own coca paste, 347 00:20:22,888 --> 00:20:25,678 the cartels still maintain a choke hold on them. 348 00:20:25,766 --> 00:20:29,266 They do this by controlling the price that paste can earn. 349 00:20:29,353 --> 00:20:31,023 It's just basic economics. 350 00:20:31,104 --> 00:20:34,694 The producers get a very, very small margin over their cost, 351 00:20:34,775 --> 00:20:37,145 because, again, they're very diversified 352 00:20:37,236 --> 00:20:39,356 by design, by business design. 353 00:20:39,446 --> 00:20:42,026 So, most people understand monopoly. 354 00:20:42,741 --> 00:20:47,041 One big actor controls the selling of a product. 355 00:20:47,120 --> 00:20:48,710 Usually, as a buyer, 356 00:20:48,789 --> 00:20:51,379 you're either gonna have to accept a lower quality, 357 00:20:51,458 --> 00:20:53,708 or you're gonna have to accept a higher price, 358 00:20:53,794 --> 00:20:55,384 or usually both. 359 00:20:55,462 --> 00:20:58,262 Very few people know about a complimentary effect 360 00:20:58,340 --> 00:20:59,550 called monopsony, 361 00:21:00,342 --> 00:21:04,852 when there's only one buyer who sets prices for a particular product. 362 00:21:04,930 --> 00:21:08,270 One very simple example to think about is Walmart. 363 00:21:08,350 --> 00:21:11,440 If you are a seller of socks or of T-shirts, 364 00:21:11,520 --> 00:21:15,480 and Walmart is the only buyer, you have no other options. 365 00:21:16,358 --> 00:21:19,948 What would happen if you refused to sell for that price? 366 00:21:20,028 --> 00:21:24,278 I would simply have to leave the area and stop farming. 367 00:21:24,366 --> 00:21:28,036 Go somewhere else because I could get killed. 368 00:21:31,832 --> 00:21:33,252 Sometimes, I'm afraid. 369 00:21:33,333 --> 00:21:36,803 But we have no other way out as farmers. 370 00:21:39,381 --> 00:21:41,721 The cartel will pay about $900 371 00:21:41,800 --> 00:21:44,430 for a kilo of paste and then process it, 372 00:21:44,511 --> 00:21:49,391 with more chemicals, like kerosene, sulfuric acid, and sodium carbonate, 373 00:21:49,808 --> 00:21:52,018 to refine it into what we know as cocaine, 374 00:21:52,686 --> 00:21:56,226 worth 100 times more than the cartel's initial investment. 375 00:21:56,315 --> 00:21:59,855 Once it's turned into cocaine, it's ready to be shipped. 376 00:22:00,402 --> 00:22:03,112 But first, it needs to be concealed. 377 00:22:08,535 --> 00:22:11,035 Narco traffickers come at this from all angles. 378 00:22:11,121 --> 00:22:14,881 They have drones. They have submarines. They dig tunnels. 379 00:22:14,958 --> 00:22:19,628 But they also deploy foot soldiers who hide product in everyday materials. 380 00:22:27,220 --> 00:22:29,560 We have this cocaine here on the table. 381 00:22:31,224 --> 00:22:33,854 Walk me through how it came to be right here. 382 00:22:34,436 --> 00:22:36,226 They make it, 383 00:22:36,313 --> 00:22:41,533 and they give me my coordinates to where I have to go and receive it. 384 00:22:41,610 --> 00:22:45,320 And it is our turn to pack it in that particular way. 385 00:22:46,531 --> 00:22:49,531 Do you always hide them in toys like this? 386 00:22:49,951 --> 00:22:54,041 Not everyone does it like this. 387 00:22:54,623 --> 00:22:56,583 They fit it in shoes... 388 00:22:57,334 --> 00:23:00,174 in briefcases, computers. 389 00:23:01,546 --> 00:23:03,756 Don't they search the cats? 390 00:23:03,840 --> 00:23:06,010 They won't feel the brick of cocaine? 391 00:23:07,386 --> 00:23:10,966 Some do notice, but that depends on how... 392 00:23:12,724 --> 00:23:17,444 you fix the stuffed animal or how you insert the cocaine. 393 00:23:20,649 --> 00:23:21,939 Then what? 394 00:23:22,484 --> 00:23:25,994 That's all the process that I do to it. 395 00:23:26,822 --> 00:23:31,032 And I get to the coordinates that they gave me... 396 00:23:31,118 --> 00:23:33,828 at the Buenaventura port. 397 00:23:35,122 --> 00:23:37,962 So in this supply chain, your job is... 398 00:23:38,041 --> 00:23:40,841 is just to hide the cocaine? 399 00:23:41,503 --> 00:23:44,923 Well, at the moment, it's the only thing I am doing. 400 00:23:46,049 --> 00:23:49,719 I am earning two million pesos. 401 00:23:52,180 --> 00:23:55,640 If you were to work at one of the shops nearby, 402 00:23:55,725 --> 00:23:59,225 or doing another kind of work, how long would it take you to earn that? 403 00:24:00,856 --> 00:24:03,856 Possibly, it could be in two months... 404 00:24:04,359 --> 00:24:05,739 or two and a half months. 405 00:24:12,534 --> 00:24:15,454 This work that you're doing, it's very dangerous. 406 00:24:16,121 --> 00:24:20,541 I am more scared of the people that run the business, 407 00:24:20,959 --> 00:24:25,839 because the law locks you down, but... 408 00:24:26,631 --> 00:24:29,381 anyone who makes a mistake on the street, 409 00:24:30,844 --> 00:24:32,054 that one doesn't live. 410 00:24:34,848 --> 00:24:39,768 Two million Colombian pesos is about 650 US dollars. 411 00:24:39,853 --> 00:24:43,193 You can understand why he and others are willing to take the risk. 412 00:24:43,690 --> 00:24:47,780 It's not as though people are born with a kind of inherent desire 413 00:24:47,861 --> 00:24:50,951 to move cocaine north to the United States for no reason. 414 00:24:51,031 --> 00:24:53,331 It's moved here because there is a demand here. 415 00:24:53,408 --> 00:24:57,038 What that creates, again, is a very profitable market 416 00:24:57,120 --> 00:25:00,620 for people who are willing to engage in the risks to serve that market. 417 00:25:00,707 --> 00:25:05,997 And that profit margin creates a lot of room for innovation, 418 00:25:06,588 --> 00:25:09,548 precisely to diversify risk and precisely to make sure 419 00:25:09,633 --> 00:25:13,263 that we can always supply this market effectively. 420 00:25:15,972 --> 00:25:18,522 In attempts to curb that effectiveness, 421 00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:21,350 Colombian authorities have found they can't really rely on 422 00:25:21,436 --> 00:25:22,976 their eradication missions alone, 423 00:25:23,813 --> 00:25:26,233 so they also employ the tactic of interdiction. 424 00:25:26,942 --> 00:25:30,862 If you can't stop it when it's growing, you try to stop it when it's going. 425 00:25:37,077 --> 00:25:41,077 What is the total number of containers that come through this port every day? 426 00:25:41,873 --> 00:25:47,713 In this port, between 300 and 500 containers enter daily. 427 00:25:52,259 --> 00:25:56,889 He's verifying that there are no illegal drugs inside the coffee. 428 00:25:57,806 --> 00:26:01,386 I mean, I'm looking at how many hundreds of coffee... 429 00:26:02,352 --> 00:26:03,982 bags are behind you. 430 00:26:04,604 --> 00:26:08,284 If there were cocaine hidden in one of those bags, 431 00:26:08,984 --> 00:26:11,114 out of all those hundreds, would you find it? 432 00:26:11,194 --> 00:26:14,534 When the containers enter, we have technologies like scanners. 433 00:26:14,614 --> 00:26:18,244 We also have biosensors through dogs. 434 00:26:18,743 --> 00:26:21,413 And finally, the physical inspection is also done. 435 00:26:21,496 --> 00:26:25,076 What would happen if there were cocaine there? You'd see it? 436 00:26:25,166 --> 00:26:28,036 You'd see something white right there. 437 00:26:28,753 --> 00:26:32,303 It's hot. You could make a cup of coffee just with that heat. 438 00:26:32,882 --> 00:26:34,342 Yes. 439 00:26:36,970 --> 00:26:40,270 This year, 5,000 kilos of cocaine 440 00:26:40,348 --> 00:26:42,098 have been seized in this port. 441 00:26:42,726 --> 00:26:46,306 Five thousand kilos is about five tons of coke, 442 00:26:46,396 --> 00:26:50,146 and that may sound like a lot of cocaine, but it pales in comparison 443 00:26:50,233 --> 00:26:53,903 to the 1,400 tons evading detection 444 00:26:53,987 --> 00:26:56,567 and making its way out of the country every year. 445 00:27:02,579 --> 00:27:05,579 We need the divers to submerge 446 00:27:05,665 --> 00:27:09,785 and make an inspection underneath. 447 00:27:10,295 --> 00:27:12,005 When the tide rises... 448 00:27:13,465 --> 00:27:16,885 it usually covers up a lot of the area. 449 00:27:18,386 --> 00:27:20,556 We're gonna do a dock check. 450 00:27:27,562 --> 00:27:28,982 Problem. 451 00:27:30,106 --> 00:27:32,226 Let's go and check that boat. 452 00:27:35,028 --> 00:27:36,108 Uh, Jorge... 453 00:27:36,946 --> 00:27:40,946 It was found in the rudder, right in the propeller. 454 00:27:54,756 --> 00:27:59,926 As we can see, it has some rubber in between the packaging, 455 00:28:00,011 --> 00:28:04,061 which serves to waterproof the alkaloid. 456 00:28:04,849 --> 00:28:06,979 As we can see, a powder. 457 00:28:08,311 --> 00:28:09,771 A fine white powder. 458 00:28:11,981 --> 00:28:17,321 A turquoise blue is a positive test for cocaine. 459 00:28:17,821 --> 00:28:20,321 Fifty-eight packages were found... 460 00:28:20,907 --> 00:28:26,287 representing a weight of 56 kilos of cocaine. 461 00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:30,540 This cocaine was headed for Japan. 462 00:28:33,002 --> 00:28:38,472 In the US, 56 kilos is worth about $1.5 million wholesale, 463 00:28:38,550 --> 00:28:40,800 or 4.6 million on the street. 464 00:28:41,469 --> 00:28:44,719 And in Japan, it can be worth more than double that. 465 00:28:45,849 --> 00:28:48,729 Globally, the price of cocaine varies hugely, 466 00:28:48,810 --> 00:28:52,480 dictated by how hard it is to smuggle the product from Colombia 467 00:28:52,564 --> 00:28:53,564 to local markets. 468 00:28:54,941 --> 00:28:57,531 For the port police, that's a sizable seizure, 469 00:28:58,153 --> 00:28:59,653 but there are always other players 470 00:28:59,738 --> 00:29:02,318 waiting to pick up a failed trafficker's slack. 471 00:29:02,407 --> 00:29:05,657 Here, I am finishing up packing. 472 00:29:05,744 --> 00:29:07,294 From here, we go towards the dock. 473 00:29:08,079 --> 00:29:11,079 There are hundreds like Luis heading to the port, 474 00:29:11,166 --> 00:29:13,496 all with packages to be taken to Mexico, 475 00:29:13,585 --> 00:29:15,745 and then, ultimately, to the United States. 476 00:29:15,837 --> 00:29:20,007 Ending up in jail is horrible. 477 00:29:20,967 --> 00:29:23,597 I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. 478 00:29:24,763 --> 00:29:27,563 Luis recently did time for trafficking, 479 00:29:27,640 --> 00:29:31,100 something that would make most people reevaluate their line of work. 480 00:29:31,686 --> 00:29:33,186 But this is Buenaventura, 481 00:29:33,688 --> 00:29:37,568 and he sees moving cocaine as his only option to stay alive. 482 00:29:37,650 --> 00:29:42,070 Moving cocaine, for handling, going to pick it up in one place 483 00:29:42,155 --> 00:29:44,525 then dropping it off in another, 484 00:29:45,074 --> 00:29:51,084 they pay nothing. A million pesos. 485 00:29:55,043 --> 00:29:58,673 They'll give half at the pick-up, 486 00:29:59,297 --> 00:30:02,217 and the rest when the stuff reaches its destination. 487 00:30:04,552 --> 00:30:11,482 Everything you do, only to get back so little. 488 00:30:13,645 --> 00:30:15,355 We're the losers. 489 00:30:21,694 --> 00:30:25,704 The producers and even the early processors are not really... 490 00:30:26,324 --> 00:30:29,544 - living the Pablo Escobar lifestyle. - Oh, gosh. No. 491 00:30:29,619 --> 00:30:33,459 The dealers, on the other end, aren't either, 492 00:30:33,540 --> 00:30:36,040 so as it keeps doubling and doubling and doubling, 493 00:30:36,125 --> 00:30:38,915 and we hear these billions of dollars changing hands, 494 00:30:39,420 --> 00:30:40,840 who's making that money? 495 00:30:40,922 --> 00:30:44,302 The Mexican cartel and the large criminal organizations 496 00:30:44,384 --> 00:30:48,934 that are managing the central parts of the value chain. 497 00:30:49,013 --> 00:30:53,233 There are parts of the value chain, where in order to... 498 00:30:53,935 --> 00:30:56,685 be able to say that you can reliably deliver 499 00:30:56,771 --> 00:30:59,691 large amounts of a product that is illegal, 500 00:30:59,774 --> 00:31:01,694 that means that you have to control the territory 501 00:31:01,776 --> 00:31:04,736 through which it's gonna be moving. And the only way when you do it, 502 00:31:04,821 --> 00:31:07,031 if it's a black market, is through violence. 503 00:31:14,747 --> 00:31:16,457 The Sinaloa Cartel, 504 00:31:17,000 --> 00:31:20,420 one of the largest and most dangerous drug cartels in the world, 505 00:31:20,503 --> 00:31:26,053 responsible for smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine 506 00:31:26,134 --> 00:31:27,804 into the United States. 507 00:31:27,886 --> 00:31:29,546 After the fall of Escobar 508 00:31:29,637 --> 00:31:32,177 and the closure of the Caribbean route to Miami, 509 00:31:32,265 --> 00:31:34,885 the Mexican cartels took over all transport 510 00:31:34,976 --> 00:31:36,596 to the United States and beyond. 511 00:31:37,186 --> 00:31:42,646 It's estimated that cartels profit an average of $24 billion a year, 512 00:31:42,734 --> 00:31:44,574 just from US sales alone. 513 00:31:45,778 --> 00:31:47,448 And when it comes to cartels, 514 00:31:47,530 --> 00:31:49,620 Sinaloa is the gold standard. 515 00:31:49,699 --> 00:31:52,739 It controls as much as 60 percent of Mexico's drug trade, 516 00:31:52,827 --> 00:31:56,077 with annual earnings reaching $3 billion. 517 00:32:01,336 --> 00:32:03,666 The product moves north within Mexico, 518 00:32:03,755 --> 00:32:05,755 usually in small shipments, 519 00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:07,760 stopping in safe houses along the way. 520 00:32:09,427 --> 00:32:13,387 There are thousands of hidden garages like this, all over Mexico, 521 00:32:13,473 --> 00:32:18,023 constituting a nearly indestructible path of coke into the States. 522 00:32:18,102 --> 00:32:21,232 We have 300 kilos of cocaine here. 523 00:32:24,901 --> 00:32:28,281 When it enters Sinaloa, it's safe. 524 00:32:29,822 --> 00:32:32,662 Everything is well taken care of with lookouts. 525 00:32:35,536 --> 00:32:38,206 Here, we are just a piece. 526 00:32:39,707 --> 00:32:43,207 I pick it up in a boat and unload it. 527 00:32:43,711 --> 00:32:46,171 And I treat it, put a condom on it… 528 00:32:46,255 --> 00:32:50,465 It's like a special bag, a seal so it can be in water. 529 00:32:51,719 --> 00:32:55,519 After a few days, when they tell me, I load it up. 530 00:32:56,224 --> 00:32:58,814 At the moment, there are no enemy cartels here… 531 00:32:59,310 --> 00:33:01,310 but in this life, you never know. 532 00:33:01,813 --> 00:33:03,863 We need to go… 533 00:33:05,525 --> 00:33:06,525 Hurry, hurry, hurry! 534 00:33:28,047 --> 00:33:29,257 Let's go. 535 00:33:35,304 --> 00:33:37,774 It's a lot of profit. That's why it works. 536 00:33:42,020 --> 00:33:46,110 So, how does cocaine grow in value? 537 00:33:46,524 --> 00:33:50,154 Based on the amount of risk that exists at each chunk, 538 00:33:50,236 --> 00:33:53,236 and you see the profits kind of reflect that. 539 00:33:53,322 --> 00:33:55,372 If you think about the chain, 540 00:33:55,450 --> 00:33:56,910 it's kind of like an hourglass, 541 00:33:56,993 --> 00:34:01,663 where it's very diversified at the top, where you're producing, 542 00:34:01,748 --> 00:34:05,418 but then from then on, it's very, very centralized. 543 00:34:05,501 --> 00:34:08,671 It becomes concentrated where you have to transport things in bulk, 544 00:34:08,755 --> 00:34:10,355 and you have to be able to protect that. 545 00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,680 And when you shift to the transportation, where the risk is much higher, 546 00:34:15,136 --> 00:34:19,596 that's where the first kind of very big jump in profitability happens. 547 00:34:20,850 --> 00:34:23,640 In Colombia, it costs $2,500 a kilo... 548 00:34:24,562 --> 00:34:28,402 And in Manzanillo, 549 00:34:28,483 --> 00:34:33,153 it costs between $12,000 and $14,000. 550 00:34:34,947 --> 00:34:35,947 Oh. 551 00:34:38,951 --> 00:34:40,371 Let's go! Let's go! 552 00:34:47,710 --> 00:34:51,880 And here in Sinaloa, it's $17,000 553 00:34:52,673 --> 00:34:56,473 and $26,000 in California. 554 00:35:07,063 --> 00:35:09,983 They are going to meet a bigger boat. 555 00:35:12,110 --> 00:35:16,610 From here, it goes all by sea up to... 556 00:35:16,697 --> 00:35:18,527 San Felipe to Baja. 557 00:35:20,618 --> 00:35:23,908 There, it is divided up and transported to the United States, 558 00:35:23,996 --> 00:35:26,076 little by little, by car. 559 00:35:26,165 --> 00:35:27,995 - Ready. - Let's go! Go! 560 00:36:31,439 --> 00:36:32,479 Whoo! Whoo! 561 00:36:35,318 --> 00:36:38,148 The power of Juarez. 562 00:36:41,490 --> 00:36:47,290 Everyone wanted to take this place. 563 00:36:48,915 --> 00:36:52,835 Because it was easy to go to the United States. 564 00:36:54,170 --> 00:36:58,050 It's not like Arizona, where you have to go through the desert. 565 00:36:58,132 --> 00:37:01,512 It's several days walking to get to your delivery point. 566 00:37:02,845 --> 00:37:07,095 The crossing is easier in Juarez. 567 00:37:13,940 --> 00:37:17,610 I started transporting up to 50 kilos to America. 568 00:37:19,820 --> 00:37:23,120 It was transported from Colombia to Sinaloa. 569 00:37:30,665 --> 00:37:34,165 At the time, there were still tunnels here in El Paso. 570 00:37:35,336 --> 00:37:38,376 Underground places where we could pass it. 571 00:37:42,593 --> 00:37:47,353 We went down the tunnel, down the river. 572 00:37:47,431 --> 00:37:50,891 Just here, there was a tunnel that connected to a house in Chihuahuita. 573 00:37:50,977 --> 00:37:54,267 They'd load up everything there and take it away. 574 00:37:56,816 --> 00:37:59,316 These abandoned tunnels are relics. 575 00:38:01,028 --> 00:38:03,358 Today, cartels hide in plain sight, 576 00:38:03,864 --> 00:38:06,664 often flowing right through the official ports of entry. 577 00:38:07,493 --> 00:38:11,253 Usually concealed among legal goods being transported to the States, 578 00:38:11,330 --> 00:38:13,920 whether the carrier knows it or not. 579 00:38:15,918 --> 00:38:19,128 And you observe that, as a criminal organization, 580 00:38:19,630 --> 00:38:20,970 it's glorious, right? 581 00:38:21,048 --> 00:38:26,298 Because you have this kind of highway of trucks and trains and things 582 00:38:26,387 --> 00:38:28,717 that are moving stuff in and out of the US, 583 00:38:28,806 --> 00:38:31,056 where it's very easy 584 00:38:31,684 --> 00:38:33,394 to weave your product into that. 585 00:38:35,187 --> 00:38:41,027 There are trucks loaded with cocaine, 586 00:38:41,110 --> 00:38:46,820 but they don't cross kilos and kilos 587 00:38:46,907 --> 00:38:51,037 in a single vehicle… 588 00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:56,790 No, it's a continuous traffic in small quantities: 589 00:38:57,418 --> 00:39:02,208 three kilos, five kilos, or ten kilos. 590 00:39:06,218 --> 00:39:10,428 Despite two decades of interdiction efforts by the US and Mexico, 591 00:39:10,973 --> 00:39:13,893 Americans are still spending billions on cocaine. 592 00:39:14,727 --> 00:39:16,937 For authorities here in Juarez, 593 00:39:17,021 --> 00:39:19,571 it's a never-ending game of cat and mouse. 594 00:39:22,943 --> 00:39:27,373 No vehicle follows me unless I give the order. 595 00:39:30,326 --> 00:39:33,116 We arrested some people with guns 596 00:39:33,204 --> 00:39:36,084 from the Sinaloa Cartel. 597 00:39:37,249 --> 00:39:39,629 We got more information. 598 00:39:39,710 --> 00:39:42,800 The cocaine stayed in another vehicle. 599 00:39:43,297 --> 00:39:44,837 A white truck that came here. 600 00:39:44,924 --> 00:39:46,094 Texas license plates. 601 00:39:48,969 --> 00:39:51,309 They are already at the traffic light. 602 00:39:51,389 --> 00:39:55,179 - They are probably a minute away. - Copy. Copy that, Unit Two. 603 00:39:57,645 --> 00:39:59,645 Be ready. Be ready. 604 00:40:07,071 --> 00:40:08,741 We're going to inspect your vehicle. 605 00:40:08,823 --> 00:40:09,823 Go ahead. 606 00:40:18,541 --> 00:40:20,961 About... up to 26. 607 00:40:24,797 --> 00:40:26,837 Thirty-six packages. 608 00:40:28,050 --> 00:40:29,430 Put him in the patrol car. 609 00:40:40,146 --> 00:40:43,516 Every group has their preferred ways of smuggling... 610 00:40:44,024 --> 00:40:47,114 and they're always looking for some new avenue 611 00:40:47,194 --> 00:40:50,284 to find a way to help get a higher percentage of their product 612 00:40:50,364 --> 00:40:51,534 into the country. 613 00:40:53,659 --> 00:40:57,999 It's that access into the United States. 614 00:40:58,622 --> 00:41:02,792 And from the United States, you have the Interstate Highway System. 615 00:41:03,878 --> 00:41:06,338 You can take it wherever you want from that point. 616 00:41:07,923 --> 00:41:11,183 So, you get to the point where the cocaine arrives 617 00:41:11,260 --> 00:41:12,640 in the United States, 618 00:41:13,846 --> 00:41:18,226 and you describe this kind of opening of the hourglass 619 00:41:18,309 --> 00:41:22,229 and many different paths to distribution 620 00:41:23,022 --> 00:41:25,732 within the US, that last mile to the party. 621 00:41:25,816 --> 00:41:30,146 You have a number of people who are kind of very committed 622 00:41:30,237 --> 00:41:32,277 to their habit of using cocaine. 623 00:41:33,032 --> 00:41:37,082 They recognize that this is a black market, 624 00:41:37,161 --> 00:41:40,041 and so therefore they recognize that it's a risky behavior, 625 00:41:40,122 --> 00:41:43,922 and that it requires risky behavior to serve that market. 626 00:41:44,001 --> 00:41:46,751 And so, they're very happy to pay large premiums 627 00:41:46,837 --> 00:41:48,417 to have the product delivered to them. 628 00:41:58,724 --> 00:42:02,694 The murders, the kidnappings, this brutal violence 629 00:42:02,770 --> 00:42:05,110 is gonna continue as long as the Mexican cartels 630 00:42:05,189 --> 00:42:06,859 are as powerful as they are. 631 00:42:06,941 --> 00:42:09,071 And they're going to be as powerful as they are 632 00:42:09,151 --> 00:42:13,031 so long as they're servicing a demand that no legal company can compete with. 633 00:42:13,113 --> 00:42:16,783 And that demand comes from us, from the United States. 634 00:42:16,867 --> 00:42:19,867 Friday and Saturday nights, people are at parties, they're at clubs, 635 00:42:19,954 --> 00:42:22,933 they're ordering coke on their cell phone, buying blow on the street corner. 636 00:42:22,957 --> 00:42:24,827 And what they don't know, 637 00:42:24,917 --> 00:42:27,087 or refuse to acknowledge, 638 00:42:27,169 --> 00:42:31,589 is that, ultimately, they're funding a chain of human suffering 639 00:42:31,674 --> 00:42:32,764 with that choice. 640 00:42:33,634 --> 00:42:36,934 This is a global, multibillion dollar business, 641 00:42:37,012 --> 00:42:38,892 built on the backs of the poor. 642 00:42:39,974 --> 00:42:42,524 In my experience in the field, over years of service, 643 00:42:43,018 --> 00:42:46,558 I've realized you can't just keep doing the same thing 644 00:42:46,647 --> 00:42:47,647 over and over again 645 00:42:47,731 --> 00:42:50,231 when you keep seeing the data to show that it doesn't work. 646 00:42:50,317 --> 00:42:53,607 We're ten and a half billion dollars into the war on drugs 647 00:42:53,696 --> 00:42:55,066 in Colombia alone. 648 00:42:55,155 --> 00:42:57,235 Half a million Colombians have died. 649 00:42:57,741 --> 00:43:00,911 And last year, more cocaine shipped than ever before. 650 00:43:02,371 --> 00:43:06,131 Legalization may seem pretty extreme to most Americans, 651 00:43:06,208 --> 00:43:09,548 but as long as the demand continues to climb 652 00:43:09,628 --> 00:43:13,668 and the prices remain astronomically high because of no legal competition, 653 00:43:13,757 --> 00:43:17,007 I can't help wonder whether legalization and regulation 654 00:43:17,094 --> 00:43:18,434 is the only real option. 655 00:43:19,054 --> 00:43:22,934 And prohibition is just an illusion to make us all feel good. 656 00:43:24,018 --> 00:43:26,938 An illusion that's costing millions of dollars 657 00:43:27,021 --> 00:43:29,691 and thousands and thousands of lives. 658 00:43:29,773 --> 00:43:36,203 MURDERED 659 00:43:43,787 --> 00:43:45,457 So for Roy, back in LA... 660 00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:47,460 it's business as usual. 661 00:43:52,421 --> 00:43:54,801 Are you ever afraid that cocaine will... 662 00:43:55,507 --> 00:43:58,297 lose its appeal, and you won't have any customers left? 663 00:43:58,385 --> 00:43:59,385 Never. 664 00:43:59,428 --> 00:44:01,888 Never say never, but it's always gonna be there. 665 00:44:02,681 --> 00:44:04,271 So it's like, when you got money, 666 00:44:04,808 --> 00:44:06,138 that's the drug of choice. 667 00:44:06,226 --> 00:44:08,186 As long as somebody still want it, 668 00:44:08,270 --> 00:44:10,520 as long as I can live it out and sell it out, 669 00:44:11,106 --> 00:44:12,186 I'm gonna do it. 670 00:44:12,210 --> 00:44:15,210 Subtitles Diego Moraes(oakislandtk) www.opensubtitles.org 57225

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