Cocaine (Full Episode) | Trafficked with Mariana Van Zeller

all this wonderful Miami that you see all started out with Drug [Music] Money Town was

built on coke money every bit of it if you did cocaine in America in the80s it almost certainly

passed through Miami Miami is cocaine City the main cocaine Transit point between the American Mainland and the Bahamas millions of dollars worth were smuggled in by this man alone I got paid

500,000 a trip I wouldn't do it for any less rival gangs battled for their share of the drug profit making Miami the

murder capital of America and inspiring my favorite TV show as a kid this was my first glimpse into the cocaine underworld I was fascinated by the money

the violence the Larger than Life characters and of course Crockett's fashion

choices I had no idea that decades later the Miami smuggling scene would be hot again and that I'd be the one chasing the traffickers they're starting to

bring the old roots back with connections all through Central and South America this is a story about one of the most infamous and intractable

smuggling routes on the planet [Music] [Music] after 40 Years of the multi-billion

dollar US War on Drugs how is cocaine as cheap and plentiful as ever cops don't catch anybody man people tell let's go

let's go SP and who are the people putting their lives on the line to deliver Americans your preferred party drug I'm heading on a 3,000 M Journey

from green leaves to White Lines to find out [Music] police checkpoint

okay okay when your job is reporting on black markets a few checkpoints are to be expected but nothing stir the butterflies in the belly quite like the

last checkpoint the one before you step into ungoverned territory as we clear the checkpoints we enter a lawless region that produces

roughly 1/ fifth of the world's cocaine the [Music] Rin my guide to this world is my friend Ceviche who lives Liv in the rain for

many years trying out Coco leaves right there this a Coca locals here in the rame have been growing coca for thousands of years but

this isn't your typical farming community [Music] throughout the valley vigilante militias

like this are the de facto law of the land these Coco Farmers turned soldiers are trained to defend their [Music] communities and their

[Music] crop C leaves okay saying I should just chew it not swallow it it tastes like a

leaf here in Peru it's actually legal to grow and sell Coco leaves it only becomes illegal if you're processing those leaves into

cocaine originally the militias formed in response to The Shining path a ruthless communist group that Rose to power in the 1980s its members have waged a decades

long Civil War to overthrow the Peruvian government The Shining path controls key smuggling routes and has been known to attack communities to expand its

territory that's how the group makes its money extorting Growers makers and Smugglers for protection or safe Passage [Music]

the politics in the rame are complicated to fund their fight against The Shining path and to support their families these Farmers sell their Coco

Harvest and they never ask questions about the buyer's intended use but the truth is nearly 94% of coc leades in the vame go to drug

traffickers here the drug trade is controlled by small family Clans who operate independently and all of them are suspicious of

Outsiders when locals see a bunch of Gringos they think we're American law enforcement that's why I'm leaning on Ceviche to help me get access to the next step in the process

turns out that one of ca's former passengers is still active in the cocaine trade he's part of a family clan that buys cocoa leaves and processes them

into cocaine paste his contact agreed to meet but gave us very very little information we were told to take the one road out of town and wait for further

instructions so we're driving for an hour uh up the mountain and these dirt roads we're heading to meet the duo the owner of a drug operation who's given us

the green light to film his uh lab in the jungle all I know is that have been promised to see the place where cocaine

begins its 3,000 M Journey to the US but for now everyone is just nervous about getting there we've been told that every time a car approaches or we go through these towns that have lights that we

should hide our faces because they don't want to see you know any Gringos in this area because it would raise suspicions this area is quite

dangerous even though we've gotten permission to see this cocaine lab to get there we have to pass through land controlled by other clans and militias

who have no idea who we are or what we're up to so I'm a little startled when in the middle of a deserted Road the

pitar a man suddenly appears out of the darkness I'm trying to figure out who this guy is okay the chemist the key figure in the

whole operation was standing on a mountain Road in the pitch dark sometimes you can't make this stuff up so they're checking the area to make

sure that everything is safe okay shut off all lights and here it is the entry into the jungle [Music]

you're saying that the town close Spike if they see us it can create problems to all of us these labs are the economic engines for the local communities without them there would be little

demand for Coco Lees that's why villagers are so protective we basically a threat to their livelihood the chemist has made me promise that I won't reveal the

location I told him it's not a problem I can barely see my own feet can't see can't see can't

a wow this is it it's right here wow I'm not going to lie it's always a rush getting access to these clandestine

Worlds the cocaine pit the starting point for such a storied Black Market trade ranks up there but as the reporter High wears off

I realize that the whole process boils down to brute labor and simple [Music] chemistry the so they've been doing this

for 3 days and now this is the final step which they mix it with salt it takes 400 kilos almost 900 lb of coca leaves to make 1 kilo of

cocaine they are soaked in water acid and bleach which draws the drugs out of the leaves and now it's ready to be moved on to smaller containers to the lab

here in this makeshift lab they'll start the purification [Music] process researchers discovered how to extract cocaine from cocoa leaves over

150 years ago and Americans got their first taste of the drug in Coca-Cola back in the 19th century but before it was banned by the federal government in

1914 it's a really really intense smell is Gasolina see to purify cocaine in the middle of

the Peruvian jungle they figured out how to extract the drug using simple household chemicals and a whole lot of

gasoline in this lab each batch requires G ammonia bleach cement lime gasoline with each toxic additive the drug becomes more and more

concentrated so what they're doing is that they removing the top of it which is the fuel and the bottom is a clear sort of liquid and that's where the drugs remain you see it's pretty

dark and that's all the gasoline and the clear part now underneath yes okay so yeah that's the drugs right

there so they call that clear liquid they call it the [Music] soup he asked me if I wanted to try it said

check this out this is amazing it's crazy to think that only weeks from now this Jungle Soup will disappear up some Americans

nostrils now it's time for the final step a splash of ammonia to solidify the drugs okay they have to Speed it we have to

speed it up guys with so many livelihoods depending on this lab C's friend is taking a massive risk giving us a peak behind the curtain so when the

chemist disappears for a moment I begin to [Music] worry hey guys we have to go right now [Music]

let's go let's go guess we were spotted by somebody up on the road they said that we have to get into the car and get out of

here okay we have to go fast no no no are they all inside [Music]

thankfully we escape without incident but the Drug's long journey North is only just beginning it's a new day in the rain last night's coca paste has

hardened into bricks the next challenge get them out of the valley the easiest way would be by

plane but the Peruvian military now has permission to shoot down suspected drug flights driving the coke out would also work but the roads here are littered

with police checkpoints so that's given way to the preferred method of transport in a backpack the same guys who ran the lab

ask us to meet them outside of town at a trail head that leads up into the Andes copy that we're uh we're following the Convoy we're right behind the other

two cars okay okay okay we're here okay take my headl

out they're known as Moos the Spanish word word for Backpacker their backpacks are filled with bricks and powder they are the Sherpas of the cocaine

world I was surprised to learn that the chemist from last night is also a moo the elevation more than 6,000 ft and

I can feel it just started like 15 minutes ago and I'm already exhausted and I'm not carrying 10 kilos on my back regain

[Music] breath rifle [Music] rival Clans corrupt cops thieves of all

kinds it's the wild west out on the trails I ask what would happen if they get attacked [Music]

for [Music] NE I'm following the cocaine highway from the mountains of Peru to the nightclubs of Miami

it's 4:00 a.m. and I'm embedded with a group of young men risking their lives to hike 30 kilos out of the frin valley so this is the main stuff they take a

can of tuna Saltines they have a plastic that they use to cover themselves in case it rains and then alcohol which they say helps with altitude sickness

because they're going high up the mountain so this here is worth $900 each a kilo in the us once it's processed it's worth

$25,000 that means these guys are carrying about $750,000 worth of raw cocaine [Music]

Peruvian cocaine paste some of the most sought after in the world the same bricks that Escobar would fly into Colombia to process and to

powder gracias it looks so unassuming it's hard to imagine the trail of violence left in its

wake fore spee [Music]

foree fore [Music] spee spee fore foreign fore

okay there go getting anxious about leaving watching these young men pack I'm feeling conflicted I know what they're doing is illegal and that the drug they're carrying has caused

millions of families around the world to suffer but after spending two days with them I can't help but be concerned for their safety they're just

kids only a few years older than my own son it seems so unfair that the lack of options in the frame means they have to risk their lives just so Americans can

get their cheap high so they said they're gonna walk for 12 more hours and then uh and then rest and then continue for a day and a half more

okay we make plans to meet up at the end of their Journey but I'm worried Anything could happen on the trail [Music]

as the mochileros rise out of the valley the price of cocaine Rises as well theirs is just the first leg of a

global distribution network if the mochilero survive the hike it will sell to a new owner will smuggle the drugs by car into Lima and

then head north each time the drugs change hands the price jumps Smugglers must account for the real cost of transport and the

risk plus each will take their share of the profits eventually the cocaine passes through Ecuador to Colombia my

next [Music]

stop at first glance turbo looks like any other Caribbean fishing town but just beneath the surface is another [Music]

reality people say the life in Tu is partying it's having sex you drink hard you party hard and you know soon you might be a dead man out on the street because nearly

everyone here earns are living in a dangerous World well C is mainly the populated by fishermen but still cocaine business is the the main

business Oliver schmig is a German photojournalist who spent decades in Colombia documenting the drug trade Mar what we have to understand is

like mostly drugs going from Colombia to the us they are passing through T if you want to run sming routs through

the O it's like the perfect place it's very easy to recruit people who are able to drive a Caro bols what are the chances we could see one of these boats or even bright in one

of them I'm down here 21 years I got really access to drug cartels and it's just a matter of how much they might trust in

US Oliver works his contacts and directs me to a dock on the edge of town which I'm not allowed to show on camera but just as he promised I'm met by two

cocaine smugglers in a boat [Music] today the boats are empty of cargo the Smugglers agreed to talk talk about their work but they won't let me near

the product the multi-million dollar payloads they move are too valuable to risk showing them off to foreign journalists [Music] [Music]

Smugglers use these lowtech fiberglass boats to outmaneuver the Colombian military and its Ally the US Coast Guard

radar waves which easily detect metals can only get an extremely weak signal off fiberglass making boats like this practically invisible foree

okay there's a boat over there so okay it's a fisherman but they they were saying before that if anything uh if any boat approaches that they have immediately take off their mask and we

put the cameras down and we just say we're doing a show about tourism okay they're not feeling very comfortable okay they're going to take off their

masks I'm in a boat off the co of Columbia with two very nervous cocaine Smugglers they were spooked by some passing fishermen so they're taking me

into deeper waters where they say it's safer to speak so he was saying that all these fishermen everyone here basically works for the clan so if they see him

talking to us they'll go inform and that can be dangerous for them [Music] [Music] the clan Del goo is Colombia's largest

and most powerful drug cartel made up of mostly hardened paramilitary Fighters and wanted war criminals how violent exactly is the clan Del Goa well I mean you have to be quite careful obviously

you're dealing with criminals at the end of the day so like one and a half year ago they just shut down the whole village so they're quite powerful like a

kind of super cartel it might be even more powerful than groups in Mexico for example I know that getting access to cartel leadership is a bigger ask for

days it didn't look like it was going to happen and then out of nowhere we got the green light we just made the first right

guys we're all together let's go in the car ahead of us is one of the candel gul's top commanders in this region we've no idea where we're going

but we're following the commander so there are a couple of uh that is see soldiers right up

here and there's a cop up there too okay what okay but with the military everywhere we're all a bit on edge let's let's try to get in very quickly

here this is it it's a little ranch house okay one two can you hear me 1 2 3 4 5 okay we're good even though the commander and his

bodyguard trust Oliver this is the first time we've met and they're skeptical I show him some photos of my past work and hope that will convince him that I'm not law

enforcement okay they eventually agree to the interview okay in the traditional business world he

might be considered a VP of operations he's helping to manage a complicated Global criminal Network out of a farmhouse in the Colombian

Countryside that's a weekly shipment of cocaine worth $25 million on the streets of Miami the candel gulus top Commander otoniel

is Colombia's Public Enemy Number One with a $5 million bounty on his head he's notorious for assassinating government officials and ordering the detonation of a grenade in the middle of

a nightclub he demands complete loyalty from his Soldier [Applause]

[Music] [Music] as we talk I begin to realize that even when you're near the top of the cartel

food chain safety is no guarantee [Music] [Music] fore

foreign fore [Music] fore [Music]

[Music] for foreign foreign foreign spee I get

for in the last few years cocaine trafficking in Colombia has reached record levels from what these men tell me this rise has been anything but

glamorous yet the country is the distribution center for the global cocaine trade from here roughly half the supply

is shipped to Europe Africa Asia and Australia the other half will end up in the United States that's if Smugglers can evade these

guys we just spotted a Northbound vessel heading from the south in a known drug trafficking area usually with a vessel that has size

over 40 ft has cabins spaces that you could actually eye large amount of Narcotics we're going to board a vessel that is suspected of narcotic smuggling

you're going to encounter a master he may or may not be armed watch out for each other your job gain compliance however means necessary in The Last 5 Years the US

Coast Guard has seized a ACC amounts of cocaine at Sea we're here today to offload 14,200 lb 11 tons 20 metric tons of pure

uncut cocaine worth over $190 [Music] million the drug traffic organizations are creative and they're always looking for ways to elude detection that could be a go fast vessel that could be a low

profile vessel that could be a semi submersible that could be a fully submersible that could be legitimate commercial traffic you get the vessel dber Bell we're going to scramble the

boarding team together get them on the small boat and go over and investigate see what's going on just not enough to figure out what's actually physically going on until you put boots on

Deck the most dangerous part of an officer's job when they board what they suspect is a drug running boat shows that there are packages on De

almost smugglers in this situation have a difficult Choice abandon their cargo and face the cartel's

wrath or try to outrun the red white and blue us goost let me see your hand uh without reaching for touching you got any weapons on board all right we're

going to come on board and uh do a inspection of Your Vessel make sure you guys are in compliance with all federal rules and regulations for a vessel of this size 141 mi from Miami the Coast

Guard has intercepted a suspected smuggling boat boing is the more traditional drug smuggling routes in the Caribbean are having an

uptick in activity you have non-stop boat traffic and some of them could be legitimately fishing but also have the drugs hidden on board cocaine accounts

for 94% of all narcotics seized at Sea after the boarding we discovered that the vessel was Charter For Hire just in a suspicious area everybody on board was compliant and it's you know the best

outcome you could have in a situation uh when you're talking about safety no drugs are found the Coast Guard moves on catching drug Runners on the high seas

is an elusive game with cat and mouse we're operating in an area larger than the continental United States now imagine you have three or four police cars patrolling the continental United States that's essentially what the Coast

Guard with our ships is doing it the bus out here it's it's just pivotal before those drugs make it uh towards the US and can be dispersed

throughout the different states with such a large area to patrol it's impossible to catch them all and all the efforts every day during the mission we only get 10% of known drugs that are

being moved towards the United States the remaining 90% of cocaine slips past undetected heading to Miami under the cover of

Darkness 40 years after cocaine built this Skyline the drug money is still pouring in this convertible is a tribute to my childhood

crashes Crockett and tubs as I cruise towards South Beach to meet a coke dealer I'm actually thinking back to the final episode of Miami Vice when they

decide to turn in their badges because they realize that the War on Drugs is unwinable after 3,000 M on the cocaine Highway I'd be lying if I said I didn't

wonder the same do you have some of the stuff you with I have a little something here you have something in your pocket yeah I brought a couple bags with me just looks like regular powder it's

just a couple bags keep it there you know it looks like a Cigar Case yeah for sure that's what I keep it in you know it's a little more

inconspicuous the way I make most of my money is like $20 bags mhm I come to South Beach and I sell a $20 bag for $40 mhm

and just multiply that's all on a good day I'll get 2 O for about 2,000 bucks and if you sell it all how much money can you make about 5,000 almost 6 how

long does it take you to sell that um that'll be gone in 3 days so you can make $3,000 in 3 days essentially $1,000 a day yeah about that is it pure cocaine

that you sell I mean I mean it's all right yeah it'll keep people up for days at a time for sure South Beach loves it and the clubs everybody you know South Beach is

cocaine and this year in this generation that's what everybody wants everybody loves the party they come to Miami they want to party in the party

city that's what it's all about it's just after midnight and the dealer agrees to let me watch him work but only if I play by his rules so we

can't have our cameras out there and the only way he he agreed for us to film this was just we'd stay in the car and we'd film it from here how do you go about

selling I mean you just got to be lowkey you got to be ahead of your game you know cuz people try to set you up it's different stuff yeah you got to be prepared for sure sometimes when I deal with more

weight even know I have to bring a pistol with me stuff like that because people try to rob you what kind do you have a 357 magnet with a 6in

barrel it's one of my favorites have you used it I wouldn't want to comment on that okay he just got a phone

call and he's walking somewhere oh then he just went in there somewhere I do mostly everything right now just do text messages stuff I have like a burner phone like a untraceable

phone okay he's walking this way so I'm just going to check on him see what that was it bought a half Grand 40

bucks right there inside the pizza place bathroom yeah you just went into the bathroom gave her and she gave you the money and that was it it she could have bought to but you know on South Beach it goes for double so right got to make

that profit how many people do you sell to in a week more or less you think in a week I say at least 75 people maybe wow

that's a lot probably sells itself aren't you afraid of getting caught I mean now I am because yeah I have a family and stuff like that but

still got to feed them you know what I'm saying got to take care of the family enemies necessary that's all it's a small sacrifice right I keep a little bail money to the

side I'll be all right I'm ready for whatever happens very few people know the journey a kilo of cocaine makes to get to the United States or the hands that it

touches along the way but the path it follows from beginning to end is shaped by simple economics that's as clear on the streets

of Miami as it is on the boats of Colombia or the trails of Peru Pakistan they're here back in the frame the chemist and the wouldbe

dentist have just made their drw another 30 kilos are headed north [Music] for spe

spee speech for [Music]