Guac, Coke, and Human Smuggling is a thrilling full episode from the National Geographic series To Catch a Smuggler. The episode takes viewers on a high-stakes journey as CBP agents uncover a shocking 142 kilos of cocaine hidden in a shipment of avocados in Florida. Meanwhile, HSI and Border Patrol work to pursue human smuggling leads in Texas. The intense and gripping episode showcases the real-life challenges and dangers faced by law enforcement officers as they fight to stop drug trafficking and human smuggling. From screening cargo to intercepting suspicious individuals, viewers will get an inside look at the tireless efforts of these agents to keep dangerous substances and criminals out of the country. The episode is part of the National Geographic series, known for its riveting storytelling and immersive exploration of the world’s most pressing issues. Viewers can subscribe to National Geographic to access more full episodes and specials, allowing them to experience the world of science, exploration, and adventure from the comfort of their own homes. Get ready to be on the edge of your seat with Guac, Coke, and Human Smuggling.
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What do you think you see something today we identified containers that were coming from the Dominican Republic these were manifested as avocados all right and so then you picked it up from what you are when we brought them through the X-ray we were able to identify that they weren’t full
Containers we identified an area that looked like it was freshly pop there yeah we got to drill those ones I think still all right let’s do it let me let me hit it be [Applause] careful nice that should be good there you go to hit it with the crar right
There we go there we Go I see I see Brick you see it you see it it’s loaded dude load it yeah look at it all bro look at it all make sure you have gloves on make sure you have masks on done eight n these Commodities we don’t know what they are and they can be
Deadly it could be fentanyl a small gram of fentanyl could kill you so that’s why we use safety precautions masks and gloves to protect our guys the job gets tedious sometimes you know know you get down you get dirty you crawl through ships and you keep looking
And looking and you know after a while it starts to think why am I doing this there’s more and then when you finally hit it you get the load it’s like it’s all worth it now you know what we do now is we put it into one of
Our test kits to verify what kind of substance it is whether it’s an illegal substance Like Cocaine bentin positive for cocaine 140 so faru we got another container we just pulled in another container that might be loaded as well cuz they’re linked together the search never stops and neither do the traffickers
Go you want to open your trunk for me and turn your vehicle off as you can see we have various types of vehicles various types of Travelers everybody’s trying to get to the United States I get the by my experience under the eight years working here with uh with CVP we
See a lot of alien smogling boy Some of these undocumented for Nationals start looking to better their lives we totally understand that the problem is these human smuggling organizations are transnational criminal organizations that are exploiting these individuals it’s a money-making machine for them they’re putting lives at Jeopardy anybody need water the criminal realizations have no care for human life
Human and safety can you stand up come on you’re okay snn it is important for us to stop this because we’re going to continue to see lives lost we’re literally right on the Mexican border the ability for these undocumented foreign Nationals to circumvent the fence line and get across
And then get into the community is really quick there’s St houses here where they’re holding big groups and then they start moving toan to Albuquerque if they going all the way to the North like New York Detroit they may pay $15,000 for one person he five
Semi we have a semi Tru that’s coming down the wrong way down the bridge and we have to have K9 go sweep it in order for it to make entry from the United States we just have to do a secondary inspection on it there could be anything from Contraband narcotics to people
Human trafficking they opened up a truck just like that not too long ago and that’s where all those dead bodies were can we open the doors there’s a lot of space in there to hide a lot of things and could be false sides they could have loaded up the
Baseboard there’s many places to hide stuff there initial Hands-On inspection nothing really pokes out at us at the moment but we always run K9 on it just in case negative inspection this truck here more than likely is um legitimate travel but unfortunately people have suffocated in the back of
Trucks like that so it’s very very important that we check those trucks thoroughly for Contraband and for safety of People hello guys where are you guys coming from today from Columbia where were you today did you do a little shopping out there just come with me real quick there’s no quick reference guide to the way people conceal items I look for passenger Behavior dur interactions with other passengers are
They on the phone a lot are they texting all of those things that passengers do most of them have a meaning after you do this enough you can actually tell where’s your passport sir how are you today fine where you coming from G just come with
Me the reason I stopped him is because when he opened his passport he had $100 bills just falling out what’s your reason for travel today sir I’m going for a qura program okay where is the uh the money that was in your passport the money show it to
Me why would you keep money in your passport take it Out all right make sure you have all your money all right put your money away put your bag up here how long is your program for sir June to September and it’s called green heart exchange green heart exchange what what kind of work housekeeper where do you know where
You’re going at Tennessee you’re going to Tennessee yes how are you getting there from here I’ll book the flight show me let me see who is the person that just snapchated you my cousin is that person here yes where don’t answer that who is that anyway same person don’t no answer is he
Meeting you here he’s taking me to the Delta of his so I can travel to Tennesse I don’t understand that Delta Airlines is in this terminal why so he’s going to show him his his his he for me before I open this bag I want to ask you another question are you bringing
Anything into the United States with you for anyone else no please you didn’t bring anything for him look everything is mine This Guy’s in an awful rush to talk to you the way I think is hey I’ll buy you the ticket bring this into the United
States for me or or do this for me I don’t know but that’s just the way I look at things yo flight is in 40 minutes and yet you’re going to have time to go see this person no he’s he’s he’s taking me there but you’re here that doesn’t make any
Sense and this guy doesn’t stop got the knife it the we were looking at different containers coming from incoming countries that were of high risk get the other pin we got to get the other pin the people that smuggle the drugs they put so much effort into concealing
It they welded and riveted a new piece of metal in front it looked all normal back in the day they used to just put pallets of it on there but not no more man this really concealed deep now 101 two three up top got The there’s more 140 and the other container 127 it’s been several years since we found a load this large in one day this is a cold hit we never know what shipment we’re getting guys work really hard day in and day out this a big payoff for us we’re very excited another 45
Pieces and then we just got to wait each We’re contacting HSI they’re going to take the investigation further and search for where these drugs were intending to go to in the first place so we got about 142 keys total about 73 72 between each they’re getting it all set up and loaded once we sign it off to you
Guys so on you whatever you guys need us to do from there on okay that’s good brother as I was expecting him his phone started to ring off the hook it must have rang six times and the fact that it just kept ringing off the hook didn’t make any sense to
Me why they so much that’s the thing though I don’t get it I don’t get it either who’s calling who’s that who is that c cousin he would you for me and he didn’t ask you to bring anything into the United States for him at all are you carrying
Anything on your body for anyone else this this bothers me because how do we know that they didn’t force this guy into come in here and he might not be going anywhere right he looks I don’t want to use the word vulnerable but it you know looks like he doesn’t know any
Better nothing nothing who’s that this my M okay so I think he he called it and then he’s telling her that I’m not picking his C so call me in okay after a little while the caller that appeared on the phone was his mom so that brought things a
Little more clarity maybe because he wasn’t picking up that guy’s calls the guy might have worried and called his mom and said look your son’s not answering the phone why don’t you try and that sort of brought the inspection down all right here you’re all set once I was satisfied
That there was nothing wrong there I just handed him back his passport and I let him go be careful out there all right all right I don’t know this what it is yeah do what you got to do yeah so the primary focus with CDP officer is the here at the Port
Adventure but however we do have Travelers that try to come in where it’s not the aort of Entry where we as CDP officers cannot be our job here is limited but along the border you have water Patrol that is protecting the Border itself border patrol our counterparts will actually monitor the land in
Between a Port of Entry that land in between a Port of Entry is usually used to circumvent entering the country legally and Amo also assists by monitoring via helicopter or any other method that they’re able to use go ahead start securing doors come off coms the passware branch covers a
Approximately 823 Mi of linear border CG FL F somewh good slide left it looks clear on the ground on a day-to-day basic operation for us we will go out we’ll support Port Patrol from the air the pilot and the enforcement agent that’s sitting in the opposite seat from him if they come
Across the group of migrants they have the capability of reaching out via radio to the ground components of border patrol and help them make whatever arrests need to be made in those situations that’ss good make your box out by 68 good start on the inside unfortunately these migrants uh
They come with a big dream they’re not told or they are misled as to the dangers they’re going to be facing and a lot of these cartels are a lot of these human trafficking organizations don’t really care about the people that they’re pushing across the border it’s a business and they’re only
Getting better and better at the business so they’re finding new ways to always throw us for a loop or throw someone else for a loop [Applause] there’s some uh people right here prob waiting there’s like at Le three or four there’s another two on our left hand side a little further down they
Already are in the United States they’re already in coms with the ground yeah this sounds like a job for horse control the bush at the one in the great Shir is walking towards there’s another five and there 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 and then the other Bush to the right
There’s about four in there Patrol coming in he’s running from the agent he just caugh that uh signle organizations well sometimes they’ll send five or six groups and other times it’ll be maybe just one or two at a time and space it out so they’re they’re pretty good about not
Being consistent just when you think you have like it figured out they’ll throw a curveball right now they’ll all be searched and then they’ll be put into that transport van they’ll be taken to the station uh once everything the situation becomes calm uh just making sure everybody’s good they’re in good
Health they’ll do a interview and get into the direction that they can traveling and uh on the smuggling organization as Well HSI comes in and what they usually do with us is that we trade off some of the cocaine so that they can try to track it to the original source of where it was intending to go all right guys thanks for coming out today our CBP Partners
Got approximately 150 kilos this is is associated to a large scale drug trafficking organization so we’re going to attempt to control delivery down in the Miami area these guys could be armed so once we make entry into the location get everybody safe and secured on the ground do your searches hopefully we can
Get some arrest today let’s go do this this operation it could take anywhere between 2 hours it could take 2 or 3 days we’re not on our schedule we’re on the B guy schedule we have uh multiple units on the ground and we’re going to deliver the container heading westbound should be
Jumping on 595 the location of where we drop off the container individuals that are there will maybe try to attempt to extract the uh narcotics we also have to focus on who we’re dealing with violent drug trafficking organizations so yeah for sure we always have to be on high alert
And just move forward and you know try to Cy did make the left hand turn yeah I’m going to go ahead and set up down the street at our location all the way to the fling we we arrived at the Final Destination we are currently awaiting
Any activity as far as if somebody comes and accepts the container from the person delivering it so uh we’re in a waiting game we got a long night ahead of us it’s not uncommon for the individuals to wait when there’s nobody around anymore all the businesses have closed
And they wait for you know Darkness to fall so they can start you know taking stuff out when nobody’s really around rockes there we go don’t get close to them they’re going to be looking for I’m here but I’m like two blocks away one walk with the DU B to the
Front right there definitely if you got a Target Crouch down as hands and knees bleach here somebody outside you’re walking towards that vehicle all right look like they’re leaving for Let It Go the doors were closed I’m thinking that they were kind of just like sizing
It up and see if anybody showed up but they definitely didn’t even attempt to open that yeah all right there you guys P out okay Brother so the two Targets that were at the location um departed um in a in a vehicle that came to pick him up uh some units followed him right the uh Target container still at the location and we would maintain eyes on the container um all through the night into the morning passport
Flee how long we outside the United States 7even days what was your reason for travel birthday you have a nice day all right thank you how you doing sir can I see a passport please where you coming from today ready all just come real quick I’m
Just going to take a quick look in your bags just place your bags up here for me what was the purpose of your trip to my how long were you there like month a month are these gifts this the gift for Okay definitely feels like Christmas morning when you got to unwrap everything but I don’t see my name on any of these gifts so I guess it must have been a bad boy this year Ginger oh Ginger if it’s not dried then it might not be allowed thank
You the ginger is usually okay but he’s got to be clean something like this you know it’s contaminated the store with those these are okay these are okay This it’s a portrait of the passenger I was inspecting it just really heavy give me one second right taking a look at the picture just based on recent Trends folks have been using picture frames as a concealment method and so when I saw it and I felt the weight my suspicion
Level went from here to there and I had to take a closer look to see what check the line and I try to be delicate while still you know being able to do my job and inspect the portrait to see what’s inside of there this is dry P satisfied with
That the material used to create the portrait was what caused it to be so heavy have a good day thank you water Pion received information on un possible human smuggling Stash House we regularly get about two to three leads the week we’re about to go see if this information we got is any
Good so a lot of our our traffic will initiate in Al Paso and uh they’re success with their smuggled attemp a pickup driver will usually pick them up here and take them to a stash house sometimes people will run into a stash house and find four smuggled humans sometimes you
Find 20 sometimes you find 60 we’ll find Firearms we’ll find narcotics times they’re Gang Related that’s where some of the violence can come in they could have uh weapons holding them against their will asking for higher smuggling fees from the family and just holding them there sometimes the caretakers can go even
Further and sexually assault them physically assault them so it’s important to uh go to all these houses not just because there’s a crime being committed but also because there’s possibly crimes being committed against the smuggled Humans one thing I don’t like about about doing knocking talks sometimes you go knock and you hear people moving around the house hopefully they’re just trying to hide and avoid you but they could be setting you up for an ambush ready to retaliate against you the more time they go without
Answering the more nerve-wrecking it gets police Polie can you step out for us here bro you have any weapons on you n there anyone else in here report that there’s like he let us in yeah the dude’s high as since we’re suspecting he’s under the influence of some kind of narcotic we decided to
Search the the house for any Contraband Firearms trucks anything indicative of human smuggling ledgers money type of food that they feed them anything we didn’t find any smuggled humans in the house but from what we know in the investigation and what what we see in there is he allegedly smuggled
Humans in the past he has self admitted to being gang affiliated and they running some checks doing a little more investigating see what’s going to happen with him while we were here we received information on another possible human smuggling Stash House so we’re going to
Head on from here to there and see if we find anything there [Applause] every officer’s assigned a personal radiation device this will let us know if anything within our vicinity has radiation so as I was making my rounds with the device where the signal was stronger as I got to the passenger
Gr hello ma’ You know radiation it could be dangerous it could be used as weapons so we have to make sure that it’s it’s not a an instrument of Terror that somebody’s trying to bring in to do harm into this country how long were you in the Dominican Republic okay
Nothing yes she had thyroid um she had thyroid surgery what I’ve encountered at the airport when a passenger is being treated with radiation is sometimes they they put this D in the person so they when they do a CT scan the image can read a little better so if the person
Has has ingested that die it’ll it’ll trigger this and she supplied the proper medical paperwork and it shows the actual chemical she was treated with oh I 131 okay I 131 okay yeah okay so she’s free to go got You B you got a pretty good eye of there right I got we’re back again for day two the overnight surveillance teams we’re still sitting on the container multiple people have come and gone every once in a while they’ll enter the container go to where the narcotics
Are concealed and look around come back out walk around once they make end entry or access the compartment where the narcotics are we will make entry but as of right now we’re just uh in a holding Pattern Su pulling in now headed southbound through the lot on the north entrance one of the targets uh came back and has been inspecting the interior of the container one of the ground units saw him with a drill so there’s a chance that um now that it’s daylight they could be taking
The opportunity to access the container um hidden compartment just away color looks like they ACC just the TR hold one or two breaks out get their hand in there okay all right guys heads up heads up bleach haired guy is standing on the sidewalk looking at the B Now all units move in grab that [Applause] Guy where’s the location which is the location hey cover let’s go everything’s closed up there’s nobody in there once we apprehended the subject we cleared the area to make sure U there wasn’t any threats for law enforcement so we uh cleared the container of course uh we also cleared the building that the
Individual was so make sure there wasn’t any suspects in there and of course the surrounding parking lot we got him in custody he’s uh probably on the lower end tier of uh the drug trafficking organization so we try to work our way up to the next individuals that are here in South
Florida and then from that point then we work our way to uh Caribbean or South Central America clear Out We’re going to a house in s Park New Mexico we’re going to be looking for smuggled humans inside this house house and uh if we do find them we’re going to look to question probably somebody who lives there and see if they’re the caretaker or involved in any way and uh
Try to get as much information from the investigation to hopefully do an arrest based on probable cause You got one all right we’re on our way over there someone popped their head out of the trailer this one or the silver one I think it’s the silver one out there yeah they said that they saw one run in as soon as they saw Us let’s go let’s go good boy so right now those bags over here are from the Dominican Republic and uh we’re just waiting for the passengers to come and claim them because in the last couple of months it’s been a very successful flight to search ke Mexico okay thank You me see your passport just follow Them okay and unama okay the GU is coming from the Dominican Republic which was a flight that we were targeting for narcotic smuggling and when I went through his luggage I found pills that were removed from their packaging and placed into some other kind of wrapping stuck in
Sneakers uh which made it appear like he was trying to be deceptive and having them hidden from us he says there’re 1500 viagra pills the guy has enough of them he gets arrested okay bang it’s the generic brand of Viagra which is very expensive in this country and where he’s coming
From it’s not that expensive here you need a prescription over there you don’t don’t I guess we’re going to go to the pat down room make sure he’s not hiding anything and wait for Instructions who’s a pill store And he’s supposed to sell them to who for how much how much did he buy them for he says they’re 1500 yeah most likely they’re going to get seized okay here’s 300 it’s the generic brand of Viagra and we counted 2019 pills and they’re sold on the street for10 to $20 a pill
This product was made in another country and we don’t know what kind of quality control they have can potentially be harmful these are prohibited thank prosecution was declined and he’s going to be sent back to the immigration side because he’s a tourist he’s going to be sent back to his country and his
Visa is going to be cancelled because he said that he’s going to sell them for $1,000 which is a violation on the terms of his Visa unauthorized employment and he’s going to be put on a plane eventually after they take a statement and do an expedited Removal what happened so there’s a group in there he said the driver that dropped her off 10 days ago in there okay I don’t know if there’s anybody else There We need to get in they’ve talked to two smuggled humans already and they said there’s probably more inside the driver that dropped off the female that was out here earlier is is still here so now they’ll knock and hopefully get consent gun where are the other people inside this house and need can
Call them out stay there yell at him get them we continued the investigation got consent to go in and we found a total of 16 smuggled humans inside of those 16 I believe eight were from Mexico and it were from Guatemala we found almost we found like half the
Group inside the the main Walling right here and they were just scattered throughout in different rooms hidden behind televisions hid in closets and then the other ones were inside this aluminum trailer right here the conditions as you can see are not anything that most of us are used to
Living in that Trader doesn’t have any air conditioning that’s where they’re staying considering the temperatures how hot it’s been getting these past couple weeks I think today we’re reaching temperatures above 100 one of them could have a heat stroke and who knows where it goes from there you know they might
Not think it right now but I think uh you know we did help them out today
Video “Guac, Coke, and Human Smuggling (Full Episode) | To Catch a Smuggler” was uploaded on 01/27/2024. Watch all the latest Videos by National Geographic on Gretopia