To Catch a Smuggler

Hello, good day.

How are you?

Good day.

Where are you working?

I’m an Uber.

Uber? Oh, okay. Do you use this car for work?

Yes.

No fruit, tobacco, alcohol? Any of that?

Thank you, sir, have a good one.

Gracias.

- (tires screeching) - (car crashes)

- (car alarm sounding) What up?

There’s an accident in lane 25.

What happened?

What happened?

Loaded vehicle.

Loaded vehicle.

It's loaded or what? Yeah.

We got a positive on Pre-Primary.

Positive on Pre-Primary.

OFFICER (off screen): Right there.

OFFICER 1 (off screen): It's that red one.

OFFICER 2 (off screen): So, every day here at the bridge, uh,

we do see, uh, fender benders, we do see cars bumping into each other,

but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a car hit another car

and when we get there, the bundles are right there.

He got nervous, probably,

or just wasn’t paying attention.

Who knows, who knows what happened.

- That’s how it happens sometimes. - OFFICER GARCIA (off screen): Sometimes

it’s just dumb luck, it’s just dumb luck.

OFFICER ARAGON (off screen): So, there it is, there’s our

K9 positive alert,

so that’s another confirmation.

We haven’t actually tested the substance yet,

but from our experience and from what we’ve seen here

at the Ysleta border entry...

I would say it’s probably methamphetamine.

OFFICER (off screen): Get this car in secondary and make sure they’re okay.

If they need E.M.S., we’ll call E.M.S.

The driver, he’s already inside in a secure location,

so right now, we’re having an officer go ahead and drive it in.

We’re gonna get more confirmation, there’s probably more bundles.

Uh, who knows if there’s gonna be more bundles.

Right now, we’re gonna run it through our machine,

we’re gonna do a full inspection on it.

If there’s more bundles, we’re gonna find 'em.

Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the U.S.

It’s all considered United States territory.

You go east, you start going into the United States Virgin Islands,

British Virgin Islands, and so forth.

Be advised. We’re gonna be doin' some training out here in the bay.

There’s a lotta transit between the islands,

so there’s a lot of vessels moving across international borders.

Comin' up. Comin' up.

They can come in from foreign islands,

easily blend in with local traffic

and it’s hard to make who came from where,

so... our presence out here, it’s-- is vital.

AGENT (off screen): U.S. Customs.

How are you guys doin' today?

Doing good.

AGENT (off screen): Where you comin' from?

St. Croix.

X-ray twenty-one hundred, copy.

AGENT (off screen): Go for X-ray twenty-one hundred.

Can you please run this, guys?

Let’s just stop the vessel.

How long were you guys in St. Croix for?

We were there, I got there at, like, eight.

Hung out there on the beach for the day

and got some lunch. And we’re coming back now.

We’re just gonna take a couple of minutes to look around.

We have a lot of scouting activities here,

so just by talkin' to somebody you could really... have a good idea

if they’re legit, if they’re fishing, if they’re just havin' a good time,

or they’re here, uh, scouting, doin' counter-intel on law enforcement.

Registration for the vessel is valid.

I’m done back here.

- AGENT 1 (off screen): That’s it? - AGENT 2 (off screen): Yup.

AGENT 3 (off screen): Crossing.

AGENT 4 (off screen): All right. Thanks, guys.

All this area is a high corridor for maritime smuggling.

Again, it could happen daytime or nighttime.

If we’re not there, they’re gonna try to bring it in.

How you doin', boss? Passport?

You’re traveling alone?

No, not really. I was with my mom.

She had to go back to New York.

Where is home for you?

TRAVELER (off screen): Home for me is Miami.

Miami? Okay.

- Have a good day. Thanks.

Hey, how y’all doin'? Do you have your passport on you?

What’s the purpose of your trip today?

We are just traveling to go to the beaches.

To the beaches? Have a good one. Welcome.

Thank you.

Miami’s a transit port from South American countries,

from the Caribbean.

A lot of travelers come into Miami to party,

to go to the beach, South Beach, Ocean Drive, spend some money.

Hey, how you doin', ma’am? What was the purpose of the trip?

My friends and I went to a concert.

The friends are with you now, or no?

No, they took the first flight.

All right, party on. Have a good one.

We’re seeing a lotta passengers coming through,

and a lotta those guys are business guys comin' in to party here in Miami.

What was the purpose of the trip, sir?

Business. - OFFICER CONNER (off screen): What do you

- do for business? - TRAVELER (off screen): Personal trainer.

Personal trainer? All right, you training--

That’s my client right there with the yellow.

- Celebrity. - OFFICER CONNER (off screen): Oh.

- What does he do? - TRAVELER (off screen): He’s an artist.

- Music. - OFFICER CONNER (off screen): A music

- artist? He’s big time.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s big time?

- All right. - TRAVELER (off screen): All right, boss.

Hey, welcome back. Thank you.

Occasionally, we do run into the traveler bringing contraband

from, you know, the Caribbean countries, South America, and we look for that.

OFFICER CONNER (off screen): Sir, how you doin'?

We’re gonna take a look inside the bags, okay?

Come over this way, please.

You were in Mexico for what? Why?

Because I am in the crypto industry, okay?

So, one person invest in me.

I meet him in Colombia.

He’s a business coach, but he’s a Mexican guy.

He bought me the ticket. I do business with him.

OFFICER CONNER (off screen): Any drug usage?

I’ll be honest with you, I just use marijuana.

I ask for LSD.

OFFICER CONNER (off screen): So, when you asked for LSD, what happened?

I ask to the drug dealer,

“Do you receive crypto?” He told me no.

What we’re startin' to see is individuals are trying to purchase,

uh, narcotics with crypto currency.

It’s a new phenomenon, but, um, it’s somethin' that we need to deal with.

OFFICER (off screen): So, what drugs did you buy?

You bought marijuana from him?

Just only marijuana, yes.

In the past, when you’ve used LSD, how did you take it?

How did I take it?

OFFICER CONNER (off screen): Yeah, how do you take it? Tell me the process.

I take it, it’s in a paper.

A big paper? Small paper?

No, no, it’s a quarter.

Oh, (indistinct).

And mix it with alcohol and drink, and that’s it.

- Yeah. Small little paper?

Do you know t-that’s how they sell 'em now?

The small little papers?

I guess so.

OFFICER CONNER (off screen): More or less?

I guess.

So, obviously, now w-we’re looking for small little papers.

Okay? And you have a lot of papers.

I just want you to understand...

we’re lookin' for LSD.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. - OFFICER CONNER (off screen): Yeah? Okay?

We’re gonna go to another room, do another inspection, so follow us, okay?

You good? Yeah.

Persons who are bringin' in narcotics for recreational usage

can either receive a fine up into, uh, uh, imprisonment

if they are bringin' in narcotics into the United States.

All right, sir, we’ll have you put your bag right here for me, please.

Take off the jacket, the hat.

Take everything outta your pockets.

We’re gonna see if we see any more anomalies

on our Z-portal machine, uh, and then I’m following the vehicle

just to make sure that none of those bundles fall off

‘cause at any moment that looks like they could fall off.

We ran it through our Z-portal machine,

they were able to tell us that we had more anomalies.

Okay, so right now, I’m opening up the hood.

Just-- We’re gonna start to--

It looks like it’s stuck already ‘cause of the crash,

so I’m gonna see if I can get the hood open.

Okay.

- It looks like we got some more. - OFFICER (off screen): Right there.

All there. And then it’s gonna be both fenders and then the spare tire.

OFFICER ARAGON (off screen): The spare tire looks like it’s got

anomalies as well,

so we’ll go ahead and, uh, dismantle that later.

This is definitely something for the books.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a vehicle crash on the Pre-Primary lane

and then as soon as they crash, we see the bundles coming out.

I mean, we-we-we’ve seen some crazy stuff here at the bridge,

but what we just saw right now is-is-is-is pretty amazing.

OFFICER (off screen): If you open this up and you see this,

you’re not gonna be able to see the bundle--

‘Cause this isn’t normal. so it's just blocking it. No.

This right here isn’t normal.

Who knows where this came from.

But what they do is that they put this here to cover the bundles,

so we can’t see them, we can’t get to them.

And this is a s-specifc area that they told us... and there it is.