To Catch a Smuggler (2020) s01e02 Episode Script

1
LEON: There's somebody that we're
interested in coming from Nigeria.
I believe he's traveling alone.
They already came off the flight, so we're
gonna get him by passenger processing.
FINN: We've arrested a lot of people in
the past coming from Nigeria with heroin.
The drugs will come from Afghanistan,
they'll end up in Nigeria,
and then they'll break it down
and ship it to different
parts of the world,
New York primarily being one of them.
LEON: A needle in a haystack.
FINN: Look!
LEON: That's him.
(SPEAKING)
FINN: Keep him in sight.
(INDISTINCT ANNOUNCEMENT ON PA)
LEON: The passenger
that we're interested in
is actually using
the automated kiosk machines.
FINN: The intel on this guy
is pretty good.
He's associated with some people
we arrested swallowing heroin
coming from Nigeria about 10 years ago.
This is the first time he's come
into the United States since then.
He's coming right now, in the white suit.
FINN: We're waiting for him
to get his bags and talk to him
a little bit more
and see what his story is.
LEON: It's like a game
of hot and cold, man, you know?
You don't want to get too close
because then it gets too hot.
You want to keep your distance,
take a look around,
see if he's with anybody.
I don't want him to feel like,
you know, all eyes are on him.
For now, we're just waiting
on the bags to come down
and him to pick up his luggage.
If it's there, we'll find it.
If it's not, have a nice day.
Welcome to the U.S.A.
So let's see.
(INDISTINCT ANNOUNCEMENT ON PA)
- AGENT: It's busy today.
- MICHAEL: Yeah, I'll say.
With the festival, there is a lot
of people that are gonna be coming in.
It's the start of spring break, too?
AGENT: Yeah. LAX, man, it's non-stop.
BARBOSA: You travel alone today, sir?
Just you?
- Yeah.
- One?
LARA: And what do you do for a living?
(WOMAN SPEAKING)
I study psychology
and I'm working like, ah
something related with video games.
MICHAEL: There's a major
music festival this weekend,
with the party scene, there's a lot
of younger people coming in.
Sometimes we run into issues with pills,
personal use of marijuana.
We really just wanna see
everyone having a good time,
but it's still got to be on the up-and-up.
ALBRITTON: So you do YouTube,
like, blogger or something like that?
(SPEAKING)
ALBRITTON: Hypothetically,
say, someone comes here,
they decide to get high on something,
they leave, they get in a car accident.
They may hurt or kill someone.
So, you know, we wanna do our best
to keep that from happening.
- First time America?
- MAN: Yes.
ALBRITTON: So if you wanna to come here
and go to a music festival
or do whatever you do,
hey, that's fine.
But while you're in the United States,
we want you to follow
the laws in this country.
- And this is your
- MAN: Yeah, my girl.
- Your girl? This is your girl?
- MAN: Yeah.
- What's the purpose of your visit?
- Coachella.
- Coachella? How long are you gonna stay?
- Five days.
- Five days. Are you bringing any
- Palm Springs.
You guys have hotels reserved
and all that?
- Yeah.
- Oh, yeah?
What's the name?
You want You want a name of the
No, no, I don't want the name of it.
Okay, if you want to come with me
it's okay.
- RODRIGUEZ: What about her?
- (LAUGHTER)
- Together.
- No.
No!
All right, can you come with me?
So what do you do for work?
MAN: Uh, I'm a manager of a club in Paris.
- RODRIGUEZ: A club in Paris? Oh!
- WOMAN: Yeah.
So what kind of work do you do?
WOMAN: Fashion blogger.
- RODRIGUEZ: What is a fashion blogger?
- Uh, you know Instagram?
RODRIGUEZ: No.
Instagram? I barely got, like, Facebook.
I have like five friends I think.
I'm gonna go through your bags, okay?
Any contraband, any narcotics?
- Yes?
- No, no, no.
- RODRIGUEZ: No?
- MAN: No.
RODRIGUEZ: You guys have
any issues with drugs in your clubs?
Um, all the clubs we have drugs.
RODRIGUEZ: No, yeah, without a doubt.
But at yours that you work at?
- No, no. I don't think. No.
- RODRIGUEZ: No?
RODRIGUEZ: Oh, these are heavy.
(RODRIGUEZ LAUGHS)
What do you think that is, boss?
Did you buy them for her?
No.
- Thank you.
- RODRIGUEZ: Thank you. Have fun.
Remember, as you're going back
out of the country,
drugs are still illegal
and you're still subject
to be searched
in leaving the country, okay?
- Yeah.
- So, just be safe.
Don't take anything for granted,
so you guys can come back
- and enjoy more festivals in the future.
- WOMAN: Yes.
(BUZZER)
KEARSE: Not every narcotic
is gonna give out the same imaging,
but we do a pretty good job
at finding a lot of stuff.
That's for sure.
We intercepted another shipment
that the officers suspect
of containing some pills.
We're gonna test it to see what it is.
PEREZ: So we got these two packages
both going to the same individual.
We're gonna open them up
right now and see what we got.
So here we have some pills.
They're vacuum-sealed.
And the pills are in the image of a skull.
We're not certain what it is,
but both of these packages
are coming from the Netherlands,
which is a good source country
for ecstasy.
So we're gonna have to do a field test.
This should turn blue.
There you go.
So it's positive for MDMA.
Usually, when there's a music festival
in town or spring break
we see a rise in ecstasy
coming into South Florida.
Let's get a weight on it, see what we got.
There's a nice amount here.
It's probably about 1,000 pills.
So, we're gonna reach out
to Homeland Security Investigations
for further enforcement action.
(INDISTINCT ANNOUNCEMENT ON PA)
LEON: He keeps looking around.
I don't know if he's looking for an exit,
somebody he knows.
So we like to give him the space
and we like to let him think
that they're not being looked at.
- LEON: Finn.
- FINN: Yeah?
LEON: He got two bags.
He's going towards the back.
He just picked up his bag.
He's looking around.
I'm not sure what he's looking for,
but, could be a signal,
he's waiting for somebody.
You never know.
So I'm just gonna give him the space
and let him come towards the exit,
and as he's on his way out,
I'm gonna grab him.
How are you, brother?
How you doing?
- What do you need help with, man?
- MAN: Pardon?
- What do you need help with?
- MAN: Pardon?
Do you need help with anything?
You need a hand?
- Yeah, I need help.
- What do you need?
(SPEAKING)
Oh, well, you need to get change
or you can pay with a credit card.
- MAN: But I can't find (INDISTINCT)
- Yeah.
No, I can't help you, man,
I don't carry change.
If you got all our bags,
I'll help you get out of here.
- (SPEAKING)
- Let me get your passport one second, man.
(SPEAKING)
You alright? Good, man, good.
Happy to hear that.
Come on, come on over, man.
Bring that over.
As soon as he saw me,
it looked like mom just walked
into the bathroom while he's, you know.
One of those, "Whoa!"
That lets me know
that something might not be right
in this situation and definitely
worth a thorough bag check.
While I'm doing the search,
I'm gonna ask you don't touch anything
on the table, okay? We're good?
(INDISTINCT)
FINN: 32 length?
I'm a 32 length.
- These are yours?
- (SPEAKING)
FINN: What size pants do you wear?
(MAN SPEAKING)
33-35, right?
Yeah, you're a tall guy.
Thirty-two.
MAN: Spandex, like this.
Oh, it's spandex.
Do they expand longways?
How about this way?
They don't expand longways.
As officers, we're trained
to be observant.
The items people are bringing
to the United States,
they need to make sense.
If it doesn't make sense,
the items that they're bringing
in their bag may be a key point
to make us think
that something else may be going on.
Who you bringing this for?
MAN: This is his phone number.
LEON: His phone number.
You're bringing for somebody?
Yes, no problem.
FINN: Who's this guy? Umi?
Who is he?
His friend, his brother gave it to me
to deliver to him.
That when I reach here,
I should call this number
to get in contact with him.
- And he's gonna come and get it from you?
- Yes. From my hotel.
Oh. Okay.
You're like a delivery man.
Pack it up, brother.
FINN: Nothing for him.
It's all for other people.
LEON: You got the reaction.
You got the body language there.
He's nervous, so.
LEON: With this gentleman,
like any other person,
my job is very simple:
make sure they have good intentions
on entering the United States.
This gentleman is gonna be taken
to the pat-down room,
and we're gonna make sure
he has nothing on his body.
- (MAN SPEAKING)
- LEON: We're gonna check your body.
FINN: We're gonna check your body.
Nothing to be afraid of. We don't bite.
MICHAEL: With major music festivals,
CBP has been alerted to cargo coming
inbound from certain origin countries
that have historically resulted
in seizures of drugs
or at least casework
has been developed from them.
URIARTE: We're just selecting
certain packages,
and laying them out on the ground
for the K-9 to go over here.
It doesn't look like it's really anything.
MOY: Oh, this one's good to go.
I got a feeling there's something.
It's got like a deep, brownish look to it,
like it might be something thick in there.
This is what I was looking at.
It says it's supposed to be some
kind of milk chocolate egg,
but by the look of it, I don't think so.
And it's white powder.
I don't know what kind of drug it is,
but it's not chocolate.
We have to test it on our machine
to tell us what kind of drug it is.
I have to put all this protection gear
just in case it is some type of drug
that might do harm,
like fentanyl or any other narcotics
that could put me out
on the floor right here.
We do have our Narcan against the wall
there in case something happens.
It's telling me
it's ketamine, not fentanyl.
Let's go weigh it.
146 grams.
They actually did send real candy with it.
They'll try any way they can
to hide it from us.
It's going somewhere here
in Southern California,
but they won't be getting it now.
(INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS)
MARCO: Okay, guys, our CBP officers
intercepted two parcels
that contain approximately
a thousand pills of ecstasy,
which are going to an individual
we identified in Coral Springs.
As far as ecstasy is concerned,
it's usually produced overseas
and smuggled into the United States.
For the most part, we see it
from the Netherlands,
we get it from Germany.
The purity usually tends
to be pretty high.
This is our subject, black male.
He has prior criminal history
for narcotics trafficking.
We're gonna have an undercover officer
deliver the parcel to him,
make sure that he accepts it
and get him to sign for it.
We do have a warrant signed by the judge.
The package has to be accepted
into the residence
before we can execute the warrant.
Any questions, comments, concerns?
Alright, gear up, we'll see you guys
out there at the staging location.
Alright, everybody's going mobile.
We're heading toward you.
LEON: There's three ways
you bring in narcotics into this country;
that's either in the bag, on the body,
or inside the body.
It's a negative for anything on the body.
So, we're gonna continue the inspection,
have an interview with him,
and then we'll see how far
we gotta go with this.
So you're gonna be here for three weeks?
That's a long time.
What do you plan on doing on your trip?
MAN: (LAUGHS) Just visit
a lot of, uh, amusement parks.
FINN: Do you know anybody in New York?
No. Except that person
that pick his clothes.
FINN: Whose house are you gonna be
staying at while you're here?
- Here?
- FINN: Yeah.
I'm staying at a hotel.
This one?
The Orchard Street Hotel?
Sit, sit, sit. Orchard Street?
- MAN: Yeah that's why I
- Sit, sit, sit, sit.
- LEON: Sit down.
- That's why I made two reservations,
so that if I go there,
if it's too expensive,
I will check for another one
that is cheaper.
FINN: Wait, so, you don't know
how much money the hotel is?
200 and
- 200 and what?
- MAN: 200 and
Sit, sit, sit.
Please don't Please don't keep
standing up. I need you to stay seated.
People get nervous
when people stand up on us.
So you have a reservation
right now in two places?
Can you be in two places at once?
- It's not possible.
- FINN: It's not possible, right?
(MAN CHUCKLES)
That's silly.
Just as silly as having two reservations
for the same amount of time.
You have to check the hotel.
You know what's a good way
of checking hotels?
- MAN: No, sir.
- The Internet.
FINN: So what kind
of business do you have?
Used clothings.
FINN: Used clothing?
So do you have like a warehouse?
- No, not warehouse, like factory.
- FINN: Look at there. Sit, sit, sit.
Not warehouse, like factory.
FINN: Right, so it's a store.
Just a store.
You know, this, um, textile.
- FINN: Sit, sit, sit, sit.
- MAN: I want to show you something.
No, no, no. Sit. Sit.
I'll get it. Don't worry.
We can talk, right?
I saw the textiles already.
- Okay.
- FINN: I'm gonna go over
something with you, okay?
How much money would you make
in a good month?
MAN: $700.
$700? In a good month?
So a bad month would be what?
MAN: 400, 300.
FINN: 400. So, let's just say
you make $500 a month. Right?
- So that's $6,000 a year.
- Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm.
How much money you have
in your bank account? Approximate.
(MAN SPEAKING)
So the money you have in your bank
is only about $2,000 U.S.?
- Have you paid for your hotel yet?
- MAN: Not yet.
That's $4,400 for your hotel.
That's $4,400 that you have
to pay before you leave America.
You only have access to $2,200
plus the $1,500 in your pocket.
Can you tell me what that math is?
Under $4,000.
So, something does not add up.
MAN: How? I don't understand, sir.
Well, I just played it out for you.
How did How can you afford this trip?
- Oh.
- FINN: Your one-year salary
is $6,000.
And what you're telling me right now,
this trip costs more than that.
There is money coming from somewhere else
in your situation.
He has two different
itineraries at a hotel.
The money he's traveling doesn't seem
to be enough to substantiate his trip
and keep him here
for the time he's saying.
So, you know, those are things
that are important to us.
When things aren't adding up,
we have to question travelers
a little bit further to make sure
that they're here to do what
they say they're going to do.
Right now we don't know
where you're going. Safe to say?
(SPEAKING)
FINN: So if I call
the Orchard Street Hotel,
they're gonna say
that you have a reservation there?
- MAN: You can go ahead and call, sir.
- I know I can do a lot of things.
I'm asking you
if they are going to confirm that?
- Yes, sir.
- FINN: We'll call them up and
- MAN: They come pick me up or what?
- No, I'm not calling to pick you up.
Calling to see if you have a reservation,
'cause I'm gonna bet my bottom
dollar you don't even have one.
You wanna bet?
Go ahead and call. I have a reservation.
FINN: Yeah, I know,
you're not gonna have one.
(HORN HONKS)
No problem, thank you for your time,
alright? You have a great one. Bye-bye.
We ran his name, told them,
hey, listen, you know what?
We wanna find out if there's
any reservation starting today
or tomorrow till the day that
he said he was gonna be here.
Nothing's on file. Nothing's there.
They don't even have a record of him
even attempting to make a reservation, so.
It is not, it's playing out
too well in his favor.
God knows where this guy
is gonna be staying tonight,
but hopefully by the time
this interview's done,
we figure out exactly where he's going.
FINN: But you don't have a reservation at
the Orchard Street Hotel. We called them.
- You said I don't have?
- FINN: No. 100%.
So, at this point, we really haven't
gotten to the bottom of the story.
It seems to be he's lying
about a lot of the things he's telling us.
We definitely haven't ruled out the fact
that he swallowed some narcotics.
Being as this guy is associated
to internal couriers from Africa
in the past, we need to talk
to him a little bit more
about his associations to those people,
because they may very well
be just friends, family,
or they may be associations
in the drug game,
in a business that he probably
shouldn't be a part of.
FONTANA: Where were you
from in Nigeria, again?
- MAN: From Abiriba.
- Abiriba?
I met a few guys from there,
I wanted to see if you knew who they were.
- Daniel (BLEEP).
- MAN: Daniel (BLEEP)? He's from Abiriba?
FONTANA: Yeah.
Doesn't remember?
What about Michael (BLEEP)?
- I don't know.
- FONTANA: No? You don't know him either?
What about Samuel (BLEEP)?
- MAN: I don't know, sorry.
- You know anyone by those names?
Daniel, Michael, Samuel?
- MAN: I don't know.
- FONTANA: No friends?
- No.
- FONTANA: No?
MAN: What does that (BLEEP)?
FINN: Think he was in the same
business as you, actually.
Actually, I think he was here
right around the same time
you were here last in 2010.
- I don't know.
- Same business, same hometown,
here in America at the same time.
Does he live in States?
He lived in the U.S.
for probably about five years.
Yeah. Penitentiary, in prison.
He lived in prison
- MAN: Mm-hmm.
- for swallowing cocaine.
Coincidence, I guess.
I don't know about cocaine.
I don't know anything about drugs.
Nothing?
You gotta understand,
I know a lot of things
about the people we interact with.
- You know why you're in this room?
- Yes, sir.
What do customs officers do?
We look for people coming into America
maybe to do some harm to us,
but the officers
you're in the room with now,
we're on a specialized unit
here at the airport.
We're on a narcotics unit, the drug team.
- What?
- I'm having pain here.
You're having pain?
You want an ambulance?
- MAN: Ambulance?
- Yeah.
- MAN: No.
- Oh, okay.
Your safety is the most important thing
right now.
Go ahead, lay down.
Just let him rest.
MARCO: We're on our way right now
to the staging location.
We got a team that's got eyes
on the apartment.
Basically we're gonna start
heading in for the delivery.
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
Negative, negative. Stand by.
See where we're gonna set up.
AGENT: Right now we're just driving around
to find the most advantageous
place to park.
And we're waiting for the other units
to get staged up and ready to go.
MARCO: Alright, so, I think
that's our building right there.
Hey, Chris, Marco.
That's that the location, right?
Where the stairwell is?
(CHRIS SPEAKING)
MARCO: Yeah, that's it.
It's the door under the stairwell.
Everybody inside perimeter,
everybody's all set, ready to go?
- (OFFICER SPEAKING)
- MARCO: Okay.
Let's go ahead and send
the UC in whenever he's ready.
That's the target residence.
Right now we're gonna have
the undercover officer come in
with the with the two packages
to make the delivery,
and then subsequently after that
we'll give it some time,
you know, for him to open
the package, go into it.
So when we make entry
we sort of, you know,
catch him with the hand in
the cookie jar type of analogy.
- AGENT: That's a crummy analogy.
- You don't like that?
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
UC moving in.
MARCO: 10-4, copy that.
Okay, we got a visual.
UC's at the target residence right now,
just knocked on the door.
Stand by.
Door's open. UC's made contact.
Door's open. UC's made contact.
Okay, package has been accepted.
Delivery has been made.
It is inside the apartment.
Entry team and secondary
backup team, be ready to go.
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
MARCO: 10-4. Copy that.
All units, all units be advised,
the subject is not at home.
The subject is not at home.
The female accepted delivery
of the package.
She was on the phone
with the target at the time.
He's allegedly on his way home.
Everybody copy?
OFFICER: 10-4. Good copy.
Unfortunately, in law enforcement,
this is typical.
When we're doing these type of operations
they don't usually, you know, we deliver
and then we'll just have to sit here
until he does arrive.
On another controlled delivery
we sat on it for three days in a row.
So it's, you know, part of the job.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
WATSON: We're just kind of looking
for a bunch of Coachella people
on this flight.
RODRIGUEZ: We also have 4/20 coming up.
WATSON: Exactly.
We're going to conduct
an outbound operation today.
We find that a lot of travelers
that come here
to attend these festivals
will obtain narcotics
and bring them back with them.
ANNOUNCEMENT: This is the final boarding
announcement for Flight 2450.
All passengers intending to travel
should be through the door
marked A3 at this time.
RODRIGUEZ: Sir? Sir? Come with me.
(MAN SPEAKING)
- You have nothing?
- (MAN SPEAKING)
Nothing.
What are we talking about, nothing?
(MAN SPEAKING)
- Hey, listen to the questions. Alright?
- Okay.
When you say you have nothing with you,
what are you talking about?
(SPEAKING)
- Why would you tell me weed?
- (SPEAKING)
Is there anything in here
that I need to know about?
- (SPEAKING)
- Yeah.
MAN: Um..
- (SPEAKING)
- No?
Have you been around it before,
while you were here in the U.S.?
Um, I (SPEAKING)
- RODRIGUEZ: Somebody offered you what?
- (SPEAKING)
- Weed?
- (SPEAKING)
- Did you have some?
- (SPEAKING)
RODRIGUEZ: Where were you while you were
in the U.S.? Where'd you go?
- (SPEAKING)
- You were in Coachella?
- Yes.
- RODRIGUEZ: So you were around, alright.
Well you know what?
It's a little leaf of marijuana.
You were smoking weed at the festival?
- It's a yes or no question.
- (SPEAKING)
RODRIGUEZ: Thank you.
And you're a visitor, right?
(MAN SPEAKING)
- Federally, marijuana is illegal.
- (SPEAKING)
You visit America first
and then you go visit California.
You're not supposed to be partaking
- Now what does that mean?
- (SPEAKING)
(SPEAKING)
- RODRIGUEZ: You might want to take this
- (SPEAKING)
(WHISTLES) You might want to take this
a little bit more serious.
Okay, yeah, sorry.
RODRIGUEZ:
You have work to go back to today?
- (SPEAKING)
- Next week you have to be? Alright.
- So, you have plenty of time.
- Yeah.
RODRIGUEZ: You might not make
today's flight, my friend.
- (SPEAKING)
- Oh, now it's serious?
Remember the little sign that you had?
You were making a commercial.
Now it's not funny anymore.
- Now it's not fun and games, right?
- (SPEAKING)
Oh, yes, it was when you were
throwing up your little signs.
(SPEAKING)
RODRIGUEZ: Keep smiling.
Go ahead and stand up against
that wall right there, for me.
I'm gonna talk to my boss.
He just has a little leaf.
He was at Coachella like everyone else.
- (LAUGHS)
- WATSON: Oh, that's it?
RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, no, that's what
I'm saying, it's a little leaf.
How often do you use marijuana?
(SPEAKING)
- Give me the number.
- RODRIGUEZ: Per week.
- WATSON: Yeah.
- Um (SPEAKING)
Get his information.
We're gonna cancel his ESTA.
We encounter these
ESTA travelers who only visited
for the purpose of attending
the music festival.
If we go through their belongings
and we find any controlled substances,
or they have a long-time
history of drug use,
then they actually become ineligible
for the visa waiver program.
We already know
that you're an habitual marijuana user.
If you try to come in
on an ESTA again, per federal law
we're gonna have to remove you
from the country.
We're gonna visa waiver refuse you.
We're gonna let you go today because
it's just it's just like nothing.
We allowed him to go home
without interfering with his travel,
but we're gonna flag him
for future travel into the U.S.
WATSON: Good job, Ringo. Good job, Ringo.
(WHISTLES)
FINN: You alright?
I'm alright.
FINN: No problem.
Here in New York,
we see a little bit of everything.
We see people coming from, Africa,
from South America,
from the Caribbean, alright?
We deal with people coming from all over.
Right? And one of the ways
people bring drugs
into the country from,
you know, different places,
but Nigeria one of them,
is they swallow pellets.
Right? They make a phone call,
they let the people in New York
know that they're here,
and then they start to pass the pellets
that are in their stomach.
And they make a lot of money on that.
We went over your finances before.
You know, maybe business isn't so great.
Maybe things aren't
doing too good at home.
So, when we deal with people like yourself
that may be doing that, you know,
we want we want to help
these people out, right?
What's gonna happen today
is we're gonna take you to the doctor.
Yes.
So, an x-ray from here to here
is gonna show everything
inside of your stomach.
When people swallow drugs
and they try to come into America,
they go to jail.
You will not walk out this door
until we find out what's in your stomach.
Oh, my God.
FINN: Yeah. Let's go.
So in order for us to take you
for an x-ray, we need your permission.
- Are you willing to take an x-ray?
- Yes, sir.
Okay. So I want you to sign it here.
Okay, that's good.
So now, this is the first step
in doing better, right?
- No problem, sir.
- Step one.
We see over 17 million international
travelers come into JFK.
We take literally
under 50 of those to a doctor
to have an x-ray examination done.
We're not grabbing people off the plane
and throwing them in front of an x-ray.
We do our due diligence.
We're gonna bring you over
to the doctor. Okay?
So, according to our policy,
we're gonna have to put handcuffs on you.
You're not under arrest.
You're just being detained.
Once the doctor says
there's nothing inside of you,
we take the handcuffs off
and free to go. Okay?
Okay, do me a favor, stand up,
turn around.
Okay, we're gonna grab this arm
over here, bring this arm back.
There you go.
- FINN: You okay?
- MAN: Yes, sir.
FINN: The x-ray doesn't lie.
It'll be the answer
that everybody
has a question mark for now.
- OFFICER: Your arms good? Okay.
- (MAN SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY)
Just a few minutes like this, alright?
FINN: And we'll know for sure.
We won't be thinking about it later.
LEON: Thank you.
LEON: Keep going, nice and slow.
Come right over here.
Take a seat over here. Sit down. Sit down.
Wait for the doctor.
FINN: Dealing
with internal couriers of narcotics,
it's a very dangerous game.
Some people do desperate things
because they're in desperate situations.
(BEEP)
FINN: The guys that want those drugs here
are not gonna care about their health.
Now, we've arrested many people
that as soon as we get to that doctor
and take that x-ray,
they need immediate medical attention.
You know, first and foremost
is the safety and the health
of the passenger, and keeping
these drugs off our streets.
X-ray don't lie, man. X-ray don't lie.
No in-betweens with x-rays,
either it is or it isn't.
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
Two what Oh,
these two pieces right here?
Going through some cargo boxes here.
Just doing a random check,
seeing if we can find illicit contraband,
mainly drugs, narcotics.
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
Yeah, we just wanna x-ray
these two pieces of cargo right here.
OFFICER: You see all the metal.
Yeah, and then this is organic.
Well, it's definitely something
we want to take a closer look at.
OFFICER: Leave it in.
Yeah, so you can pull it out.
OFFICER: Just a little bit. That's it.
Just pull it up. Pull it up.
OFFICER: Yeah, just screw it,
yeah, just like that.
(SPEAKING)
URIARTE: Well,
it looks like it's marijuana,
but we're gonna test it to make sure.
OFFICER: Oh, you can already smell.
Kind of a purple hue.
Uh, looks like marijuana.
This is an export shipment,
so, you know, it's fairly common
going out to the U.K.
A lot of dispensaries here ship it out.
URIARTE: So this cargo was manifested
as computer parts
and it has a switch on the side here.
Probably to make it look
like it's something legit.
But then after opening it up,
we find that
it's not computer parts at all.
It does look like a lot.
We have three pallets.
So right now we're just gonna go ahead
and process this seizure.
We contact our sister agency, HSI,
and they're gonna make a determination
if they want to get involved
in this seizure
and take a closer look.
(DOGS BARKING)
MARCO: We've been sitting here
probably about five and a half hours
since we arrived on scene
and established surveillance
of the target residence.
Minimal activity,
but no sign of the main target yet.
So, we shall wait.
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
MARCO: Copy.
Please. Please let it be a grey Camry.
Please. Dark grey Camry. Please, please.
Please, please.
OFFICER: Be advised,
a car occupied by two males.
One of them is bald.
So that might be our target.
- Stand by.
- MARCO: Yup.
OFFICER:
Target just entered the premises
with another male.
MARCO: Yeah. 10-4, confirm, confirm.
Target is inside the apartment.
The other individual is still outside.
He's got dreads, red shirt
and he's got beige shorts.
All right, he's back outside.
(DOG BARKING)
(MARCO SPEAKING)
- (OFFICER SPEAKING)
- MARCO: Yeah.
(SPEAKING)
MARCO: You see him? He's outside
with something in his hand.
- OFFICER: It's gotta be the box, man.
- MARCO: Yeah.
That's the guy picking up the dope.
Just gave him something in his hand.
I don't see what it is.
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
MARCO: Nothing exchanged hands
except money.
(OFFICER SPEAKING)
MARCO: Stay on the residence.
The packages haven't moved,
and we didn't see him come out
of the door, so we're still good.
Keep eyes on the apartment.
That's the primary target.
Door opened.
He's got something in his hand.
Appears to be one of the boxes,
he just placed it outside
in front to the right.
Okay, now it's in front of the apartment.
And he seems to be breaking it apart.
Entry team and secondary backup team, go.
- (OFFICER SPEAKING)
- MARCO: Guys.
- MARCO: (BLEEP), right?
- MAN: Yes, sir.
MARCO: Alright, brother.
After a long five
and a half hours of waiting,
doing surveillance, our patience paid off,
we went ahead
and executed the search warrant.
Took one into custody.
(SPEAKING)
(MAN SPEAKING)
We're all family men.
We're all men of family here.
- (MAN SPEAKING)
- We understand. Alright, bro?
- (MAN SPEAKING)
- Alright, my man.
Just bear with us a minute
and we'll bring you inside
and get you out of the open here.
Nobody needs to be looking at this.
Right now, we're gonna be
sitting down with him, talk to him.
Seems like he's He'll He's
gonna cooperate,
so basically after a long day's work,
mission accomplished.
MAN: Unfortunately,
when we did the search warrant,
we did encounter the subject's family,
two children,
um, and unfortunately his actions
have consequences,
and the family now has to deal with that.
URIARTE: So, we called HSI,
uh, let them know of the seizure
that we have.
We have all the boxes out now
for them to take a look at
with the original packaging.
There was 30 boxes.
The weight came in at 386 kilos.
Definitely a good bust for today.
With this information we have, we ended up
reaching out to our attaché office.
They talked to their international
partners overseas.
They're good to go
and they wanna continue the investigation.
We'll repackage it
and we'll send it overseas.
- Alright, sounds good.
- We'll jump in and give you guys a hand.
Very good, most important.
OFFICER: Hey, one down, 800 to go, right?
URIARTE: So right now
we're just repackaging it
how we found it originally.
So it will be all ready to go
for the trip overseas.
DON: This is great partnership
between CBP and HSI.
We get the narcotics off the street.
We get to continue
potentially the investigation
overseas with our law
enforcement partners,
and then of course we'll hear back,
and if there's anything
that we could potentially work
back here in the United States,
we'll get that information as well.
(SPEAKING)
(SPEAKING)
(SPEAKING)
LEON: Negative for foreign bodies,
meaning he doesn't have anything
in his system of our interest.
Okay. Come on outside.
And take a seat over there.
We took the inspection
as far as we needed to
for our satisfaction, you know,
there was a lot of holes
in the gentleman's story
from where he's staying
to who he's seeing,
to what he's doing here.
So, it's our job to verify that
everybody coming into the U.S.
has good intentions,
and that's what we did today.
No hard feelings, man.
Don't take it personal.
(SPEAKING)
LEON: Good, good.
- I'm happy that this was negative.
- MAN: Thank you.
- You're welcome.
- FONTANA: Enjoy, alright?
- LEON: Appreciate it.
- LEON: You have that bag,
I'll grab I'll grab the heavy one.
I'll grab this one.
(MAN SPEAKING)
Go, man, let's go.
No, go ahead, lead the way.
And then you enjoy your stay
here in America.
FINN: My job is to keep
the drugs from coming here
into America
and getting out on the streets.
I'm not here to delay people,
I'm not here to annoy people,
I'm not here to bother them.
LEON: How are you, buddy?
What was the purpose
of your travel, brother?
FINN: This gentleman,
at the end, he understood.
I mean, he knew that we have a job to do.
It's nothing personal.