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SYSK Selects: How Narco States Work · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: M Hey, everybody, this is Chuck Welcome to Stuff you
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Speaker 1: Should Know Selects. Hope you had your morning cartoons and
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Speaker 1: now you're ready to listen to Narco States How Narco
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Speaker 1: States Works from December two thousand nine. I have no
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Speaker 1: idea why we saw fit to release this so close
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Speaker 1: to Christmas, way back in two thousand nine, but it's
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Speaker 1: kind of funny that we did. But I just remember,
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Speaker 1: this is a really good episode. Uh. Narco States is
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Speaker 1: a very dense topic, and it's kind of thing where
0:26
Speaker 1: if you kind of throw some of this information around
0:28
Speaker 1: at dinner party, everyone is going to thank you. Are
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Speaker 1: super cool. So please to enjoy How Narco States Work.
0:42
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
0:45
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
0:54
Speaker 1: Clark with me as always as Charles W. Zonkers Bryant's Soners. Yeah,
1:00
Speaker 1: I'm always. I just sit here with wondering what you're
1:02
Speaker 1: gonna call me? How's it going? Great? Sir? Are you
1:05
Speaker 1: pretty good? He looked good. You're as good as you
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Speaker 1: were ten minutes ago when he recorded that other podcast. Chuck,
1:11
Speaker 1: have you ever been to Mexico? I have been to Mexico.
1:14
Speaker 1: Have you been to t J. I've been to t
1:16
Speaker 1: J've been to Warez, No just t J and like
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Speaker 1: the Baja area. Okay. Well, had you gone a little
1:23
Speaker 1: further east along the border to Warez, okay, you would
1:27
Speaker 1: have been in a narco state. Yes. And you know
1:32
Speaker 1: what I'm ashamed to say, Josh, that I did not
1:33
Speaker 1: know what an arco state was. Really. I've heard of it,
1:36
Speaker 1: but I didn't really know what it was. I can't
1:38
Speaker 1: remember if I pitched this one or if Channel did,
1:41
Speaker 1: but it's a good well done sir, Thank you very much,
1:44
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah. Um, well, Chuck and I are talking
1:47
Speaker 1: about narco states, as you probably were tipped off by
1:50
Speaker 1: the title of this podcast. And for those of you
1:53
Speaker 1: who don't know what anarco state it is, uh, Josh,
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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna give my own definition, which is, it
2:00
Speaker 1: is a country where they sort of allow drug trafficking
2:05
Speaker 1: and in some cases even participate in the drug trafficking. Yeah.
2:09
Speaker 1: And it's it's very very rarely an entire country. Um.
2:14
Speaker 1: Most of the time, it's like a real region of country,
2:17
Speaker 1: very small area city. Although there are cases where there
2:21
Speaker 1: have been narco states, like fully functioning countries that are
2:25
Speaker 1: run by drugs, Like the their gross domestic product is
2:28
Speaker 1: almost fully funded by drugs. The government's in on it,
2:32
Speaker 1: military is in on it. Um And right now, as
2:35
Speaker 1: far as I could tell, there's only one functioning narco
2:39
Speaker 1: state in the world. Afghanistan. No, it's close though, uh Guinea,
2:44
Speaker 1: bissauth Oh yeah sure. In Africa, yeah, West Africa. I
2:47
Speaker 1: can't wait to tell that story's good on so Okay. So,
2:50
Speaker 1: a narco state, as Chuck said, is basically any area
2:54
Speaker 1: where the government is either directly involved or turning a
2:58
Speaker 1: blind eye to drug traffic. Yes, and Central Mexico, Central America,
3:03
Speaker 1: South America always known as being rife with this kind
3:06
Speaker 1: of thing, because chances are, if you're doing drugs in
3:09
Speaker 1: the US, chances are it did not come from inside
3:12
Speaker 1: the United States. No, unless it was meth or pot. Yeah,
3:16
Speaker 1: and even then, chances are it probably didn't, although there
3:19
Speaker 1: was a lot of domestic U meth labs and and
3:22
Speaker 1: pot farms and stuff like that. Yeah, but yeah, the
3:25
Speaker 1: chances are it came through Mexico. If not from Mexico,
3:28
Speaker 1: Mexico didn't used to be nearly as violent, you know, Warez,
3:32
Speaker 1: which we were talking about, Um had I think three
3:35
Speaker 1: hundred murders in two thousand seven, and then all of
3:38
Speaker 1: a sudden there was a drug war starter that's still
3:41
Speaker 1: going on now. And in two thousand and eight they
3:43
Speaker 1: had murders. Yeah, that's a heck of a stat Yeah. Yeah,
3:47
Speaker 1: Detroit had like less than three hundred murders in two
3:50
Speaker 1: thousand seven. To Detroit safer than someplace. This is safer
3:54
Speaker 1: than Warez. Believe it or not, Well, thank god for that.
3:57
Speaker 1: I didn't get the stats on temped though, so I
3:59
Speaker 1: can't say right. Yeah, so um. One of the reasons
4:03
Speaker 1: why uh, And we'll see that American intervention one way
4:07
Speaker 1: or another, UH usually has an impact on the formation
4:10
Speaker 1: of a narco state. But one of the reasons why
4:12
Speaker 1: Warez and some of the other border towns along Mexico
4:15
Speaker 1: have turned into narco states, UH is because the Coast
4:19
Speaker 1: Guard in the d e A effectively shut down the
4:22
Speaker 1: Caribbean in the nineties. That was the main route from
4:25
Speaker 1: um South America to the US for coke, and Americans
4:31
Speaker 1: love coke. A lot of the world does. And one
4:35
Speaker 1: thing that I learned from reading this article and just
4:37
Speaker 1: by living as a human in the world is that
4:40
Speaker 1: drugs will find a way to get into the country,
4:43
Speaker 1: they definitely will. Like for example, when the Caribean was
4:45
Speaker 1: shut down, they started moving in through Central American through
4:48
Speaker 1: Mexico came another run way or another. And the reason
4:51
Speaker 1: why is um, Well, like I said, Americans love cocaine.
4:54
Speaker 1: We consume fort of the global supply of it every year.
4:58
Speaker 1: Does a lot of cocaine loves the junk too? Oh? No,
5:01
Speaker 1: Europe is the heroine. Yeah, they have eleven percent of
5:05
Speaker 1: the global population in Europe, but they have one third
5:09
Speaker 1: of the world's heroin addict. Big deal. Yeah, it's weird
5:13
Speaker 1: how it's localized like that. It is, But think about it.
5:15
Speaker 1: Let's think about how much closer Europe is to the
5:17
Speaker 1: heroin producing countries of the South Asia, and think about
5:20
Speaker 1: how close we are to the cocaine producing countries of
5:23
Speaker 1: South America, which affects the price. Of course it definitely does. Um,
5:27
Speaker 1: you want to give them that stat Josh, a kilogram
5:30
Speaker 1: of uncut cocaine, as you hear on the cop shows,
5:34
Speaker 1: has it goes for dollars? That same kilo fetches uh
5:39
Speaker 1: about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in Moscow. That's
5:43
Speaker 1: a big markup. It's a huge markup, is that street
5:46
Speaker 1: value as they call it. And I'm sure those are
5:48
Speaker 1: way off. I'm sure you could get a kilo for
5:49
Speaker 1: a lot less or pature or whatever. But um, one
5:53
Speaker 1: of the things that FEDS like to do is pump
5:55
Speaker 1: up their numbers. Yeah, yeah, so that they can get
5:58
Speaker 1: more funding. But yeah, you can definitely get a kilo
6:01
Speaker 1: of cocaine in America a lot cheaper than you can
6:04
Speaker 1: uma in Russia. Yeah, so Chuck, Um, all of that,
6:09
Speaker 1: all of those kilos add up pretty quickly. And the
6:12
Speaker 1: drug trade, the global drug trade UM makes an estimated
6:16
Speaker 1: three hundred billion dollars a year. That's nuts. That is
6:20
Speaker 1: a lot of casts. You could bail out two A
6:22
Speaker 1: I G s for that. So, Chuck, we talked about,
6:25
Speaker 1: um the narco state being ah an area where government's
6:29
Speaker 1: either looking the other way, or selling drugs directly or
6:32
Speaker 1: helping them out, maybe just hating them. Um, there's a
6:35
Speaker 1: big problem with this, I would say so. But well,
6:38
Speaker 1: I mean you just think about it. You're like, oh,
6:39
Speaker 1: the government is not supposed to do that. To stop
6:41
Speaker 1: and think why why the why the government's not supposed
6:45
Speaker 1: to do that? Yeah, Well, because they're supposed to protect
6:47
Speaker 1: their citizens. Yeah, there's something that um Thomas Hobbs called
6:50
Speaker 1: the social contract, and basically it said, like in exchange
6:53
Speaker 1: for certain freedoms, like we can't just do anything we
6:55
Speaker 1: want to write that we give to the government, We're
6:58
Speaker 1: going to give that power to the government. One of
7:00
Speaker 1: those things is the state violent the state monopoly on violence,
7:04
Speaker 1: where like the government can put you in jail, the
7:07
Speaker 1: government can um kill you, execute you, but the government
7:11
Speaker 1: is supposed to be the only one who does it.
7:13
Speaker 1: So if somebody, you know, shoot your kid, you don't
7:16
Speaker 1: go shoot them in the head. You can get the
7:18
Speaker 1: government to go after this guy and incarceraate or kill him. Right. Yeah,
7:21
Speaker 1: And in the civilized world, the social contract is kind
7:23
Speaker 1: of how we developed as nations of the world, and
7:26
Speaker 1: it works pretty well for the most part, we'll say,
7:29
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a whole other podcast right there. But
7:31
Speaker 1: in Narco States, it's a little different because that's a
7:33
Speaker 1: little bit of a sham. They kind of have that
7:36
Speaker 1: contract as long as it doesn't interfere with the drug trade. Right,
7:39
Speaker 1: the government's given it's uh, it's power to drug traffickers
7:44
Speaker 1: at the expense of the people. They're supposed to be
7:46
Speaker 1: protecting and representing, So that's number one. Right, So how
7:50
Speaker 1: does this happen? Right? Well, one reason why that might happen.
7:55
Speaker 1: There's a bunch of different ways that could happen. But
7:57
Speaker 1: one reason is if, um, say, you're in Colombia and
8:02
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you've heard the term Columbian necktie,
8:05
Speaker 1: I have. Yeah, all of a sudden, your judges in
8:07
Speaker 1: your council people, and your and your politicians are getting
8:12
Speaker 1: knifed and executed in back alleys by the dozens. All
8:15
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the government might say, wait a minute,
8:18
Speaker 1: we might want to not go after these drug traffickers,
8:21
Speaker 1: right because if the state is doesn't have a monopoly
8:24
Speaker 1: on violence any longer, if you know, paramilitary groups affiliated
8:27
Speaker 1: with drug traffickers do, yeah, then yeah. Apparently in Colombia
8:31
Speaker 1: they came at the justice building with tanks. Yeah. This
8:35
Speaker 1: wasn't the military, This was a rebel faction. Yeah. I
8:38
Speaker 1: think it was Fark that did it, right, Josh Fark.
8:41
Speaker 1: That is f a r C. That stands for the
8:43
Speaker 1: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia translated into English. Uh. And
8:48
Speaker 1: they're actually a communist guerrilla group, an army. They are
8:53
Speaker 1: and um, they actually got into drug trafficking in the eighties,
8:57
Speaker 1: I think indeed. Um, So okay, So you have a huge, armed,
9:01
Speaker 1: guerrilla army attacking your justice department in the country's capital.
9:08
Speaker 1: That's a good way to get a narco state started, right.
9:10
Speaker 1: Sometimes you're bribed into it. That's another one too. All
9:14
Speaker 1: of a sudden, if your coffers are being filled, a
9:17
Speaker 1: lot of politicians are willing to look the other way. Um.
9:19
Speaker 1: And also, if your intelligence services become compromised by drug traffickers,
9:26
Speaker 1: you're in big trouble. Yea. If those are corrupted, you're finished. Yeah,
9:29
Speaker 1: because the intelligence services are usually towards the top of
9:32
Speaker 1: the military hierarchy, and if they're corrupted, they can turn
9:35
Speaker 1: the entire military against you know, the government, which there
9:40
Speaker 1: is a division. Um. And after that happens again, you're
9:45
Speaker 1: in big trouble in a narco state. Conform Yeah, plus state.
9:47
Speaker 1: They know a lot about smuggling, the intelligence community, and
9:52
Speaker 1: if all of a sudden they're on your side, then
9:53
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know a lot about smuggling, right, Yeah,
9:56
Speaker 1: it's it's uh. You have to know how to get
9:59
Speaker 1: people or arms or something in and out of countries
10:01
Speaker 1: about being detected. So you know where all the airfields are,
10:04
Speaker 1: you have access to planes and boats and stuff. You
10:07
Speaker 1: just start throwing kilos a coke in there, and all
10:09
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you're a drug smuggler. Yeah. Um. And
10:12
Speaker 1: it's kind of tough for us to think about this
10:14
Speaker 1: in the United States because we've had a pretty stable
10:17
Speaker 1: government for the last couple of hundred years. But uh,
10:21
Speaker 1: in in areas, in countries where there's been high government
10:25
Speaker 1: turnover and lots of internal conflict. Um, let's say, infrastructure
10:30
Speaker 1: like roads, bridges, water, electricity, these things have been cut
10:34
Speaker 1: throughout these civil wars and the government's too poor to
10:37
Speaker 1: fix them. All of a sudden, the government's delegitimized, and
10:41
Speaker 1: another like a rebel faction can step in and say, hey,
10:46
Speaker 1: we're taken over, and by the way, we love drug traffic.
11:20
Speaker 1: I got a couple of stats for you along those lines.
11:22
Speaker 1: Guatemala endured a thirty six year long civil war, El
11:27
Speaker 1: Salvador in a twelve year long civil war. In Nicaragua
11:30
Speaker 1: had one that lasted nineteen years. And so what this
11:33
Speaker 1: means is it's a very unstable region, easily swayed by
11:37
Speaker 1: whoever has the power drug traffickers or the government. And
11:41
Speaker 1: it also means there's a lot of guns. Yeah, and
11:44
Speaker 1: a lot of former veterans that are out of work,
11:48
Speaker 1: but you know how to use those guns and can
11:50
Speaker 1: serve as a guerrilla army. Yeah. And a lot of
11:52
Speaker 1: times these are poor countries too. So in fact, I
11:55
Speaker 1: would say almost every time it's a poor country, and
11:58
Speaker 1: it's it's you don't have to be genius to figure
12:00
Speaker 1: out you got guns, you got these former military guys,
12:02
Speaker 1: you've got really poor people, and you have loads of drugs.
12:05
Speaker 1: It's worth a lot of money. It's really not too
12:07
Speaker 1: hard to devolve into a narco state. No, it's not. Uh,
12:10
Speaker 1: And of course the root of all narco states is money,
12:14
Speaker 1: either like Chuck said, bribes that kind of thing, or
12:17
Speaker 1: um the GDP Afghanistan um, apparently their g d P
12:22
Speaker 1: is like six billion annually, which what's the United States?
12:26
Speaker 1: I think has fourteen trillion GDP? That um, So it's
12:30
Speaker 1: kind of like, holy cow, how do you live like that?
12:32
Speaker 1: They've been doing pretty good, but half of that has
12:36
Speaker 1: been through heroin. So cars I hummed cars, I who
12:41
Speaker 1: was Um, I'm gonna make air quotes elected president of
12:45
Speaker 1: Afghanistan twice. I made air quotes again, right, yeah, re elected. Um.
12:53
Speaker 1: He has is well known for turning a blind eye
12:55
Speaker 1: while saying we need to get rid of these poppies. Um.
12:58
Speaker 1: And the US is like, Okay, we'll let us spray,
13:00
Speaker 1: and he's like, non't no, we have to do it
13:02
Speaker 1: all by hand. Um. And apparently the American forces over there, Um,
13:08
Speaker 1: I have to well, the d e as over there
13:11
Speaker 1: as well, but the American commanders of the armed forces
13:15
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan don't let the d e A in at all.
13:18
Speaker 1: And they're frustrated pulling their hair out because they're not
13:21
Speaker 1: getting any support whatsoever. And it's kind of one of
13:26
Speaker 1: those things, like everybody knows that Afghanistan produces poppies. As
13:28
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, in two thousand and six, they
13:32
Speaker 1: produced the highest poppy harvest in recorded human history just
13:38
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. It was double what it
13:41
Speaker 1: had been the year before. So clearly they're not pulling
13:44
Speaker 1: enough by hand. No, because cars I won't let them
13:47
Speaker 1: spray overhead. Yeah, which is I should explain that that's
13:50
Speaker 1: a common method to uh, like you crop dust fields
13:52
Speaker 1: to to put chemicals on them. You do the same
13:55
Speaker 1: thing if you want to eradicate and kill them, right,
13:57
Speaker 1: and it is very effective. It's worked in Colombia. Lumbia,
14:00
Speaker 1: Uh finally has a president. I shouldn't say finally, but
14:03
Speaker 1: Columbia as a president is very sympathetic and friendly to
14:06
Speaker 1: the US and he's let the d e A in
14:08
Speaker 1: there and they have eradicated a lot of um cocoa
14:12
Speaker 1: fields using that that method. Yeah, so it does work.
14:16
Speaker 1: But cards I was like no, And apparently there's been
14:18
Speaker 1: more and more and more reports of the people who
14:21
Speaker 1: are involved in the central government are all drug lords
14:24
Speaker 1: or most of them are drug lords too. So Afghanistan
14:27
Speaker 1: is teetering right on the edge of being a narcostate,
14:30
Speaker 1: if it's not already so contributing to half of your GDP.
14:34
Speaker 1: That's another reason for a narco state to develop. Yeah,
14:37
Speaker 1: and well, since we're on money, another thing that money
14:39
Speaker 1: brings is uh, bribes and corruption like we were talking about.
14:43
Speaker 1: And I have to mention this because you uncovered this
14:45
Speaker 1: great fact from Guatemala. The federal judge that's just hard
14:50
Speaker 1: to believe. The federal judge was accused of accepting thousands
14:53
Speaker 1: of dollars in bribes to dismiss a drug trafficking case
14:58
Speaker 1: and at the end of the SEED dismissed the case.
15:00
Speaker 1: At the end of this trial, Uh, this judge was
15:02
Speaker 1: seen driving the defendant from court. Yeah, so it goes
15:06
Speaker 1: pretty deep. Yeah, And Guatemala UM is a de facto
15:10
Speaker 1: narco state right now, UM and in Central America itself,
15:14
Speaker 1: which is, like we said, since the UM, since the
15:17
Speaker 1: Caribbean has been shut down, Central America started play a
15:20
Speaker 1: really key role as a as a supply line between
15:23
Speaker 1: South America and North America. UM. And actually, because of
15:28
Speaker 1: all those conflicts that you mentioned earlier, there's now a
15:31
Speaker 1: ratio of five to one illegal unregistered guns to guns
15:37
Speaker 1: held by UM legitimate police and armed forces. So let's
15:42
Speaker 1: keep an eye on Central America. That means trouble is coming. Okay,
15:45
Speaker 1: So Central America UM again we talked about how it's
15:48
Speaker 1: been destabilized by conflict. There's tons of guns, there's terrible infrastructure,
15:54
Speaker 1: there's plenty of drugs and narco states and you know
15:58
Speaker 1: what else did in Guatemala. They have corrupt government officials
16:02
Speaker 1: there have drafted legislation that prevents UM extradition, and as
16:07
Speaker 1: we know, extradition is a really valuable tool for us
16:10
Speaker 1: when we're trying to prosecute these drug lords and they
16:13
Speaker 1: said he can't do it. So that kind of says,
16:16
Speaker 1: right there, let us make our money. Yeah, us stay
16:20
Speaker 1: out of her hair. Once you have the Congress, in
16:22
Speaker 1: the judiciary in your pocket, that's even more valuable in
16:25
Speaker 1: the military, although the military is a really good first step. Yeah,
16:29
Speaker 1: that's true. Um all right, so Chuck. One of the
16:32
Speaker 1: reasons why you might notice that UM Central and South
16:35
Speaker 1: America keep popping up. One of the reasons why is
16:38
Speaker 1: because UM Central America specifically was a Cold War battleground
16:44
Speaker 1: where the U S and the U s SR fought
16:46
Speaker 1: one another in proxy wars UM through throughout the Cold War. Basically,
16:51
Speaker 1: both countries just completely used nations in Central and South
16:55
Speaker 1: America to fight, fight one another, try to bleed one
16:58
Speaker 1: another out. You know what that means. What that means
17:01
Speaker 1: that these people that live there being trained by either
17:05
Speaker 1: Russian or American military. They're being supplied with guns and
17:09
Speaker 1: ammunition and all the things that you need. Once you
17:12
Speaker 1: stop and say could wars over all those guns and
17:15
Speaker 1: trained dudes are still there, right, and they're like, well,
17:18
Speaker 1: what should we do with all this stuff. Yeah, and
17:20
Speaker 1: not only that, we are not getting funding from the
17:23
Speaker 1: Soviets of the Americans anymore, but we still the war
17:27
Speaker 1: didn't end for them. The conflict didn't end for them,
17:29
Speaker 1: The power struggle didn't end for them, just because the
17:31
Speaker 1: Americans and the Soviets suddenly lost interest. It's still going
17:34
Speaker 1: on and there they are funding it through drugs right
17:38
Speaker 1: um and also uh, the US backed right wing paramilitary
17:43
Speaker 1: groups or right wing um dictatorships, and the Soviets of
17:47
Speaker 1: course backed left wing groups like farc Um. And farc
17:51
Speaker 1: has a reputation for being extremely brutal. They use child soldiers,
17:55
Speaker 1: they engage in kidnappings, bombings, um kill their own people. Sure,
18:00
Speaker 1: at one point, um they offered a thousand dollars to
18:04
Speaker 1: anybody who killed the government official. So they were outsourcing
18:07
Speaker 1: their terrorism and their communists, and they were supported by
18:09
Speaker 1: the Soviet So of course they're horrible. The US supported
18:12
Speaker 1: equally brutal regimes and groups like Lack of Frida. You
18:17
Speaker 1: know about them there Guatemala. Yes, they were very much
18:21
Speaker 1: supported by the US and they helped kill as many
18:24
Speaker 1: as two hundred thousand of their own people during that
18:27
Speaker 1: civil war. Josh Lacka Frida wasn't the only one, right.
18:31
Speaker 1: Remember the nineteen eighties when President Reagan launched the War
18:34
Speaker 1: on drugs? You know what was going on. At the
18:36
Speaker 1: same time, we were providing funding and weapons for the
18:40
Speaker 1: same anti communist paramilitary groups that were producing and distributing
18:45
Speaker 1: this cocaine. Yeah right, at the same time. Yea, Yet
18:48
Speaker 1: we were fighting a war on drugs. Ye doesn't add up,
18:51
Speaker 1: doesn't Not only that, you remember Manuel Noriega and we
18:54
Speaker 1: went down to Panama in nine nine. Delta Force was
18:57
Speaker 1: their special forces was there, um, and we captured him
19:02
Speaker 1: and then put him in prison in Miami for a
19:04
Speaker 1: couple of decades. He was a CIA asset for eight years. Yeah,
19:08
Speaker 1: he was operating a narco state under our supervision. Yeah,
19:12
Speaker 1: you could say. Uh. And then once news leaked out
19:15
Speaker 1: to the general public that he was a drug dealer, Um,
19:18
Speaker 1: we went down and reroved him from power, right and
19:20
Speaker 1: gave I believe he's still in prison, right, No, he
19:23
Speaker 1: just got out really yeah, okay, like a year ago
19:25
Speaker 1: or something like that. Good for him. And again, this
19:27
Speaker 1: is the same thing that's going on right now in Afghanistan. Um,
19:31
Speaker 1: we're well aware that cars I is totally cool. With
19:34
Speaker 1: the heroin production in that nation, which by the way,
19:37
Speaker 1: is far and away the largest producer of heroin or
19:40
Speaker 1: opium poppies um in the world. So it's still going on. Yeah,
19:46
Speaker 1: although we we donated a lot of are donated, I
19:48
Speaker 1: guess that's not the right word, but we gave them
19:50
Speaker 1: close to eight hundred million dollars for counter narcotics operations
19:54
Speaker 1: and measures. I'm sure every penny went to that scene. Um.
19:57
Speaker 1: So it's still going on, but we The reason why
20:01
Speaker 1: it's really disturbing that this is still going on is
20:04
Speaker 1: because we haven't learned a very clear lesson from this,
20:06
Speaker 1: and that's when we support groups that engage in drug trafficking,
20:10
Speaker 1: it invariably comes back to bite us in the ass um.
20:15
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned Laco Frida in Guatemala. The two guys
20:20
Speaker 1: who are running that show, running Guatemala as a narco state,
20:25
Speaker 1: we're both trained by the United States at the School
20:28
Speaker 1: of the America's Fort Benning, I think, yeah, right here
20:31
Speaker 1: in Georgia. Yeah, it's where they trained foreign people, no
20:36
Speaker 1: specifically South Latin America, Latin Americans specifically to train them.
20:40
Speaker 1: Pretty controversial, Yeah, because they trained them in assassination in
20:45
Speaker 1: assembling guerilla armies and destabilizing central governments, that kind of stuff.
20:49
Speaker 1: So we're training these guys to go fight the serviews.
20:51
Speaker 1: But then again, after the Cold Wars over, these guys
20:53
Speaker 1: are still going. They're still around. Um. The Mexican Gulf Cartel,
20:58
Speaker 1: which has become hugely violent and kind of big UM
21:03
Speaker 1: is run by a couple of guys who were also
21:05
Speaker 1: trained at the School of the America's So basically the
21:08
Speaker 1: world's biggest drug dealers were trained by the United States
21:12
Speaker 1: and the art of smuggling and all sorts of other stuff.
21:14
Speaker 1: They were trained in their craft. And I think the
21:16
Speaker 1: Russians used Escobar, right yeah, to to help guard their
21:22
Speaker 1: poppy fields, is that right? Yeah. Farc actually started out
21:25
Speaker 1: um guarding Escobar's cocoa fields in Colombia for the Median cartel,
21:31
Speaker 1: right yeah. And then apparently they're like, Wow, this guy
21:33
Speaker 1: is making a bunch of money. We're gonna go out
21:35
Speaker 1: on our own, and they became rivals. And then again
21:38
Speaker 1: Delta Force goes down there and oversees the assassination of Umar,
21:45
Speaker 1: which I don't mean to sound paranoid, like I really
21:47
Speaker 1: researched this article and all this is fact. Everything that
21:51
Speaker 1: is in fact. I've made like verbal air quotes with
21:55
Speaker 1: like this is this is documented stuff and so much
21:57
Speaker 1: money and legitimate publications. You know, it's all about the greenbacks.
22:02
Speaker 1: So much money at stake. So let's talk about Africa, man,
22:04
Speaker 1: that's the place to be these days. Well, if you're
22:07
Speaker 1: in the narco state. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Africa has really
22:10
Speaker 1: risen since the mid eighties. That was the first sign
22:13
Speaker 1: of a drug presence in Africa and Zombia, although it
22:17
Speaker 1: was marijuana in uh in Zombia at the time. That's
22:20
Speaker 1: how it started out, at least the gateway drug. Even
22:23
Speaker 1: when you're talking narco states. Sure, yeah, it's funny. So
22:26
Speaker 1: Zambia goes um Is exposes a narco state. Apparently the
22:31
Speaker 1: government wasn't aware of this one, but a group of
22:33
Speaker 1: prominent citizens were operating like a sub state. Yeah, sub
22:37
Speaker 1: narco state, just under the noses of the functioning government.
22:41
Speaker 1: And again very poor people, which is key. That's Yeah.
22:44
Speaker 1: If people don't have any money and all of a
22:46
Speaker 1: sudden people come and give them gobs of money, they'll
22:48
Speaker 1: you know, you want to be a drug mule, We'll
22:51
Speaker 1: give you this much money. Problem um so Zambia was
23:16
Speaker 1: the first to start in Africa and then the nineties. UM.
23:20
Speaker 1: The reason why it picked up speed in the nineties
23:22
Speaker 1: was because it was the end of colonialism and just
23:25
Speaker 1: ended within the last decade or so. UM. And this
23:28
Speaker 1: European influence and influx of money and exploitation UM left
23:33
Speaker 1: a vacuum economically, financially, uh. And oftentimes with central governments
23:39
Speaker 1: there's just a vacuum and nobody's doing any there's no
23:42
Speaker 1: way to make any money or anything. So narco states
23:44
Speaker 1: are setting up. Senegal was another one. In the nineties.
23:47
Speaker 1: I believe heroin and cocaine really were on the rise.
23:50
Speaker 1: And here's the stat that you you dug up. It
23:51
Speaker 1: was pretty good. In two thousand and eight, the Telegraph
23:55
Speaker 1: newspaper in England reported that the cost of a bribe
23:58
Speaker 1: to look the other a at the airport when you're
24:01
Speaker 1: flying in at into car with drugs nine grand per
24:04
Speaker 1: kilo of cocaine. Right, and Chuck just mentioned a little
24:07
Speaker 1: funny little word and it was cocaine. You know, associate
24:11
Speaker 1: Africa with cocaine normally, Well, yeah, that's true. You do
24:14
Speaker 1: now though, yeah, big time. And one of the reasons
24:16
Speaker 1: why UM, it's popped up in Africa's because West Africa
24:20
Speaker 1: is a perfect stop for cocaine en route to Europe.
24:25
Speaker 1: Right we talked about Europe having a huge problem with heroin.
24:29
Speaker 1: One of the reasons they didn't have a big problem
24:30
Speaker 1: with cocaine's because the Colombians and other South Americans hadn't
24:33
Speaker 1: figured out how to get it to them. Now, all
24:35
Speaker 1: of a sudden, West Africa's devolving into narco states because
24:39
Speaker 1: they finally figured out we need a port and West
24:42
Speaker 1: Africa's right, specifically Guinea Bissaal. This is this is, like
24:48
Speaker 1: we said earlier, the one true functioning narco state right now. Yeah,
24:52
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty million dollars worth of cocaine passes
24:55
Speaker 1: through the borders of Guinea Bissau each month, and that
24:58
Speaker 1: was in two thousand seven. And what is a hundred
25:00
Speaker 1: and fifty million dollars times two to them? Uh, they're
25:03
Speaker 1: gross domestic product. It's half of the gross domestic product.
25:08
Speaker 1: So the entire nation, all of the goods and services
25:11
Speaker 1: produced in Guinea Bissau and above the boards, equals three
25:16
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars a year and they have half of
25:20
Speaker 1: that coming through their country. In cocaine a month. Tell
25:25
Speaker 1: the story of how this started there so interesting. Uh
25:29
Speaker 1: what year was it? Chuck two thousand five? There are
25:32
Speaker 1: a group of Guinea Bissau and fishermen who were out
25:36
Speaker 1: um in their boats and there was a big old
25:39
Speaker 1: package floating or maybe several smaller packages is floating there.
25:42
Speaker 1: So they hauled them in with their nets and they
25:44
Speaker 1: took them back to land. They opened them up and
25:46
Speaker 1: there was this white powder inside that they had never
25:48
Speaker 1: seen before. They didn't know what to do with it,
25:51
Speaker 1: so they actually used it as fertilizer on their crops,
25:53
Speaker 1: which it killed their crops first. Really yeah, I know that.
25:57
Speaker 1: And then finally, one day, while they're still puzzling over
25:59
Speaker 1: this stuff, gotten knows what else they did with it,
26:02
Speaker 1: a man, a South American man shows up and says, hey, um,
26:07
Speaker 1: I believe you have something that belongs to us. Yeah,
26:09
Speaker 1: and uh, that's cocaine. That's our cocaine. I'll give you
26:12
Speaker 1: a million dollars for it, which is one of the
26:16
Speaker 1: entire gross domestic product, remember of Guinea Bissau. And so
26:20
Speaker 1: they say okay, and by the way, can we do
26:23
Speaker 1: this again? And that was the birth of the Guinea
26:26
Speaker 1: Bissau and narcos. It completely happened by accident, it did,
26:29
Speaker 1: I mean, can you imagine that? And Guinea Bissau is
26:31
Speaker 1: a perfect narco state. The cops literally in this in
26:36
Speaker 1: the capital um Bissau, it's the capital city of the country.
26:40
Speaker 1: The cops have five cop cars and they almost never
26:43
Speaker 1: have gasoline to fuel them. And they have a hundred
26:46
Speaker 1: and fifty million dollars worth of cocaine going through the
26:48
Speaker 1: borders with five cop cars. Right, it was a former
26:51
Speaker 1: Portuguese colony. The Portuguese left Um and Guinea Sau. There's
26:55
Speaker 1: not an airplane associated with that country, but they have
26:58
Speaker 1: air fields out on like barrier islands that are just
27:02
Speaker 1: totally unused, unpatrolled UM. And what's more, the military is
27:07
Speaker 1: completely in the pockets of the UM. I think they're
27:11
Speaker 1: mostly Colombians that took the place. Over built stucco mansions.
27:15
Speaker 1: They have UM Direct TV antennas on the roofs. In
27:18
Speaker 1: this incredibly poverty stricken country. They stick out like sore thumbs.
27:22
Speaker 1: They don't care. One of the reasons why is, like
27:24
Speaker 1: I said, the military is on their side. How did
27:27
Speaker 1: how do we know that? Chuck josh In September of
27:30
Speaker 1: two thousand six. Uh, cops, they're arrested to Colombian guys
27:34
Speaker 1: in a house with seven hundred keyloads of cocaine, and
27:39
Speaker 1: the soldiers came. They showed up at the police station,
27:42
Speaker 1: surrounded it and said give me the cocaine and the
27:45
Speaker 1: man and uh they did so, and they got in
27:48
Speaker 1: their cars, loaded up the coke and drove away. The
27:50
Speaker 1: cops watched the military load up the coke and just
27:54
Speaker 1: leave with the guys, said thank you for your time. Yeah,
27:56
Speaker 1: and that was it. That was um, that was the
27:59
Speaker 1: beginning of the and the military engaged in an all
28:02
Speaker 1: out war with the government and ended up assassinating the
28:05
Speaker 1: president after laying siege to his mansion for several hours. Yeah.
28:09
Speaker 1: Just this year, right March. Huh he was, he was
28:11
Speaker 1: assassinated in March. Yea. So there's no central government in
28:15
Speaker 1: getting Bissau. The Colombians are they're selling drugs, uh, using
28:19
Speaker 1: it as Actually they're not selling it in getting Bissau
28:21
Speaker 1: as far as I know. They're using getting bessions as mules.
28:24
Speaker 1: Who they're even more perfect because it was a Portuguese colony.
28:28
Speaker 1: They don't have to have visas to get into Europe. Yeah,
28:31
Speaker 1: I mean it's like it's like Pablo Escobar went, God,
28:35
Speaker 1: I need you to do me a favorite. I got
28:37
Speaker 1: some friends back there on Earth and they need a
28:39
Speaker 1: place in West Africa, need a perfect arcot Us, a
28:42
Speaker 1: perfect Narco state, And God's like getting Bissau. And I
28:46
Speaker 1: think you said the average annual income there is like
28:48
Speaker 1: five bucks a year for a civil servants job. Yeah,
28:51
Speaker 1: so it's clear that if you start waving just small
28:54
Speaker 1: amounts of money under their nose that they're gonna be
28:55
Speaker 1: a trabec and call so getting Missau one watch. I mean,
28:59
Speaker 1: it's just insane right There'm sure it's not a safe
29:01
Speaker 1: place to me. No, nope. So that's Narco States. Um,
29:05
Speaker 1: I have a headache just from talking about it. How
29:07
Speaker 1: about you, Chuck, I do kind of dance and it is.
29:10
Speaker 1: It was really good article. Now thanks man. If you
29:13
Speaker 1: want to read the article that I wrote, um and
29:15
Speaker 1: pour my blood, sweat and tears into you can type
29:20
Speaker 1: Narco States. That's two words in the handy search bar
29:22
Speaker 1: at how stuff Works dot com. And uh that means
29:26
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. Yeah, you know it's funny,
29:31
Speaker 1: is this morning? Emily asked me while we were getting
29:34
Speaker 1: ready for a day. What we're gonna podcast on it?
29:36
Speaker 1: Said Narco state? She said, what's a narco state? Not
29:39
Speaker 1: I don't know, And here, like eight hours later, my
29:43
Speaker 1: mind is about arco or at least enough to talk
29:46
Speaker 1: about it for twenty five minutes? Has it only been
29:49
Speaker 1: twenty five minutes? Thirty five minutes? Cherry's thirty five? Josh,
29:53
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this um DNA database London. Email. Hello,
29:59
Speaker 1: John and Chuck love your show. I thought you may
30:01
Speaker 1: be interested in little story in regards to the podcast
30:04
Speaker 1: about crime databases. I am from Yakima, Washington, but I've
30:07
Speaker 1: lived in the UK for the last decade. I mean
30:10
Speaker 1: train driver engineer. Lisa is thirty. She's an American train
30:15
Speaker 1: engineer living in England. Met interesting. So a friend of mine,
30:20
Speaker 1: who was also a conductor, had a recent experience with
30:22
Speaker 1: the British Transport Police. In regards to this, he was
30:25
Speaker 1: spat on by a member of the public who was
30:28
Speaker 1: abusive while carrying out ticket duties, so the police were
30:31
Speaker 1: called on the day and for weeks after, my friend
30:34
Speaker 1: was pretty much harassed by the police because they wanted
30:37
Speaker 1: a DNA sample from him for quote exclusion purposes. He
30:42
Speaker 1: steadfastly declined each request to the point where he put
30:45
Speaker 1: it in writing to the police he would get a
30:47
Speaker 1: solicitor involved to ensure he never had to submit a sample.
30:50
Speaker 1: The outcome is basically that he the offender, went unpunished
30:54
Speaker 1: because the police won't follow it up anymore because the
30:57
Speaker 1: guy who was attacked and spit upon won't surrender his
31:00
Speaker 1: d n A for exclusion purposes. So I just thought
31:03
Speaker 1: you may want to know here in England, even victims
31:06
Speaker 1: of crime are being coerced into giving samples. Keep up
31:09
Speaker 1: the great work from Lisa x x X from Lisa. Wow,
31:14
Speaker 1: not an x O buddy triple x. That's from Lisa
31:17
Speaker 1: and Stoke, Hammond, Buckinghamshire. And I guess that's a place, Yeah,
31:24
Speaker 1: you know I can spit on before and spit back.
31:26
Speaker 1: Did you get spit on by a cab driver? And
31:29
Speaker 1: nice really such a jerk and tried to charge me
31:32
Speaker 1: twenty bucks for like an eight block cab ride. I
31:35
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not giving you that much, and he
31:38
Speaker 1: was like, yes you will, and I I just like
31:42
Speaker 1: blinked and like put my hand in my face and
31:44
Speaker 1: sure enough there was a spit and I just spit
31:46
Speaker 1: right back into place. This in France. I thought he
31:48
Speaker 1: was going to explode, not even in a narco state.
31:51
Speaker 1: It was in Nice. Did you pay him? I paid him,
31:53
Speaker 1: so I didn't pay him twenty bucks? What a jerk?
31:56
Speaker 1: Spit on, Josh, no doubt. Yeah, he's got a meeting
32:00
Speaker 1: with me scheduled. Thanks, buddy, I'm gonna go find this guy. Yeah,
32:03
Speaker 1: let's go to Nice, all right? All right? Well, if
32:05
Speaker 1: you have any stories about spitting on or being spit upon, um,
32:09
Speaker 1: you can send an email to stuff Podcast at how
32:13
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands
32:20
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Want
32:24
Speaker 1: more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
32:26
Speaker 1: house stuff works dot com home page