To The Grinder (Full Episode) | To Catch a Smuggler

♪ ♪ AGENT: Check, check. AGENT (over radio): Check, check, check. MIKE: Today, we're doing a methamphetamine surge where we're gonna be targeting traffickers of bulk methamphetamine. We have a few undercover buy-busts already set up. A drug trafficker is being rused to meet with our undercover. Our undercover is looking to purchase narcotics from him. We're heading to a parking lot. This drug trafficker is in the area and ready to meet with our undercover. Throwing on a cover shirt over my vest. That way if anybody looks into my car, it'll help me blend in with the public in this parking lot. All right, the undercover is pulling up now. MIKE: So I'm gonna be listening in to his wire. All right, the undercover advised the drug trafficker is in a black Honda. We're about 90 to 100 miles, uh, north of the Mexican border. More often than not, these narcotics, such as methamphetamine or fentanyl, are freshly smuggled in from Mexico. So we try to intercept those narcotics before they make it to major hubs where they can be distributed throughout the country. (theme music plays) MIKE: Here we go. The undercover is now approaching the target vehicle. Just made contact with the drug trafficker. We're concerned because we have a few civilians standing right around where the, uh, undercover operation is occurring. We have the drug trafficker now in his trunk. UNDERCOVER: Go. Go. Go. MIKE: All right, we got the bust word. (sirens) AGENT: Police. Get out of the car. I'm good, I got him. MIKE: We just took the subject in custody. This is the bag that the suspect delivered to our undercover, so we're gonna be checking that out. We're also gonna search his vehicle, see if we can recover any additional evidence. MIKE: So we just recovered multiple packages of what we believe to be crystal methamphetamine. Anything in the car? AGENT: No. MIKE: We're not seeing any additional contraband or anything else in the vehicle. So we're gonna clear out of here and head to a second location. MIKE: We've been seeing a lot of crystal methamphetamine in this area. It's not a new issue. Uh, we do come across it quite a bit and it's pretty dangerous to the community, so we try to get that off the streets. MIKE: We're gonna try to take numerous drug traffickers into custody today. Our next suspect is in the area. Uh, hopefully he meets with the undercover and we're able to make an arrest. VASILYUK: Hello. How are you? VASILYUK: Fresh leaves. That's not allowed. I am a JFK Agriculture Specialist. What is the name of this? Do, do you know? VASILYUK: Okay. And you use for pasta? Some passengers know what's not allowed and others are just not familiar. VASILYUK: Have a nice day. SHAHRIAR: The main focus is not issuing penalties. The main focus is trying to educate and to seize the food items to save our agriculture, to save our natural resources. OFFICER: Hello. Where are you coming from? OFFICER: Any food? Comida? OFFICER: Number 22. SHAHRIAR: I have to check which flavor you have. OFFICER: This is fresh. No fresh vegetables. AFROZE: Most of the time, they say, "No," they don't have anything to declare, but whenever we feel suspect, we bring them and we check them. Sometimes all the pests and germs were not killed properly. So we need to destroy proper way. OFFICER: Take a look at this. It's pork. From Singapore. It's not allowed in. OFFICER: You're good to go. TARAFDER: After seizing, we put this contraband in the bin and then take it to the grinding room for destruction. OFFICER: From Kazakhstan? OFFICER: Kyrgy? OFFICER: Kyrgyzstan. Okay. SHAHRIAR: Passenger is coming from Kyrgyzstan. They are randomly roved for agriculture inspection. SHAHRIAR: We found some fruit in their bag. Do you have any meat items? SHAHRIAR: After completing physical examination, we found apples and meat items. Most of them are beef and beef from Kyrgyzstan is not allowed. And some are horse meat. The horse meat is good. OFFICER: Fresh fruits or vegetables? No. Meat, fresh meat, raw meat? No. Okay? Because next time you get a $300 fine. You don't wanna get any fine. SHAHRIAR: Most of the passengers, they don't know about the regulations. So we try to educate them. This is our main policy, to try to educate about the laws. K9 OFFICER: Okay, this way, boy. OFFICER: How are you doing? RODRIGUEZ: So this is the Rio Grande Valley. Along the Texas border is the Rio Grande River. That river is the natural border between Mexico and the United States. RODRIGUEZ: It is a big corridor. There's a lot of main highways that, that will distribute to the big cities. There's San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Houston. You have to travel through this port of entry. BARRON: Are you guys bringing anything back from Mexico? BARRON: No? Okay. Thank you. TRAVELER: Thank you. RODRIGUEZ: This is a big gateway to the Valley, so a lot of narcotics does come through. OFFICER: What are you carrying in this bag here? TRAVELER: My bible and personal things. RODRIGUEZ: The biggest hitter right now has been cocaine, followed second by methamphetamine. RODRIGUEZ: Trying to catch narcotics, it's a cat and mouse game. The cartels, they have drones, they have scouts. They see what we're doing and then they adjust accordingly to whatever inspections we're doing. Sometimes you catch gas tanks and then when we start catching gas tanks, they throw us a curveball and they start putting it on tires, and then we start looking at tires, and they put it on dashboards. They're, predominantly, the same trends. They just go around in circles. OFFICER: So what you got? OFFICER: It's a red Camaro. OFFICER: You seen a gel battery before? OFFICER: It should be for a bigger car than a Camaro. OFFICER: Yeah, no, he said it was for the, for the amplifier or something like that. OFFICER: Yeah. GARZA: We're the Contraband Enforcement team. We're called out on moment's notice to do in-depth inspections on things that might be loaded. PINKERTON: Feels kind of light to me. GARZA: So we're gonna find out if this battery has been tampered with or it has not been tampered with. And find out, most importantly, what's inside. Possible glue right here. OFFICER: Yeah, it looks like it. GARZA: There's no date of manufacture either. OFFICER: Yeah, it's like just a generic, plain jane battery. GARZA: But it would still have a date of manufacture date on it, right? GARZA: So we've got a little crystallization in there. GARZA: Based on the crystallization, the way it's hardened and the way it's crystallized, it could be anything from crystal methamphetamine to, perhaps, maybe hard narcotics, like cocaine. You want to test that out? GARZA: Okay. This is our mobile x-ray van. So we take it from site to site, from port to port, as needed. To be able to scan the items that travelers are either bringing inbound into the United States or going outbound out of the United States, into another country. The image was not a great image. The image didn't show us any compartments or anything like that, or any isolated cells. It's just. THOMAS: One big, dark block. GARZA: Right. So, we'll field test it and we'll see if we can get anything out of that. Can you grab from there? Grab from here. Two, there you go. Good. Awesome, man. That'd be a negative reading for cocaine. So we'll get the, the, the, the crystal meth test. Let's try that out. So it should be immediate, okay? OFFICER: Should be immediate, yeah. GARZA: Yeah, so, nothing at all? OFFICER: Negative. GARZA: So, negative? That crystal substance, it had to be some battery substance. We checked all the angles. Not only did we do the non-intrusive inspection, but we field tested it and the outcome was negative. So this battery will be placed back into the traveler's property. And he'll be down the road. Unfortunately, sometimes we have to inconvenience law abiding travelers to be able to unveil the individuals who are bringing in contraband. So, no, it was not a surprise. 90% are individuals that are law abiding citizens. It's just that small few that are attempting to get by. VASILYUK: Do you bring any fruits or vegetables? VASILYUK: No seeds? No meat? No meat product? VASILYUK: Not any plant? VASILYUK: Dry or fresh plant? Any plant. VASILYUK: Dry? Dry? Okay. Let's see it. And where are you going now? VASILYUK: Denver. Okay. So these are the beans that you mentioned, right? TRAVELER: Yeah. VASILYUK: Beans. And you have, um, chicken flavor. TRAVELER: Yeah... VASILYUK: That's not allowed. Other products are allowed, but this product, chicken product, because of chicken disease, we are not allowed in the U.S. So you can pack this, uh, please. And I will start through this, okay? You have a second layer here also, right? What is in the second layer here? VASILYUK: Cookies? All second layers of all bags contains products, um, that they probably try to hide. You have a tea. You have a gravy. TRAVELER: Uh-hmm. VASILYUK: You have a spice. We have to check this bag precisely in order to find hidden product. And last bag. In the second layer, what haven't I seen? Spices. What is here? VASILYUK: So this product, we're going to seize and destroy also because it's not dry, okay? VASILYUK: Okay, done. You can pack this. TRAVELER: Yeah. Okay. VASILYUK: These two passenger are from Zimbabwe. They probably don't know the rules and brought this product that is not allowed. So no fresh fruits and vegetables. And when I go to ask you please always, uh, respond, uh, truly. TRAVELER: Okay. VASILYUK: Because next time will be $300 fee. Okay? VASILYUK: Have a good day. VASILYUK: These product, we will put on a special container here and then we will destroy it. MIKE: Apparently, the target is already in the parking lot. We typically like to get there first to get situated. So we have to be a little bit more alert when they are already there. Uh, because they're gonna be looking at who is coming into the parking lot, looking for any signs of law enforcement driving in. Target's gonna be in a blue Toyota. MIKE: U.C. is right there in the white truck in the corner. Target pulling up. Trafficker's parking right next to him now. MIKE: Go, go, go. MIKE: We have some subjects in custody. We're gonna bring them back and identify them. And we will interview them to try to figure out if we can get any further information about who sent them here or how that methamphetamine made its way to the United States. MIKE: It's exactly the same. You seeing anything in the car? MIKE: Looks like the drug traffickers brought their, their pet dog with them. We're gonna call animal control and the dog will go with them so the dog will have a safe place to stay, uh, until the suspects can ultimately retrieve them later. They're gonna run a K9? AGENT: Yeah. MIKE: The trafficker brought this large duffle bag full of what appears to be Appears to be quite a bit. Now the agents and the officers are gonna do a quick search of the vehicle, see if there's any additional evidence that might be inside the vehicle. Such as more narcotics, weapons, or any digital devices, such as cellphones. Are we clear? MIKE: All right. We just completed two drug trafficking arrest operations and we were able to successfully seize bulk narcotics. We're about to rush now to a third one where we're hoping to seize what we believe to be crystal methamphetamine. SHAHRIAR: Anyone has any food items? VASILYUK: Can I have your passport, please? There is a special operation today. We're checking flights from Bangladesh and they usually bring their own products. Do you bring any agricultural products? VASILYUK: Fresh fruits, vegetables? VASILYUK: Meat or meat product? VASILYUK: Thank you so much. We're concerned about disease that can bring in a food or plant or seeds. We try to find out which passenger most likely hide these products. How about this man in the gray jacket with box? I would like to check this guy. Good morning, sir. VASILYUK: Where are you coming from? VASILYUK: Bangladesh. Oh, okay. VASILYUK: Okay. Let's check a little quick, okay? Could you come here, please? With all baggages. Usually they say, "No," and when we open their baggage, they amend their declaration. Ma'am, any fruits or vegetables here? VASILYUK: Meats or meat products? VASILYUK: Any crops, rice? TRAVELER: No. VASILYUK: Seeds? VASILYUK: No, all right. What is here, ma'am? What is inside? (speaking native language). VASILYUK: Medicine. What is this? Is it seeds? VASILYUK: I asked you about seeds, sir. Seeds are not allowed in the country, please. No more seeds inside, ma'am? VASILYUK: We found some seeds that are not allowed to this, uh, country. VASILYUK: Okay, this is done. You can pack. For the future, fresh fruits, vegetables, meat or meat products. TRAVELER: Yes, yes, yes. VASILYUK: Seeds not allowed, okay? VASILYUK: No plant. Nothing like this. Thank you for your cooperation. Have a good day. OFFICER: There's tampering here. Refer to secondary. IGLESIAS: This vehicle came from primary and right now we're gonna do an inspection on the vehicle. The passenger is coming from Reynosa where he lives. He's going to work. The subject right now is claiming that he's in a hurry. That's usually a red flag on us. Trying to pressure our inspection. So we're gonna see what is in the vehicle. We usually start from the front and work ourselves around. There's nothing here. We usually tap to see if there's any, uh, if there's a solid feeling or That might be an indicator that something might be in there. We'll check the back seats. See if there's anything here. We see for any, any tampering, anything like that. Tampering means they removed something and usually those are, uh, indicators of there being something in the vehicle. And you can see there's tampering here. There's bolts here. Those are factory but they have been removed. That's an indicator there's might be something in the vehicle. We're gonna continue checking on the vehicle, tampering on the car. That's already a red flag on the vehicle. There's probably gonna be something in there. The bolts have been scuffed, like, they had been hit with a ratchet or That's usually a red flag, the, the seat has been removed. That's not normal on a vehicle to have a seat removed. But right now we're gonna call our, uh, K9 officer. K9 OFFICER: Hey, ready? That's a good alert. Good boy. You've got a positive alert. Secure the subject. OFFICER: 10-4. (honking) RODRIGUEZ: This is kind of a newish car. Not many people would remove their rear seat just for no reason. Especially on an SUV. They usually lead line it or anything to try and throw it off from the x-ray machine. OFFICER: Well, there's, uh, anomalies in the rear seat and, or it seems to be the third row seat, floor area. RODRIGUEZ: So, on the back seat area? OFFICER: Yes. Right here. RODRIGUEZ: Okay. OFFICER: In the, right here. RODRIGUEZ: All right. It looks like a big sized compartment. The images there shows really dark, almost the whole back seat. So it could be a lot of drugs, it could be a package or two. Sometimes these guys do test runs. Just gotta actually open it up and see. Right off the bat, these bolts are hand tight. Go from there. This will pop off. Yeah, like the bolts aren't even, so usually this bolt would probably go here. See where they've added this piece? This shouldn't be here. Uh, and the weld's been tampered. It's, it's lifted a little bit. Uh, can you see underneath the seat then? Are those bolts there? OFFICER: The bolts are off. RODRIGUEZ: They're off? RODRIGUEZ: Yeah? Oh, it lifts? That's what you're lifting? Can you see anything? OFFICER: Yup. OFFICER: Packages. RODRIGUEZ: Packages? OFFICER: I can see, like, seven of them. KHANDAKER: There are a lot of diseases in other countries. They may spread in this country by these things. VASILYUK: We try to protect our country and not destroying our agriculture. So we will destroy this product. RODRIGUEZ: This it? OFFICER: It's a pretty big load. RODRIGUEZ: Just by feeling it, it could be cocaine or meth. We'll have to This is the material that they use sometimes. Lead, to throw the x-ray machine off. So that way we don't see the actual bundles under it. They built it up. They added more lead lining here. And then they just used a wire to hold it all down. That way it won't fall off. We'll continue looking and we'll make sure that we're not missing anything. Eight, nine, ten. We're gonna transport it to a more secure location. That's where we're gonna weigh and we're gonna field test it. Thank you. Thank you. That's just an enclosure just in case there's any fentanyl or any other drugs that could cause harm to us. It's just a safer way of testing. So we don't inhale it or anything or it doesn't get in our eyes. OFFICER: It's positive for cocaine. OFFICER: The trend has been single narcotic loads, but we have in the past had more than one narcotic in the same load. So we test every bundle just to make sure it's all the same. Cocaine. Two, four, six, eight, ten. Ten bricks. They all tested GUERRERO: So my next step is to see if we can collect any prints out of that narcotic. We already have the violator, right? Who had brought the vehicle through our border with narcotics. So the next step is who wrapped this thing? It can be somebody with a visa, it can be somebody that is being priority deport, or somebody that's in the process to become a resident. So we're trying to get a second subject out of that. I already went to the vehicle and I throw some dust, trying to collect some prints and I didn't find any. So my next step is gonna be collecting any evidence that we can and send it for our lab in Donna, Texas. Look at it. You can see there's layers and layers, right? I'm only gonna be sending this wrapping. Hopefully at the lab, they can throw some chemicals there, so the print can come out and hopefully we can get a positive. They use all types of mechanisms to throw our dogs and our machine off. Sometimes they put cayenne pepper on the wrapping, um, to throw our dog off. Grease. And look this one had like some type of sand or something. Like you can see, it's not working anyway. We're gonna be sending all the wrapping to the Donna L.S.S. to see if they can lift some prints out of there. And the next step we're gonna weigh it to see how much is the total weight. 11 kilos of cocaine. So right now, we have the subject in custody and we're gonna be sending all the information to HSI, so they can see if this guy is gonna be prosecuted for those charges or not. Any load, any packages, is good to get out of the street. That's what we're here for. This is the way that we can defend our country. One package is good enough. Ten, that's way better. MIKE: So the undercover, uh, just pulled up here in the parking lot. He's in a white Dodge Ram. And he positioned himself in a good, safe area here in the parking lot. We have good positioning here and good eyes on him for his safety. The undercover told the trafficker where he's at and it sounded like the trafficker relayed that information to someone else. Which indicates he may be with another individual. MIKE: We got a potential vehicle matching the suspect's description entering the area. MIKE: So we got the target right now parking. Right next to the undercover. Now we're waiting for the undercover, uh, to observe any narcotics. They're at the trunk. He's saying roll in, roll in, roll in. UNDERCOVER (over radio): Go time. Go time. MIKE: We are going in. Hands up. AGENT: Turn around. Turn around. Don't move. MIKE: We have two suspects in custody. We've got one male and one female. We're going to interview the suspects to determine if we can get any further information. And then, uh, we're gonna search the vehicle and see what kind of narcotics they may have brought to the scene. So we've got several bags in the trunk. We're gonna see what we got here. Yup, that'll do it. Looks like, uh, crystal meth in this bag here. MIKE: There's a gun? MIKE: Where's the gun at? AGENT: On the other side. MIKE: Okay, all right. This is the weapon we recovered from the vehicle. It was found right in the, uh, front passenger seat on the floor. We've also located a couple of loaded magazines in the vehicle. MIKE: We're gonna, we're gonna, uh, take this weapon as evidence and, uh, run it through the system, see if it might be stolen. MIKE: It's a ghost gun? All right. AGENT: Yup. AGENT: Nice. AGENT: Any other electronics? MIKE: Any phones? MIKE: We're also looking for digital devices in the vehicle, such as any cell phones. MIKE: Because we can do forensic searches on those devices and potentially locate data on other traffickers that this trafficker's communicating with. Try to figure out exactly how these narcotics came across the border from Mexico to the United States. The agents interviewed the suspect. The suspect indicated that he had more narcotics and weapons inside of his residence. He gave the agents consent to search, so the agents are now going to head over there and see what they can find. NANDA: What you see in front of us is a sample of agriculture products that was seized over the 12-hour period. You know, we get flights coming from Dubai, India, Milan, you know, Dominican Republic. And this is some of the stuff that's not allowed. All the produce gets separated and the stuff that we can grind goes down the grinder. PERRONE: So we can't grind meat, these will get incinerated. We're looking to interdict commodities that could potentially have an adverse effect on the American agricultural system. Most commodities aren't regulated because of the, the fruit or the meat itself, but because of pests or diseases that the country of origin is known to be affected with. NANDA: There's some crawling live bugs here. At this point when we find a bug, we usually safeguard it and send it in to the plant inspection station for ID. They can ID it down to the species and the genus. It could be, you know, a bug that we don't have here. If it's accidentally introduced to our plants here, it can cause damage. Scoop him up. Yeah. It costs us a lot of money to eradicate that one bug. If we can stop it now, you know, it's easier. PERRONE: We've pretty much separated out the things that can't be ground for destruction and we're going to turn on the grinder. The water helps facilitate the actual grinding. Keeps the mechanism from binding up as much. Helps, sort of, flush it through and off to its destination. NANDA: Looks like red chilies being tossed in. PERRONE: It'll, it'll clear out your sinuses for sure. Once it goes through the grinding mechanism, it goes into the New York City waste treatment where it will go get processed like any other sewage. Cut the, uh, passion fruits. NANDA: Yes. PERRONE: They're not that ripe. The chemicals within that water treatment will render all of the pests and diseases, you know, neutralized and safe. That sort of treatment won't eradicate a lot of the animal diseases, which is why those have to be incinerated. NANDA: I love looking at the items I see, so I can explain it and educate the passenger. The reason I'm taking your commodity is because of the infestation. Show them the proof that I'm not just taking it because I, I want to take their lunch. We don't eat it. PERRONE: Nope, it gets destroyed. NANDA: This is what happens to them, it gets destroyed. (camera shutter) MIKE: So right now we're field testing the narcotics using a device called the TruNarc. It's a small device and it has a laser on it, and this laser can detect what kind of narcotic it is, even if it's through packaging. Came back as methamphetamine. We also recovered what appears to be a glock firearm from the suspect's vehicle. It appears to have a legitimate glock slide on it and the body might be a ghost gun. A ghost gun is essentially a counterfeit weapon. They're not legal to have. We've placed the firearm into an evidence box. Next, we're going to run the serial number that was on the slide of the firearm, try to figure out if it was stolen. How'd it go? JUSTIN: We just have various different, uh, firearms here. The individual let us know that there was an AR-15 type rifle that would be in the house. The other firearms we discovered, uh, pursuant to that search. He also indicated that there was fentanyl in the residence. Uh, told us where it was located. MIKE: Most of the fentanyl that we see, if not all the fentanyl, is being smuggled in through Mexico into the United States. Nice job, J.T. All in all, it was a pretty successful day. We had numerous successful undercover operations. Made some really good drug seizures of bulk narcotics to include crystal methamphetamine and powdered fentanyl. So now we will interview the drug traffickers to see where the investigation will take us next. The reason that we do these operations is because crystal methamphetamine, and also fentanyl, is on the rise. A lot of people are vulnerable to these kind of narcotics, specifically younger people. So we're trying to get as much of these narcotics off the street as we can to save as many lives as possible. Captioned by Cotter Media Group.