Arrests, Shut Downs, and Potential Bomb Threats (Full Episode) | To Catch a Smuggler

What else?

What's that I was okay?

The shipment's coming into deep inside in Mexico

not not from the border

and it's going I think it's going all the way to Miami.

He was surprised that I was sending him to x-ray.

Like he has never gone or

he wasn't expecting to be sent to x-ray.

There's only a few boxes on the front and by a few I mean

like two maybe three.

Why would you have just a couple of small boxes at the front of

the of the trailer of

full-size trailer that's going to have to go in and be looked at.

Open one of these boxes make sure this product look good.

Oh wow, it's it's a bomb.

Let's start moving people away from this

We have a suspicious package.

Please do not allow traffic until we call you back. Thank you. 10-4. You got it.

>> At this point, as you can see,

this whole area is cordoned off.

The fire department has an incident commander on site.

>> The bomb squad, they'll make an assessment

and then we'll take it from

How are you doing? Real sorry.

Stuff like that's alarming, man. >> Yeah, yeah.

We're just going to x-ray it real quick. Yeah. Thank you.

>> That officer that's walking up there right now,

he's going to take some

uh images using an x-ray system that they

And uh once they get that, they're going to have to bring it back

and get it developed

inside their uh mobile

mobile So, it does have a battery in it.

It's all the battery.

It's going to look dark.

I don't I'm sorry, I don't really see the darkness. It's ceramic.

It's part of the clock. Where's the ceramic?

It's on the back.

It's got a signature on the back? Okay, hold on. Let's do this. Which way?

Just by the looks of it, it looks like it's going to be some art.

The clock is still at the same

mark when we got the picture, so >> All clear.

We really appreciate you >> guys coming out here.

So, the art it turned out to be nothing,

but uh can be a little scary.

Yeah, we're all clear.

We can open up again. Right? Yes, ma'am.

Now that the bomb squad has given us an all clear,

this shipment is going to be ready to

uh be released here pretty soon.

We'll have some conversations

with the of how he can assist us in the future if he continues

to They this type of material.

Our job as frontline officers, we need to make sure that everything is coming

to the country and it's safe. Keep coming. Keep coming. Keep coming.

Where are you guys coming from? Uh Cairo.

Atlanta is one of the biggest transit hubs

in the United States.

What did you guys do while you were

Lots of pyramids, lots of museums. >> That's sightseeing. All right.

Have a good day. Thank you. Thank you.

65% of the passengers

that come in here internationally

goes somewhere Sir, that's a boarding pass? You live here?

I'm Salt Lake City.

You have another flight going there? Yeah. Okay. All right. All right.

Have a good day.

You're straight down this way.

Most of the drugs that are here in Atlanta are distributed

throughout the United States.

So, we look at good routes.

Usually when we're not busting down the big cartels, we look for those single passengers.

These are my my last few days actually working here at the port.

I'm kind of like taking a step to another direction,

going to the field office.

It's the equivalent to a civilian where it would be corporate, where you're running

more programs that influence

the So, I want to work a little extra hard to be more successful

and to go out with a bang.

Young lady, can I see your passport, You going Virginia? Yeah. Who lives there? My grandson. Okay.

How long you going to be staying for?

Until the 20th the 23rd of November.

You been here before? No, first time. First time? Yeah. All right.

Come with me this way.

We're going to go through your bags real quick, okay?

I'll take this one for you.

So, there's two reasons why I like her.

One, she said she was coming for the first time and I could see

that she actually was here last trip.

And then also her bag bright purple.

Can I tell you how many times we get them purple bags?

That's the ones I like the more.

Why do you think that is?

Because it's the cheapest thing in the store.

Nobody wants a purple bag.

>> So, they buy 10 of them, load them up, and say, "Oh, you're going?

Here, take this bag."

More than you More than you Okay.

All of these bags are yours?

Everything inside belongs to you? >> Yes. All right.

So, you say you're coming to stay with your nephew? No, my grandson. Godson.

How old is your godson?

He's 32 or 33 or 34.

How long has he lived here?

Um More than quite a few years now. Oh, yeah?

Who paid for your trip to come? My godson.

What is this, ma'am?

That's his um seasoning to the food. Oh, that's curry.

I can smell it from >> smell it.

Food items is a is a fake

We see stuff hidden in a lot of places, but anything with powder,

any kind of canned goods, any kind of food item, any kind of perishables

if you think about it, it's been done.

Who's doing the cooking? Me. Ah.

You come to visit and you got to cook?

When my mom comes to visit, she don't want to cook.

I love to cook, though. Ah.

What's your favorite dish to make with curry? Indian food. Yeah?

You going to make some while you're here?

Oh, you're going to spoil >> Everything seemed legit.

Can you close it up for me, please, sir? Thank you.

Do you have kids? Yes.

Where are your kids? One in Chicago.

So, I went to Chicago.

You went to Chicago? Yes.

So, it's not your first time. Okay. Okay. Here.

Kind of like told me why she was here last time.

Just kind of slipped her mind. Here's your passport. Thank you. Okay.

Have a good day.

Yeah, thank Stay warm.

We didn't find any contraband,

nothing that wasn't allowed, so we let her go. That's it.

On to the next flight.

We're going out to the City Heights area,

do a little bit of a directed patrol

right under Operation Fastball.

We looked at some of the overdose data.

It looks like that area has a fair amount of overdoses going on.

So, I think it's a good place to

do a little bit of surveillance,

getting the word out that there's resources,

and then also trying to stop some criminal activity, stop some drug smuggling Any questions? All right.

>> We're probably one of the largest task forces

in San Diego County.

We're made up of

a handful of different agencies.

We target areas throughout the county

that essentially there's either like a lot of drug activity going on,

and we're just trying to see if we can make something happen.

In San Diego, it is

fairly simple for people to come by illicit fentanyl.

We have a very

strong, steady supply of it from Mexico. Oh, jackpot. It's fentanyl.

Our goal is to limit

the number of fentanyl overdoses

in San Diego County.

And we see something that a lot of places don't see.

What we see is we see a lot of

people who are essentially smuggling for themselves.

If I'm a drug user,

I can purchase fentanyl in Mexico.

So, I think that is accelerating

the fentanyl problem specifically

in San And the end result is is overdose

Sometimes with these street operations,

it's just kind of the nature of of the beast, right?

Just sitting out here, seeing what people are up to.

I kind of just want to see what this dude in the gray sweater's

up to cuz he definitely handed that that guy in the jacket there something.

But, we'll see where gray sweater guy goes

and what he's doing.

Oh, he's got something in his hand, too.

I don't know what it might be.

Oh, he's got the foil in his hand.

All right, we're going to we're going to contact him. What's up, man?

You got that foil in your hand.

What are you doing?

Yeah, I was about to throw it away.

I You dropped it right there, dude.

No, I I would do that if I was just doing weed. That's all.

Well, I didn't say

Okay, do me a favor.

Just turn around real quick.

Can you put your hands behind your back? Yeah.

Okay, you're not under arrest.

I'm just going to check for any weapons, okay?

No, I have I have nothing.

I swear to god.

Just weed, that's all it is. Okay, relax, dude. That's my weed. All right.

Well, you can have that. It's California, man. All right. Thank you, sir.

So, do me a favor. Have a seat.

Before you go, we work for a team called the Fentanyl Abatement and Suppression Team.

So, our job is to try and and stop fentanyl problems

in San Diego County.

This right here is is an outreach card.

If you or anybody you know has a problem with fentanyl,

all this stuff over here is resources.

It's phone numbers you can call, it's websites you can go to,

and they can do things like get people housing, temporary housing.

They can do things like harm reduction, stuff like

fentanyl test strips, stuff like that, okay?

So, hang on to this and you are free to go.

Thanks for being cool with us for a little bit.

All right, and no more burnt tin foil, dude. All right.

We took the opportunity to give him a little bit of resources and that's that.

So, he's free to go.

Uh any chance for a pee stop? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

We'll jump in right here and see if they got a bathroom.

It looks like there's three people just kind of sitting here in front of

the Um they're just kind of digging around in their stuff and talking to

each other and it looks like one of the guys is maybe handing a

piece of paper over to the female there on the left.

Yeah, just saw a hand-to-hand.

Okay, guys, we got IDs?

Uh I have a

You don't have one?

Can you hand me that little piece of paper, my dude?

You said there's a little bit of meth in there? Yeah. All right.

And is this what you handed him? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And the rest of the meth is in your purse? Yeah. Yeah, okay.

I saw you take it out, that's why I'm asking, you know?

Is there anything else in your purse that you shouldn't have?

Okay, is it okay if I look and make sure? No, >> Okay. I'm allowed.

Is there anything in your shoes? Oh, no.

This is out of the female's purse.

It looks like methamphetamine.

Did you have another bag in there? Okay.

Have you guys been arrested before? I suppose so.

Well, I I do have a warrant.

Okay, you do have a warrant.

Can you stand up real quick for me?

Keep your hands behind your back just so we figure out what's going on.

So far we have a little bit of the

what I'm fairly certain is meth.

I saw her hand that to him.

Um and then we also have

the ball of methamphetamine

in her wallet there.

So, we'll do some records checks. Go ahead.

Your subject has no bail.

Your second subject comes back all around negative.

Your female subject comes back all around in negative. 10-4, thanks.

I'll be back on primary.

Black sweater has a

armed and dangerous parole warrant.

He's taking a ride to

The female here, she's going to end up taking a ride to jail

for the furnishing of meth.

That gentleman there, the one that

we saw her hand the meth to, it's a user amount.

So, he'll end up just getting a

When it comes to FAST and how we attack

fentanyl kind of on this full spectrum,

some days we go after the large

bulk vehicle loads of, you know, thousands

of pills, hundreds of pounds,

and some days we're out here chasing, you know, grams.

And that drug use is what's causing people to die.

So, they're all kind of equally important

when it comes to trying to stop overdose deaths, when it comes to trying

to stop this cycle of addiction and drug use in our communities.

So, successful so far. >> How you doing? Good. You two together? Yeah. Family?

Hey, just go sit down. You're fine. It's flight.

Just came from Kingston, Jamaica.

Jamaica is a hotbed for narcotics. Come through. Come through.

Looking for people who

either have unexplained travel,

short trips, long If we see anything that stands out for us, we're going

to be taking them, we're going to be escorting them downstairs and we're going

through their bags Hello, how are you?

It's not bad today.

You live here or you're coming for a visit?

Coming for a visit, sir.

How long will you be staying? Just 3 weeks.

Where are you going to be staying? In Weatogue, Connecticut. Who lives there? I my friend.

And how long are you going to stay with her? A a month. Pardon?

How long are you going to stay with her? 3 weeks.

I'm staying for I'm spending

um Thanksgiving with her.

How long did you stay the last time you were here? 2 weeks. All right.

Excuse me, if you would come this way.

She's being super nervous,

snapping her lip a lot.

Every question I asked her, she was pausing,

couldn't have good direct eye

So, we're about to grab the bags and see if there's anything interesting. All right.

Okay, you have no other bags? That's it?

No, this this one is two. Okay, short trip.

Have you ever been to Connecticut

Is this the first time? No.

The last time I was here, I was in in in Atlanta too.

You stayed in Atlanta? Yes.

And how long did you stay for?

Just for a little weeks. How long ago? Two. 2 years ago? Yeah. Only 2 weeks?

And you stayed for how long?

How long in Connecticut?

The last time you were

Well, I just spend a little time.

Now and then, you know, we come into people who are coming to visit

the US sometimes their intentions

aren't just to visit.

They may be coming here to work.

Okay, so was it 2 weeks or was it more than 2 weeks?

As long as you're honest, you'll be fine.

>> more than 2 weeks, to be honest. About how long?

A month or months, I would say.

A month like 3 months?

Like I I just here only with my friends. Are you sure?

She had traveled here before

and she had a

little bit of a lengthy stay.

She wasn't really forthcoming

with it right off the Here's your purse.

He's going to take you over to another room real quick, all right?

Some other officer is going to have a conversation

with you, all right?

My main mission is looking for narcotics,

looking for bad players.

So, we'll have the guys over there talk to her and if all she

did was come to visit,

she's going to be good to go.

But if she came here, she was she was working

with any this probably a problem and her visa will probably be canceled and

she'll be sent back to her country.

So, the next load is

next passenger, you know?

So, we're going to move on and just keep on working on other flights.

When it comes to processing the buses,

as soon as they arrive here at the port of entry,

every single traveler exits the bus

and once their bus

is examined, they go ahead and wait

in a waiting area.

Is the port area up?

We have a bus heading your way.

Every single bus that

passes through this port of entry

is scanned by the x-ray machine.

I see some square objects

located from the middle of the the bus floorboard area

all the way towards the end of the bus.

And that's definitely not supposed to be

This bus may be loaded.

There seems to be like some anomalies

underneath the seats, so

we're just right now at this point accessing

areas that we can't access

without damaging the vehicle. Anything here?

We actually had several buses that have narcotics.

Ranges from cocaine to meth.

We found them on floorboards,

on the side of the buses, within the walls.

If anything, we're looking up higher.

So, I just want to get a better check

Now, I'm trying to get these screws

to get loosened up, but they're pretty tight on here.

I wonder if it's this beam right here.

The beam that's causing that.

It's a support where the where the where the seats go.

You can see this layer right here. Here's your anomaly. Good eye. Good eye.

So, the anomaly is the actual

support on the seats

that are made differently that that we're used to. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

You have it here.

You have it here.

There's nothing here, here, here, here. It's only there.

So, we're good to go. We're done.

The bus will get all the passengers in and get them down the road

so they don't have to wait anymore.

You can't get them all, all right?

So, you just keep trying

until narcotic seizure pops up, I guess.

My last day coming to work here at the

I'm not going to go that far away.

We've been together for a few years before this port.

So, we met in New York.

He got stuck between two pillars and it was the funniest day.

>> Oh, she freaking You're still going to bring that up?

I have a picture.

Seven years ago, she still talks about it to this day.

It was so funny. Mad marine? Yes.

Hopefully today's the day.

We uh get a We'll check.

We're waiting on a flight coming from Ethiopia

that actually stops in Dublin.

It's a good flight for us.

It's a big transit route for a lot of the other Middle East and

all the other countries over there.

The main thing we're looking for is we're looking for uh narcotics.

Most likely we're looking for heroin. How are you?

How you doing today? How are you? Traveling by yourself?

Uh no, I I friend behind me. Okay. All right. Here you go. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

How you doing, young man? You traveling alone? Yes. Okay.

What countries did you visit on this trip? Ethiopia. Any other countries?

You traveled I've been in China. On this trip? Yes.

So, how long were you gone from the United States altogether? Almost 45 days. Oh, okay. Okay.

Just do me a favor, just hang out over here for me, please. Thank you.

We have six people up here.

So, we're about to head down and for further examination. Follow.

This one guy went like all the way to

It's a hot route from Ethiopia

going to China for drugs.

Also, they are producers of fentanyl, too, right?

So, if he was in China, what was he doing in

Right over here, sir.

Put your bags right up here for me, Okay.

All of these bags are yours, right? Okay.

So, you said you were in China.

How long were you there? 12 days. 12 days.

What were you doing in China?

Just uh visiting the expo. The world expo? Okay.

So, which part of China did you go to? Guangzhou.

What kind of expo was it?

>> It was the Canton Fair.

It's just a The Canton Fair? What's this? It's a powder.

What kind of powder?

>> We're scheduled to meet with

a uh known area drug trafficker who's scheduled to meet with an undercover

and do a deal for fentanyl pills.

We're uh getting ready to go get set up.

In today's specific operation,

this particular offender has reached out to an undercover

agent who is posing

as a significant drug trafficker.

The undercover agent will actually be

the one who's furnishing

the pills to this individual who's supposed to show up with a large amount of cash.

This type of reverse operation

is one of the more dangerous

that law enforcement and HSI use,

but sometimes the only way to lure out

those most prolific drug traffickers

is to insert themselves

into their supply chain

at a relatively high

We have this particular individual identified,

been engaged in undercover

>> to meet at a parking lot.

Agent, go ahead and radio in when you guys are set. I'm clear. I'm set up.

Uh once the undercovers have heard from

the subject that he's on his way and he's agreed to the meeting location,

we anticipate he'll arrive

here in a white Alfa Romeo, possibly

one other individual, and we will take it from

Yeah, he's using the parking lot.

All right, location is hot

and the subject is en route.

There's a white Alfa Romeo.

It's occupied with two uh adult males.

Looks like it's backing in.

The driver looks like that is what

The UC said they're in two cars

with one other individual in a Mercedes.

The black Mercedes looks like it just pulled in.

Yeah, I see it.

Looks like it's occupied by one. Yeah, that's it.

All right, they just look like they're

Driver from the Alfa Romeo is out walking towards the direction of the UC

wearing a black hoodie with looks like a white hat.

He's looking around quite a bit, but he's not not too too

The passenger from the Alfa Romeo is stationary for now.

So, there's one uh individual in the Mercedes now, one individual

in the Alfa Romeo,

and one individual is interacting with the UC.

Let's just hold and see what unfolds.

All right, the uh UC negotiated a price fan.

We're looking at approximately

a 50,000 pill deal.

10-4 Door of the Alfa Romeo is open.

The passenger is out.

They're staring right at us.

Hold on a second. Break break break.

Put all the cameras down.

Put all the cameras down. Here.

>> Walking towards six vehicle.

S2 is up staring right at us.

He's meeting with another guy in the Head on swivel.

He's looking all around.

S2 is at the Mercedes.

S3 is looking back and forth.

He's coming around your side.

He's looking at Did he?

Yep, turned around right at you.

S3 is getting in the Alfa Romeo.

S2 is in the Mercedes. Mercedes pulling away.

High rate of speed.

Looks like this one's back looking down at his phone. Possibly texting.

Subject is on the move.

Back in the vehicle.

Okay, Alfa Romeo is out. They burned surveillance.

Get out of the car. The UC's away.

We're going to move

just so we're out of here.

So, the UC's going to depart the scene

and reestablish communications with the

in the hopes that we can get a

another location for a meet.

Now, as with anything with these undercover operations, things change.

What you plan for to happen doesn't always happen.

So, we just got to be flexible.

All right, Alfa Romeo's back. Mercedes pulling in.

It sounds like both vehicles have

met back up and

and roughly in the similar area.

UC's on Our undercover was able to make communications

with the main subject

and seems like they've

made an agreement to move forward with the drug exchange.

Surveillance will be staying. Stand it. Do not move.

>> Do not get yourself burned.

All right, we're out of the Mercedes.

S2 is out of the Romeo and they're both

So, the UC is discussing the drug Now, now. I'm moving in. He's moving in.

Now, now, >> That's bowling balls.

We normally process anywhere between

22 to 2600 trucks a day

from any part of Mexico.

They usually bring produce,

uh automotive parts, and

parts for What do you have?

The tractor looks good, the floor

in the trailer, but when we come over here to the reefer,

we have this anomaly here.

Yeah, send it into a dock you know so we can do a better close inspection.

Find out what's really there.

Give me 1 minute.

We're going to use our terminate equipment.

I just want to see what the stuff is.

This guy got a bunch of stuff that looks kind of suspicious so we're

going to run some tests to to see if any of this stuff comes

back positive for narcotics. >> It starts.

I don't know what's that. Okay.

You can pack that up. All right, sir. Here's your passport. No.

Why are you so nervous?

No need to be nervous.

We're just checking your bag. Say that again.

A lot of police stuff.

I don't know what's going on with What you got?

So, this was a package

that someone gave him there

to ship to someone here.

That's like his whole story.

I'm just like This is suspect here.

It could be meth.

I mean, they're making meth out of it here now.

We're going to be testing it to see what it is.

It's just so Even though all the stuff that we tested in this bag

is coming back in negative,

we have to follow our instincts and what we're seeing

in front of us.

This guy's really nervous.

He really doesn't have good explained reasons for why he's traveling with this stuff.

He doesn't know where it's going to.

We're going to be conducting a pat down

to make sure you have nothing concealed on your body, okay?

The story's not making much sense to us.

So, we're going to take him inside, we're going to search his body,

and talk to him a little more in depth to find out what's going on with him.

Take off your shoes and give them to me.

We're just checking his body to make sure there's nothing

uh dangerous or anything hidden on his body real quick. No issues. All right. How you doing? I'm fine. You're doing okay.

You live here in the US, right? Yes. All right.

Tell me about your trip.

How long have you been gone from the US?

Uh How long have you been outside of the United States? Uh 6 months.

So, your family lives in Chad. Yeah.

You're not from Chad. No, no, no.

You're from originally from where? Sudan. Sudan. Yeah. Okay.

Why is your family in Chad? Did they leave? >> Refugees. Refugees? >> Yeah, refugees.

>> How many years in Chad?

No, almost um 20 years.

Oh, so a long time. >> Yeah.

I never see my wife long time. Mhm.

So, that's why I go to Chad.

So, you went back to go spend time with your

Wait, are you trying to get her to come here? Yeah. Okay. Let's talk.

I think he's good to go.

He's not like usually they're going to look away or they're going to like

like I think he's pretty chill. He's pretty chill.

As long as you're good with it, I'm good with it. >> I'm good. All right.

Everything that he's telling me seemed,

you know, pretty straightforward.

As far as narcotics,

well, he's clear for us.

Uh we we have we have no other interest in him. Is it? Mhm.

This is my last interview inside the room.

Starting Monday, I mean, I'm moving on to another position.

You can pick up all your stuff and I'll show you

um the exit how to exit out.

Always a good day when my guys are all working together.

Everybody's working for the same common goal, right?

We're all here trying to trying to find something, find the next smuggler.

I'm one of those guys who's been doing it the longest here.

So, I think uh it's it's good to have someone to lean on to, right?

And whether I'm here or not, they can always lean on me.

It's not a I'm going to search your passenger. Block traffic, please. All right.

Let's just get these cars parked on the side and then we'll get them

all we'll get towing arranged. All right.

Pat these guys down and get them cleaned up.

So, both cars were stopped,

the white Mercedes and the white Alfa Romeo.

Both cars have evidence within them, so we're going to arrange for tow for

the two So, as you can see down here,

we have the proceeds

from the drug transaction

on the floorboard here in the Mercedes in this kind of zipper bag.

The drugs are at a separate secure location and those are going to be

transported down for processing. Okay.

Go ahead and pull up the transport vehicle and then we'll walk them both up to you.

The suspects in custody here are going to be taken for interviews,

processing, and eventual booking into jail.

We're headed to the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

The plan is to start gathering

and processing all the evidence so we can make sure that the US Attorney's

Office gets everything they need to prosecute these offenders.

Wait now, let me check uh

the reefer unit just to see if there's any tampering.

If it's loaded they might add

like a GPS tracking device

on on the unit itself.

But, in this case, everything's looking normal.

There's no tampering, no

GPS's The anomalies are in this specific area.

So, I'm just going to

uh make some holes just to see if

uh if we hit something.

>> There's such a crystallized powder.

I don't know if it's a

part of the styrofoam.

But, we need to remove the paneling

so we can inspect the actual unit from the Oh, yeah. It's loaded.

>> It was a sweat load.

This is the last the last one. All right.

We think because of the makeup of the packages,

it might be cocaine,

but we're not sure.

So, we have to verify

what we have here.

So, we've got the

narcotic in a secured container

for our own protection.

It takes a very little for this Gemini to detect.

He doesn't have to put just a few grains on there really and this

thing will Analysis in progress.

It's positive for cocaine. We'll weigh it.

>> A weighing 28.88 The subject was escorted

to Hidalgo Port of Entry for a withdrawal.

We're going to be seizing his tractor,

the trailer, and he's going to be sent back to Mexico.

For us, doing our job

is a feeling of um

of safety for the kids

to get those drugs off the street. Feels really good.

These are the fentanyl pills

that the defendant took possession of.

Now, they're needed for evidence to show that

in fact during this law enforcement operation,

the defendant took possession

of these specific uh pills,

and he intended to take them and distribute them.

These particular drugs were previously

seized during a separate law enforcement operation,

and we're repurposing them for use

to get more criminals.

We find that using real drugs

with real markings, real packaging

uh saves us the

you know, the need to doctor up something fake

uh when we can use the bonafide thing

during undercover This is the bag that was recovered from the vehicle.

We're going to go ahead and remove the funds that were recovered.

Ultimately, money that's seized during the

the process of uh criminal investigation

is held by uh Customs and Border Protection,

and then it goes through administrative judicial process

to determine uh whether the the money will ultimately be forfeited

>> uh after the investigation is over. I counted $13,040.

Through asset forfeiture, we were able to seize vehicles.

The value of the cars

um is still yet to be determined, but we're looking at over a six-figure seizure today alone.

Today, we're fortunate to be able to take significant

drug traffickers off the streets who traffic

fentanyl pills in at least the tens of

Our unique location here on the southern border

and one of the busiest drug trafficking corridors in the world

means that some of the most significant

players uh operate here.

Those significant offenders are really

the reason why fentanyl is as pervasive as it is.

Uh so, by taking out that critical link in the chain,

we're able to hopefully have an impact,

not only just locally, but

nationally on this crisis.