02x13 - Express Delivery Ecstasy

[bunniefuu]

ELLSWORTH: Where you going today?

You bring anything with you?

San Ysidro is the largest land border port
in the United States.

All right. Have a good one, all right?

Whether it be pre-pandemic
or a post pandemic,

it's non-stop flow of traffic.

GALIANO: Hello. Anything to declare?

So this is the place to be
if you wanna find stuff.

Have a good day.

Anything to declare today?

Let me see your bag, please?

ELLSWORTH: Because of the state we're in,
with COVID being here,

there's a lot of people that are jobless.
Looking for work.

Thank you. Good day.

And that makes our job
a lot more difficult and interesting

Because when people are looking for ways
to secure money for their family,

they're willing to do more things than
what they're usually not willing to do.

LA PIERRE: In the last year,
I've caught over 50 body carriers.

But it is a big issue
that we do have here.

All right. Cuidate.

Stand in front of the camera,
take a picture, please.

What's your name?

Fred? Are you working right now, man?

You got a baby on the way?

Okay. Are you bringing anything with you
right now?

Have you been,
ever been in trouble before?

You ever had any heroin,
or crystal meth or anything like that?

Three grams of heroin?

Given his history, somebody like Fred,

who's trying to accommodate
for that new baby that he has coming

but doesn't have a job...

Let's go this way.

...might put himself in a position
where he's smuggling dope

or anything like that.

This raises the stakes for everything.

All right.

He says he's been clean for a while,

but he's trying to do some things
a little bit better in his life.

Fred. How are you?

My name's Officer Berrelleza.
I'll be helping you out.

And what were you doing in Mexico?

And you've been living in Mexico
for a couple of years now?

And what do you do for a living right now?

Okay.

Sometimes the people that we see
throughout the months,

you could see on one day, cleaned up,
they gain weight, they look very healthy,

and the next couple of months,
they lost weight.

They have certain features
that you identify from users.

Okay. We're gonna complete
our search real quick.

Put your hands right here. You don't
have... No, no, just put them right here.

And you don't have any weapons on you
or nothing?

Nothing? Okay.

- Did you smoke today?
- No. I don't like cigarettes.

Can you pull up your pants a little bit,
please?

Yeah, sure thing.

And how much money
are you carrying with you today?

Okay. Not more than $10,000?

No?

Everything looked clear.

Our checks were negative,

and we felt comfortable that he's
admissible into the United States.

All right, sir.

- Our inspection is complete today.
- Okay.

- Have a good one.
- Thank you.

LEGOFF: This one right here.

We're just waiting
for the gangway to drop,

so that we can safely board the vessel.

Here we go, finally, moving along.

COCCIOLILLO: Today we got information

that there was possibly a stowaway
on this ship.

Ever since the pandemic began,

we've been getting more stowaways on ships
like this.

OFFICER: What deck is the bridge?

COCCIOLILLO: It's likely due to
the increase of border restrictions

and travel ban
for non-essential personnel.

The pandemic has completely changed
international travel as a whole,

including immigration.

ROJEWSKI: We found
a lot of stowaways before,

so it's not uncommon
coming from Dominican Republic, Iran.

They're just trying to get in,
just beat the system.

There's another stowaway
that we got a couple months ago,

he came in through England.

Same ship as this one,
that's why we're hot on this one.

ROJEWSKI: Down.

COCCIOLILLO:
These ships are the size of city blocks.

It's looking for a needle in a haystack.

CRUZ: These are being imported.

So many places they could hide.

I can't breathe with these masks on.
[CHUCKLES]

With COVID, you know,
everyone has to wear a mask,

so it's even a hundred times harder,
but bad guys don't stop,

so we won't stop as well.

All right. These are all okay.
We'll look at the big machineries.

SAKAS: This is just some of the oversized
equipment that's on the ship.

CRUZ: Not only
are we looking for stowaways,

we're also looking for other
ill*gal substances, narcotics, currency,

anything that's ill*gal
that comes into the country.

COCCIOLILLO: Ooh. Hey, guys!

CRUZ: It looks like
something goes in there.

COCCIOLILLO: Yeah.

It's pretty difficult
to figure out what it is.

Ah, boy.

COCCIOLILLO: Well, we're satisfied
with what we've seen so far.

But there's one more level
on this ship down,

and it's the engine room.

This is the heart of the ship,
and there's a lot of hiding spots here.

K9 OFFICER: Come on, Nika,
come on, let's go.

OFFICER: Can you open the trunk for me
and the doors, please?

The vast majority of people
that come across are legitimate travelers.

They come in and shop
or any number of reasons.

But we have big seizures
that come across quite a bit.

OFFICER: Okay, sir. Thank you very much.

TURNEY: We have g*ns that come across,
we have money that comes across,

we have drugs in every part of the car.

We have to be ready for everything.

K9 OFFICER: Come on. Come on. Let's go.

ELLSWORTH: All right.
Where you guys going today?

Right now, we're doing
one of our designated commuter lanes,

where people go through
a background investigation,

they get cleared, and they're allowed
a expedited entry to go through the port.

- All right, bye.
- WOMAN: Thank you.

It has, and will be,
abused in the past and the future.

ELLSWORTH: Good morning. Where you going?

So we look for the same thing
that we look at, in everybody else.

My partner is Nika. She's trained to
detect narcotics and concealed humans.

Okay.

Good girl, come this way.
Good girl, come this way.

Something there, huh?

Put the car in park.
What are you bringing right now?

You got anything you need to tell me?

Well, it was a female driver,
fairly young,

she did not seemed nervous at all.

So what we're gonna do is we're just
gonna go into the office over here.

Come on this way, okay?

Give us just one minute, okay?

WATKINS: All right.
Let's see what we can do.

There's nothing in here.

Maybe in the dash?

What is that?

Yes, right there. There you go.

[HONKING]

GREENBERG: We have a magnet load
underneath the vehicle.

The vehicle was in a trusted travel lane,
which is known as SENTRI or global entry.

And we do see a lot of times
in the SENTRI lanes

you have what's called a magnet load.

And that means it's placed magnetized
underneath the car.

Sometimes with those situations,

the subject didn't know there
was narcotics on the vehicle.

If this vehicle was to make it through,
whoever placed the magnet load,

they would probably follow that vehicle,
let that person park,

and they would go ahead
and pull those packages off.

Individual has no idea what just went on.

- Yeah, we're gonna test it on our end.
- WALKER: Okay.

GREENBERG: It's a very dangerous drug.

7.66 kilos of fentanyl.

In terms of fentanyl,
that's a lot of dope.

We're gonna box everything up,
put it in evidence seal,

goes in a specialized vault
where that is held.

As far as the individual,
she's gonna get turned over to HSI.

They're gonna interview her.

STEVEN: My group,
our job is to interview the subject,

we find out what they know, or don't know,
for that matter,

and we wanna get the guys that are
really responsible for all of this.

Anytime we can take fentanyl
off the street is definitely,

it's a good day, you know,
just to keep going after them.

COCCIOLILLO:
This is the heart of the ship,

and there's a lot of hiding spots here.

Whoo!

Unbelievable.

As you can see, it's humongous,
it's loud, it's dirty.

Ooh.

COCCIOLILLO: It's exhausting and it's hot.

But we need to make sure
that nobody is coming into this country

that could possibly harm us.

9/11 just passed,

and we wanna make sure
that it doesn't happen again.

COCCIOLILLO: Just tools
that crew members use.

- Everything looks good.
- Yeah.

COCCIOLILLO: We searched all the areas
that were accessible

to a possible stowaway.

We're happy we haven't found anything.

We just tell them, you know, have
a good day, and we'll just be on our way.

Search on to the next ship.

It's just us against the bad guys,
so you can never be complacent.

Every day is something different.

GONZALEZ: Hello.
WOMAN: Hi.

[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

GONZALEZ: In the last couple years,
I've seen an increase of synthetic drugs.

The cartels are just trying
bring as much as they can.

You guys cross a lot?

GARCIA: She doesn't.

The opioid crisis and stimulants
is a very serious problem in America,

especially now during the pandemic,
wherein the demand on drugs, it's so high.

GARCIA: All right.
Look at the camera real quick.

WOMAN: Me?
GARCIA: No, her.

It is always important
to stop drugs coming in our country.

- Here you go.
- Thank you.

GARCIA: Uh-huh.

GONZALEZ: Hello. Where are you going?

Is that where you live?

And when was the last time you crossed?

In February?

And what were you doing down in Nogales?

Shopping? What were you shopping for?

Clothes?

And where's the clothes at?

You were shopping for clothes,

and you didn't get anything?

And how much money
you have on you right now?

You have nothing?

But you were shopping for clothes?

Okay. Who are you traveling with?

Boyfriend and friend, okay.

We're gonna go in there, okay?

GONZALEZ: It is strange.

They went to Mexico for shopping,
and they're returning without anything.

So that makes us think
that she might be doing something illicit.

You don't have an ID, where is your ID at?

So how did you guys
decided to come down here?

Come shop, okay.

And how much money you have on you?

You don't have any money?

All right. Anything to declare, narcotics?

All right, let's go in there

- with your... with your girlfriend.
- Okay. Yes, ma'am.

How come you're not carrying your ID?

Okay. And how much money you have on you?

No money.

Okay. Let's go in there.

GONZALEZ: And we're gonna go ahead
and send these three subjects

to conduct a pat down, just to make sure
that they don't have any contraband,

or did not carry any illicit drugs.

Right in there.

GONZALEZ: Do you have anything
that can poke me, hurt me?

Anything on your body or inside?

Okay.

Cartel people, they usually use
US citizens now during the pandemic

because it's easier for them
to cross the border.

Right in there.

Cartels, they use young
and inexperienced people.

They'll just pay them a couple
hundred dollars to smuggle narcotics,

and we just wanna make sure
that that's not happening.

GONZALEZ: If your subject
asked to go to the restroom,

that could be a red flag
because he can potentially dump the drugs.

We're gonna let you go,
but two officers are gonna go with you.

OFFICER: All the way
over there to the door.

He had nothing ill*gal, no narcotics,
no weapons on him.

DUNCAN: All of you guys went shopping?

GIRL: No.

What did you do over there?

DUNCAN: Oh, so you guys
went to have drinks?

[GIRL LAUGHS]

GONZALEZ: These three 19-year-old went
down to Mexico to do nothing

but a night out of legal drinking,
and they were just returning home,

and we're gonna let them go.

That's it.

DUNCAN: All right,
you guys are free to leave.

All right, remember.

DUNCAN: Passports, IDs, something.

Ready to go? Okay.

We look for any contraband,
agriculture products,

narcotics, money, instruments of terror,
anything like that,

prohibited from the United States.

So this morning, we had an Express
consignment flight arrive from Germany.

What we're gonna be doing
is we're gonna utilize our K9,

and we're physically going to inspect
the packages

and see what we come up with.

Guys, let's just lay these out
in a straight line.

We have to work quickly

because a lot of the packages
are overnight or two-day shipping,

so we have only a short time before
they need to arrive at their destination.

All right. Bring him in.

SANTOS: Bacchus trained on narcotics.

Meth, ecstasy, heroin, cocaine,
marijuana, and hash,

and now, Fentanyl.

An alert on this package over here.

CANZANO: Let's take... take it out,
let him keep going.

SANTOS: That's a good boy. Good boy.

[WHISTLES]

All right, good boy, good to go.

CANZANO: We'll do an exam
on this table over here.

Looks like we've got two toy cars.

CALAMITA: Little bit of weight to it.

CANZANO: Bingo.

CALAMITA: It feels like pills.

All right, let's take a look.

CALAMITA: And, yes, pills,
square pills, different colors.

CANZANO: We don't know what it is
until we get a field test,

we don't know what it is.

We have a positive response for ecstasy.

CANZANO: The total weight is 114 grams.

These pills look like Pez candy.

Child gets a hold of them,

and one pill ingested
could be a fatal dose.

We'll wrap it up,
we'll make the phone call to HSI,

which is our investigative unit,

and they will find out
who is ordering this,

who is distributing this, and ultimately,
we wanna put them in jail.

[HONKING]

MARTINEZ: How you doing?
MAN: Hey.

Good morning.

CREITOFF: At this point,
transnational criminal organizations

are getting away from the organics,
your heroins, your marijuana.

And they're going chemical-base,
including fentanyl.

The dangers of fentanyl, it's 50 to 100
times more potent than your morphines,

so the potential for overdose
is very high,

and we have to be much more cognitive
and conscientious of what we do.

MARTINEZ: All right. Thank you.

How you doing, sir?

Where you going right now?

Tucson, is that where you live at?

All right. What did you do in Mexico?

That was it?

All right. Do you have a business up there
that you have to get bring stuff for,

or just you went grocery shopping?

Okay. All right.

When was the last time
you crossed the border?

He lives all the way up in Tucson,

and to come down here
just to pick up some asparagus, he said,

and some fish,
just that, it stuck out to me.

All right. Come inside, right here.

It may be completely nothing,

so you wanna be as thorough as you can.

Lately, you know, they're trying to get
real deep into the concealment,

makes it real hard for us.

You wanna check the seats,
make sure they're not hard,

if there's packages in the seats.

Make sure there's nothing strapped
on the bottom of the seats.

MARTINEZ: Can you help me
get this out real quick?

- Got it?
- RAMIREZ: Yup.

MARTINEZ: Just wanna be sure
I didn't miss anything.

These cars, you know,
especially if they're used,

they'll put them together,
whichever way they can

to conceal anything in the vehicle.

Hey.

Hey.

MARTINEZ: Do you see, like,
a green tube in there?

There's some extra wires in here.

I don't see any speaker system
or nothing in here.

MARTINEZ: Yeah. Let me ask him.

Just want you to take a look at this...
this wiring.

It just looks funky.

Right up top, here.

OFFICER: It's a fiber optic scope

where we can look physically inside
the heater core or inside the dash.

Somewhere where we can't
really gain easy access to.

MARTINEZ: All right. It's good to go.

Lemme get him out, gonna release him,

nothing there I see,
so he'll be good to go.

The keys and your phone,
everything's right over there.

- DRIVER: Okay.
- Okay.

MARTINEZ: We got to try to stop
as much as we can.

That's the only way to deter
some of these people

from doing what they're doing.

It's an inconvenience on them,
and, yeah, we understand it,

but we got to do our job.

With the smuggling,
it's a cat-and-mouse game,

that's exactly what it is.

CALAMITA: That's good.

If you could put it under,
over, in between, or in it, check it out,

because that's where they'll put it.

- Good to go.
- ARCHIBALD: Nothing on it.

Hey, boss. I think I have something
over here.

Okay.

What do you have?

ARCHIBALD: Looks like
a white powder inside.

CANZANO: Powder?
ARCHIBALD: Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.
That powder definitely shouldn't be there.

Can we grab the Gemini?
We have white powder.

This equipment has an extensive database

that will identify many, many powders,
and other types of materials.

CANZANO: Bingo.

Ketamine, also known as Special K.

Ketamine is a schedule narcotic,
it's very deadly.

It's basically a horse tranquilizer.

It's also known as the date r*pe drug.

We're going to weigh the narcotics
within the concealment method

rather than extracting the drugs
for officer's safety.

OFFICER: 2.85 kilos.


is definitely a significant weight,

when you consider the fact that
only a gram or two

can actually comatose a person.

Good job, good job. Good hit, man.

They hide it, we try to find it. It's fun.

[RADIO CHATTER]

CREITOFF: Hello, sir. How are you?

[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

MARTINEZ: Hello.
Where you going right now?

- WOMAN: Tucson.
- Tucson?

- Yes.
- Okay.

All right. Thank you.

You wanna pull her in?

That vehicle is just a popular vehicle
around here.

We've gotten a lot of seizures off
this actual model.

Okay. And can you put in park for me?

[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

CREITOFF: It was a female sole driver
of the vehicle.

She stated she was just there,
helping her mother out.

[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

CREITOFF: She was shaking a bit.
She became very nervous and jittery.

[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

MARTINEZ: I wasn't
liking the answers I was getting,

so I decided to send her
over to the inspection area.

Bring her through here.

All right.

CREITOFF: The subject is currently
detained in the head house right now,

and we'll go through
with the rest of our procedures.

OFFICER: He's hitting on this right there.

So we're gonna take the vehicle
to our X-ray,

check that area,
and see what we can detect.

MARTINEZ: Just right there
at the stop sign.

Right now,
we're in the Z portal operator booth.

The Z portal is just another X-ray device
or X-ray machine that we have,

one of the many tools
that we use with the agency.

We're ready for the next.

All right, image is starting to come up.
Looks like...

It's not 100%, any type
of anomaly we discover,

we have to look into it, you know,
it could be nothing.

CREITOFF: We're gonna take it over to the
lift area now, and we'll check the vehicle

to see if there's any
narcotics or contraband,

ELLSWORTH: What were you doing in Mexico?
WOMAN: I live there.

You live there? Okay.

Hello.
[SPEAKING IN SPANISH]

JACOBO: Hey, hello,
purpose for your trip today?

How long were you in Mexico?

A few hours?

Okay.

Okay.

He was a little bit talkative,
and it's what we call a short turnaround.

He spent a couple of hours in Mexico.

Are you bringing anything back
from Mexico?

Okay.

- And this is your vehicle?
- It's my mom's.

The vehicle was not his,

and he had no real purpose
for being in Mexico.

Can you turn on your emergency flashers
for me,

and you're gonna go in the secondary.

So that engaged me to refer him
for secondary inspection.

Can you please turn your vehicle off
for me?

- Yes, sir.
- WATKINS: Pop the hood all the way up.

I'm not quite sure how to open the hood.

Let's take out everything
out of your pockets for me.

Hands flat on the table.

WATKINS: The gentleman was
a little bit nervous.

If they seem more nervous,
I may call for additional help.

They may be smuggling someone in,
or smuggling drugs.

Nothing shaking in the door.

I'm just really looking for,
like, any tampering.

Knocking on the hood because we've had
some people bring in drugs,

and actually put it
in the hood of the vehicle.

Sometimes it's hard to catch,

but if you knock it the right way,
you'll feel around in there.

All right. Everything looks good.

So at this moment,
I do have the call for a K-9,

because sometimes, we may miss something.

Is there an available Kilo
to screen a silver Honda?

Every car is different,
every person is different,

so we have to be on our toes at all times.

Okay, okay.

All righty, sir, you can get in your car.

K-9 turned up negative, so the gentleman
was good to go at this time.

All right, sir,
you have a good day, thank you.

DRIVER: Yeah, you too. Bye.

CREITOFF: Check that air filter area.

MARTINEZ: Oh, yeah.
CREITOFF: In the air filter?

CREITOFF: You can see we got
some narcotics. It's a large quantity.

As you can see, you've got
these tubes built in to allow air,

and there are still some.

They modified it, so that's non factory.

One, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight,

nine, ten packages, we're good there.

It's a good-sized bag right here,
of pills.

We don't know what it is,
but we'll determine that shortly.

CANZANO: Negative?

GUADARRAMA: Small hand tools.

Yeah, there's nothing in them.

I think I got something over here.

CANZANO: What have you got?

- Okay. False wall?
- Yeah.

CANZANO: If the officer doesn't do
a complete inspection,

they very well miss this,

but it's one thing
you can't hide is the weight.

Just get a little probe in there.

GUADARRAMA: Yeah, this is, uh...
CANZANO: Bingo. Powder.

GUADARRAMA: White powder.
CANZANO: Powder.

Guys, go get the Gemini.

Let's see what we're dealing with.

It's got powder right there,
just be careful.

Let's see if it pops.

OFFICER: There you go, boss.
Ketamine hydrochloride.

CANZANO: Here we go, good job.

Let's start extracting the other one,

see if the whole thing's loaded,
or just those two.

GUADARRAMA: Yeah. I think this one
has some more to it, yeah.

CANZANO: Got another one? It's loaded too?
Two panels?

Nice.

Let's just get a preliminary weight
on that scale over there,

if you don't mind, all right?

Let's see what we got so far.

Preliminary weight is 4.3 kilos.

Over four keys. Good days work, brother.

Good job, bro. Another one.

GUADARRAMA: Ketamine in and of itself,
it's a bad drug,

and especially with such a large seizure
of four kilograms,

that's gonna be a lot of potential victims
that would have resulted,

had that gotten into the wrong hands,
and had it been distributed.

Good deal, good deal.
We'll put it back together...

- GUADARRAMA: Okay.
- ...for controlled delivery.

The next step in the process
is we're gonna call

Homeland Security Investigations, HSI,
they'll come out,

we'll repackage all three things
that we've seen today.

Hopefully,
they'll do a controlled delivery,

and try to ultimately make an arrest.

Finding ketamine, finding ecstasy,

it's nothing more rewarding
than taking the stuff off the streets.

Those are the things that really excite us
as CBP officers.

CREITOFF: This time, the narcotics that
we're seeing are more chemical-based.

Fentanyl, carfentanil.

Chemical-based narcotics
are a much higher risk for us.

We get that in our skin, in our system.

If we inhale it, there's that high risk
for overdose on our end.

Right here.

All right, we'll go ahead and weigh it.

Final weight of the pills
is 4.06 kilograms.

Now, we'll pass off all
this to Homeland Security Investigations,

then they'll go a little more in-depth
within the investigation.

CAMERON:
Is she still here in the head house?

CREITOFF: Yeah, she's on the bench,
awaiting you guys.

- CAMERON: Thank you.
- Well, thank you.

She's what we would describe as a mule.

Somebody who's just carrying
the narcotics.

We believe that she is working
for an organization,

and that these drugs are destined
for the interior of the United States.

Fentanyl is extremely dangerous,

so this seizure tonight
is extremely beneficial,

and will likely save lives.