SYSK Selects: How Narco States Work

this is a really good episode. Uh. Narco States is a very dense topic, and it's kind of thing where if you kind of throw some of this information around at dinner party, everyone is going to thank you. Are super cool. So please to enjoy How Narco States Work. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as Charles W. Zonkers Bryant's Soners. Yeah, I'm always. I just sit here with wondering what you're

gonna call me? How's it going? Great? Sir? Are you pretty good? He looked good. You're as good as you were ten minutes ago when he recorded that other podcast. Chuck, have you ever been to Mexico? I have been to Mexico. Have you been to t J. I've been to t J've been to Warez, No just t J and like the Baja area. Okay. Well, had you gone a little further east along the border to Warez, okay, you would have been in a narco state. Yes. And you know what I'm ashamed to say, Josh, that I did not

know what an arco state was. Really. I've heard of it, but I didn't really know what it was. I can't remember if I pitched this one or if Channel did, but it's a good well done sir, Thank you very much, thank you. Yeah. Um, well, Chuck and I are talking about narco states, as you probably were tipped off by

the title of this podcast. And for those of you who don't know what anarco state it is, uh, Josh, I'm just gonna give my own definition, which is, it is a country where they sort of allow drug trafficking and in some cases even participate in the drug trafficking. Yeah. And it's it's very very rarely an entire country. Um. Most of the time, it's like a real region of country,

very small area city. Although there are cases where there have been narco states, like fully functioning countries that are run by drugs, Like the their gross domestic product is almost fully funded by drugs. The government's in on it, military is in on it. Um And right now, as far as I could tell, there's only one functioning narco state in the world. Afghanistan. No, it's close though, uh Guinea, bissauth Oh yeah sure. In Africa, yeah, West Africa. I

can't wait to tell that story's good on so Okay. So, a narco state, as Chuck said, is basically any area where the government is either directly involved or turning a blind eye to drug traffic. Yes, and Central Mexico, Central America, South America always known as being rife with this kind of thing, because chances are, if you're doing drugs in the US, chances are it did not come from inside

the United States. No, unless it was meth or pot. Yeah, and even then, chances are it probably didn't, although there was a lot of domestic U meth labs and and pot farms and stuff like that. Yeah, but yeah, the chances are it came through Mexico. If not from Mexico, Mexico didn't used to be nearly as violent, you know, Warez, which we were talking about, Um had I think three hundred murders in two thousand seven, and then all of a sudden there was a drug war starter that's still

going on now. And in two thousand and eight they had murders. Yeah, that's a heck of a stat Yeah. Yeah, Detroit had like less than three hundred murders in two thousand seven. To Detroit safer than someplace. This is safer than Warez. Believe it or not, Well, thank god for that. I didn't get the stats on temped though, so I can't say right. Yeah, so um. One of the reasons why uh, And we'll see that American intervention one way or another, UH usually has an impact on the formation

of a narco state. But one of the reasons why Warez and some of the other border towns along Mexico have turned into narco states, UH is because the Coast Guard in the d e A effectively shut down the Caribbean in the nineties. That was the main route from um South America to the US for coke, and Americans love coke. A lot of the world does. And one thing that I learned from reading this article and just by living as a human in the world is that drugs will find a way to get into the country,

they definitely will. Like for example, when the Caribean was shut down, they started moving in through Central American through Mexico came another run way or another. And the reason why is um, Well, like I said, Americans love cocaine. We consume fort of the global supply of it every year. Does a lot of cocaine loves the junk too? Oh? No, Europe is the heroine. Yeah, they have eleven percent of the global population in Europe, but they have one third

of the world's heroin addict. Big deal. Yeah, it's weird how it's localized like that. It is, But think about it. Let's think about how much closer Europe is to the heroin producing countries of the South Asia, and think about how close we are to the cocaine producing countries of South America, which affects the price. Of course it definitely does. Um, you want to give them that stat Josh, a kilogram of uncut cocaine, as you hear on the cop shows,

has it goes for dollars? That same kilo fetches uh about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in Moscow. That's a big markup. It's a huge markup, is that street value as they call it. And I'm sure those are way off. I'm sure you could get a kilo for a lot less or pature or whatever. But um, one of the things that FEDS like to do is pump up their numbers. Yeah, yeah, so that they can get more funding. But yeah, you can definitely get a kilo of cocaine in America a lot cheaper than you can

uma in Russia. Yeah, so Chuck, Um, all of that, all of those kilos add up pretty quickly. And the drug trade, the global drug trade UM makes an estimated three hundred billion dollars a year. That's nuts. That is a lot of casts. You could bail out two A I G s for that. So, Chuck, we talked about, um the narco state being ah an area where government's either looking the other way, or selling drugs directly or helping them out, maybe just hating them. Um, there's a

big problem with this, I would say so. But well, I mean you just think about it. You're like, oh, the government is not supposed to do that. To stop and think why why the why the government's not supposed to do that? Yeah, Well, because they're supposed to protect

their citizens. Yeah, there's something that um Thomas Hobbs called the social contract, and basically it said, like in exchange for certain freedoms, like we can't just do anything we want to write that we give to the government, We're

going to give that power to the government. One of those things is the state violent the state monopoly on violence, where like the government can put you in jail, the government can um kill you, execute you, but the government is supposed to be the only one who does it. So if somebody, you know, shoot your kid, you don't go shoot them in the head. You can get the

government to go after this guy and incarceraate or kill him. Right. Yeah, And in the civilized world, the social contract is kind of how we developed as nations of the world, and it works pretty well for the most part, we'll say, I mean, that's a whole other podcast right there. But in Narco States, it's a little different because that's a little bit of a sham. They kind of have that

contract as long as it doesn't interfere with the drug trade. Right, the government's given it's uh, it's power to drug traffickers at the expense of the people. They're supposed to be protecting and representing, So that's number one. Right, So how does this happen? Right? Well, one reason why that might happen. There's a bunch of different ways that could happen. But one reason is if, um, say, you're in Colombia and all of a sudden, you've heard the term Columbian necktie,

I have. Yeah, all of a sudden, your judges in your council people, and your and your politicians are getting knifed and executed in back alleys by the dozens. All of a sudden, the government might say, wait a minute, we might want to not go after these drug traffickers, right because if the state is doesn't have a monopoly on violence any longer, if you know, paramilitary groups affiliated with drug traffickers do, yeah, then yeah. Apparently in Colombia

they came at the justice building with tanks. Yeah. This wasn't the military, This was a rebel faction. Yeah. I think it was Fark that did it, right, Josh Fark. That is f a r C. That stands for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia translated into English. Uh. And they're actually a communist guerrilla group, an army. They are and um, they actually got into drug trafficking in the eighties,

I think indeed. Um, So okay, So you have a huge, armed, guerrilla army attacking your justice department in the country's capital. That's a good way to get a narco state started, right. Sometimes you're bribed into it. That's another one too. All of a sudden, if your coffers are being filled, a lot of politicians are willing to look the other way. Um. And also, if your intelligence services become compromised by drug traffickers,

you're in big trouble. Yea. If those are corrupted, you're finished. Yeah, because the intelligence services are usually towards the top of the military hierarchy, and if they're corrupted, they can turn the entire military against you know, the government, which there is a division. Um. And after that happens again, you're in big trouble in a narco state. Conform Yeah, plus state.

They know a lot about smuggling, the intelligence community, and if all of a sudden they're on your side, then all of a sudden, you know a lot about smuggling, right, Yeah, it's it's uh. You have to know how to get people or arms or something in and out of countries about being detected. So you know where all the airfields are, you have access to planes and boats and stuff. You just start throwing kilos a coke in there, and all

of a sudden, you're a drug smuggler. Yeah. Um. And it's kind of tough for us to think about this in the United States because we've had a pretty stable government for the last couple of hundred years. But uh, in in areas, in countries where there's been high government turnover and lots of internal conflict. Um, let's say, infrastructure like roads, bridges, water, electricity, these things have been cut throughout these civil wars and the government's too poor to

fix them. All of a sudden, the government's delegitimized, and another like a rebel faction can step in and say, hey, we're taken over, and by the way, we love drug traffic. I got a couple of stats for you along those lines. Guatemala endured a thirty six year long civil war, El Salvador in a twelve year long civil war. In Nicaragua had one that lasted nineteen years. And so what this means is it's a very unstable region, easily swayed by

whoever has the power drug traffickers or the government. And it also means there's a lot of guns. Yeah, and a lot of former veterans that are out of work, but you know how to use those guns and can serve as a guerrilla army. Yeah. And a lot of

times these are poor countries too. So in fact, I would say almost every time it's a poor country, and it's it's you don't have to be genius to figure out you got guns, you got these former military guys, you've got really poor people, and you have loads of drugs. It's worth a lot of money. It's really not too

hard to devolve into a narco state. No, it's not. Uh, And of course the root of all narco states is money, either like Chuck said, bribes that kind of thing, or um the GDP Afghanistan um, apparently their g d P is like six billion annually, which what's the United States? I think has fourteen trillion GDP? That um, So it's kind of like, holy cow, how do you live like that? They've been doing pretty good, but half of that has

been through heroin. So cars I hummed cars, I who was Um, I'm gonna make air quotes elected president of Afghanistan twice. I made air quotes again, right, yeah, re elected. Um. He has is well known for turning a blind eye while saying we need to get rid of these poppies. Um. And the US is like, Okay, we'll let us spray, and he's like, non't no, we have to do it

all by hand. Um. And apparently the American forces over there, Um, I have to well, the d e as over there as well, but the American commanders of the armed forces in Afghanistan don't let the d e A in at all. And they're frustrated pulling their hair out because they're not getting any support whatsoever. And it's kind of one of

those things, like everybody knows that Afghanistan produces poppies. As a matter of fact, in two thousand and six, they produced the highest poppy harvest in recorded human history just a couple of years ago. It was double what it had been the year before. So clearly they're not pulling enough by hand. No, because cars I won't let them spray overhead. Yeah, which is I should explain that that's a common method to uh, like you crop dust fields

to to put chemicals on them. You do the same thing if you want to eradicate and kill them, right, and it is very effective. It's worked in Colombia. Lumbia, Uh finally has a president. I shouldn't say finally, but Columbia as a president is very sympathetic and friendly to the US and he's let the d e A in there and they have eradicated a lot of um cocoa fields using that that method. Yeah, so it does work.

But cards I was like no, And apparently there's been more and more and more reports of the people who are involved in the central government are all drug lords or most of them are drug lords too. So Afghanistan is teetering right on the edge of being a narcostate, if it's not already so contributing to half of your GDP. That's another reason for a narco state to develop. Yeah, and well, since we're on money, another thing that money brings is uh, bribes and corruption like we were talking about.

And I have to mention this because you uncovered this great fact from Guatemala. The federal judge that's just hard to believe. The federal judge was accused of accepting thousands of dollars in bribes to dismiss a drug trafficking case and at the end of the SEED dismissed the case. At the end of this trial, Uh, this judge was seen driving the defendant from court. Yeah, so it goes

pretty deep. Yeah, And Guatemala UM is a de facto narco state right now, UM and in Central America itself, which is, like we said, since the UM, since the Caribbean has been shut down, Central America started play a really key role as a as a supply line between South America and North America. UM. And actually, because of all those conflicts that you mentioned earlier, there's now a ratio of five to one illegal unregistered guns to guns held by UM legitimate police and armed forces. So let's

keep an eye on Central America. That means trouble is coming. Okay, So Central America UM again we talked about how it's been destabilized by conflict. There's tons of guns, there's terrible infrastructure, there's plenty of drugs and narco states and you know

what else did in Guatemala. They have corrupt government officials there have drafted legislation that prevents UM extradition, and as we know, extradition is a really valuable tool for us when we're trying to prosecute these drug lords and they said he can't do it. So that kind of says, right there, let us make our money. Yeah, us stay out of her hair. Once you have the Congress, in the judiciary in your pocket, that's even more valuable in

the military, although the military is a really good first step. Yeah, that's true. Um all right, so Chuck. One of the reasons why you might notice that UM Central and South America keep popping up. One of the reasons why is because UM Central America specifically was a Cold War battleground where the U S and the U s SR fought

one another in proxy wars UM through throughout the Cold War. Basically, both countries just completely used nations in Central and South America to fight, fight one another, try to bleed one another out. You know what that means. What that means that these people that live there being trained by either Russian or American military. They're being supplied with guns and

ammunition and all the things that you need. Once you stop and say could wars over all those guns and trained dudes are still there, right, and they're like, well, what should we do with all this stuff. Yeah, and not only that, we are not getting funding from the Soviets of the Americans anymore, but we still the war didn't end for them. The conflict didn't end for them, The power struggle didn't end for them, just because the

Americans and the Soviets suddenly lost interest. It's still going on and there they are funding it through drugs right um and also uh, the US backed right wing paramilitary groups or right wing um dictatorships, and the Soviets of course backed left wing groups like farc Um. And farc has a reputation for being extremely brutal. They use child soldiers, they engage in kidnappings, bombings, um kill their own people. Sure, at one point, um they offered a thousand dollars to

anybody who killed the government official. So they were outsourcing their terrorism and their communists, and they were supported by the Soviet So of course they're horrible. The US supported equally brutal regimes and groups like Lack of Frida. You know about them there Guatemala. Yes, they were very much supported by the US and they helped kill as many as two hundred thousand of their own people during that civil war. Josh Lacka Frida wasn't the only one, right.

Remember the nineteen eighties when President Reagan launched the War on drugs? You know what was going on. At the same time, we were providing funding and weapons for the same anti communist paramilitary groups that were producing and distributing this cocaine. Yeah right, at the same time. Yea, Yet we were fighting a war on drugs. Ye doesn't add up, doesn't Not only that, you remember Manuel Noriega and we

went down to Panama in nine nine. Delta Force was their special forces was there, um, and we captured him and then put him in prison in Miami for a couple of decades. He was a CIA asset for eight years. Yeah, he was operating a narco state under our supervision. Yeah,

you could say. Uh. And then once news leaked out to the general public that he was a drug dealer, Um, we went down and reroved him from power, right and gave I believe he's still in prison, right, No, he just got out really yeah, okay, like a year ago or something like that. Good for him. And again, this is the same thing that's going on right now in Afghanistan. Um,

we're well aware that cars I is totally cool. With the heroin production in that nation, which by the way, is far and away the largest producer of heroin or opium poppies um in the world. So it's still going on. Yeah, although we we donated a lot of are donated, I guess that's not the right word, but we gave them close to eight hundred million dollars for counter narcotics operations

and measures. I'm sure every penny went to that scene. Um. So it's still going on, but we The reason why it's really disturbing that this is still going on is because we haven't learned a very clear lesson from this, and that's when we support groups that engage in drug trafficking, it invariably comes back to bite us in the ass um.

Like I mentioned Laco Frida in Guatemala. The two guys who are running that show, running Guatemala as a narco state, we're both trained by the United States at the School of the America's Fort Benning, I think, yeah, right here in Georgia. Yeah, it's where they trained foreign people, no specifically South Latin America, Latin Americans specifically to train them.

Pretty controversial, Yeah, because they trained them in assassination in assembling guerilla armies and destabilizing central governments, that kind of stuff. So we're training these guys to go fight the serviews. But then again, after the Cold Wars over, these guys

are still going. They're still around. Um. The Mexican Gulf Cartel, which has become hugely violent and kind of big UM is run by a couple of guys who were also trained at the School of the America's So basically the world's biggest drug dealers were trained by the United States and the art of smuggling and all sorts of other stuff. They were trained in their craft. And I think the Russians used Escobar, right yeah, to to help guard their

poppy fields, is that right? Yeah. Farc actually started out um guarding Escobar's cocoa fields in Colombia for the Median cartel, right yeah. And then apparently they're like, Wow, this guy is making a bunch of money. We're gonna go out on our own, and they became rivals. And then again Delta Force goes down there and oversees the assassination of Umar, which I don't mean to sound paranoid, like I really researched this article and all this is fact. Everything that

is in fact. I've made like verbal air quotes with like this is this is documented stuff and so much money and legitimate publications. You know, it's all about the greenbacks. So much money at stake. So let's talk about Africa, man, that's the place to be these days. Well, if you're in the narco state. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Africa has really risen since the mid eighties. That was the first sign of a drug presence in Africa and Zombia, although it was marijuana in uh in Zombia at the time. That's

how it started out, at least the gateway drug. Even when you're talking narco states. Sure, yeah, it's funny. So Zambia goes um Is exposes a narco state. Apparently the government wasn't aware of this one, but a group of prominent citizens were operating like a sub state. Yeah, sub narco state, just under the noses of the functioning government. And again very poor people, which is key. That's Yeah.

If people don't have any money and all of a sudden people come and give them gobs of money, they'll you know, you want to be a drug mule, We'll give you this much money. Problem um so Zambia was the first to start in Africa and then the nineties. UM. The reason why it picked up speed in the nineties was because it was the end of colonialism and just ended within the last decade or so. UM. And this European influence and influx of money and exploitation UM left

a vacuum economically, financially, uh. And oftentimes with central governments there's just a vacuum and nobody's doing any there's no way to make any money or anything. So narco states are setting up. Senegal was another one. In the nineties. I believe heroin and cocaine really were on the rise. And here's the stat that you you dug up. It

was pretty good. In two thousand and eight, the Telegraph newspaper in England reported that the cost of a bribe to look the other a at the airport when you're flying in at into car with drugs nine grand per kilo of cocaine. Right, and Chuck just mentioned a little funny little word and it was cocaine. You know, associate Africa with cocaine normally, Well, yeah, that's true. You do

now though, yeah, big time. And one of the reasons why UM, it's popped up in Africa's because West Africa is a perfect stop for cocaine en route to Europe. Right we talked about Europe having a huge problem with heroin. One of the reasons they didn't have a big problem with cocaine's because the Colombians and other South Americans hadn't figured out how to get it to them. Now, all of a sudden, West Africa's devolving into narco states because they finally figured out we need a port and West

Africa's right, specifically Guinea Bissaal. This is this is, like we said earlier, the one true functioning narco state right now. Yeah, a hundred and fifty million dollars worth of cocaine passes through the borders of Guinea Bissau each month, and that was in two thousand seven. And what is a hundred and fifty million dollars times two to them? Uh, they're gross domestic product. It's half of the gross domestic product.

So the entire nation, all of the goods and services produced in Guinea Bissau and above the boards, equals three hundred million dollars a year and they have half of that coming through their country. In cocaine a month. Tell the story of how this started there so interesting. Uh what year was it? Chuck two thousand five? There are a group of Guinea Bissau and fishermen who were out um in their boats and there was a big old package floating or maybe several smaller packages is floating there.

So they hauled them in with their nets and they took them back to land. They opened them up and there was this white powder inside that they had never seen before. They didn't know what to do with it, so they actually used it as fertilizer on their crops, which it killed their crops first. Really yeah, I know that. And then finally, one day, while they're still puzzling over this stuff, gotten knows what else they did with it, a man, a South American man shows up and says, hey, um,

I believe you have something that belongs to us. Yeah, and uh, that's cocaine. That's our cocaine. I'll give you a million dollars for it, which is one of the entire gross domestic product, remember of Guinea Bissau. And so they say okay, and by the way, can we do this again? And that was the birth of the Guinea Bissau and narcos. It completely happened by accident, it did, I mean, can you imagine that? And Guinea Bissau is

a perfect narco state. The cops literally in this in the capital um Bissau, it's the capital city of the country. The cops have five cop cars and they almost never have gasoline to fuel them. And they have a hundred and fifty million dollars worth of cocaine going through the borders with five cop cars. Right, it was a former

Portuguese colony. The Portuguese left Um and Guinea Sau. There's not an airplane associated with that country, but they have air fields out on like barrier islands that are just totally unused, unpatrolled UM. And what's more, the military is completely in the pockets of the UM. I think they're mostly Colombians that took the place. Over built stucco mansions. They have UM Direct TV antennas on the roofs. In this incredibly poverty stricken country. They stick out like sore thumbs.

They don't care. One of the reasons why is, like I said, the military is on their side. How did how do we know that? Chuck josh In September of two thousand six. Uh, cops, they're arrested to Colombian guys in a house with seven hundred keyloads of cocaine, and the soldiers came. They showed up at the police station, surrounded it and said give me the cocaine and the man and uh they did so, and they got in

their cars, loaded up the coke and drove away. The cops watched the military load up the coke and just leave with the guys, said thank you for your time. Yeah, and that was it. That was um, that was the beginning of the and the military engaged in an all out war with the government and ended up assassinating the president after laying siege to his mansion for several hours. Yeah. Just this year, right March. Huh he was, he was assassinated in March. Yea. So there's no central government in

getting Bissau. The Colombians are they're selling drugs, uh, using it as Actually they're not selling it in getting Bissau as far as I know. They're using getting bessions as mules. Who they're even more perfect because it was a Portuguese colony. They don't have to have visas to get into Europe. Yeah, I mean it's like it's like Pablo Escobar went, God, I need you to do me a favorite. I got some friends back there on Earth and they need a place in West Africa, need a perfect arcot Us, a

perfect Narco state, And God's like getting Bissau. And I think you said the average annual income there is like five bucks a year for a civil servants job. Yeah, so it's clear that if you start waving just small amounts of money under their nose that they're gonna be a trabec and call so getting Missau one watch. I mean, it's just insane right There'm sure it's not a safe place to me. No, nope. So that's Narco States. Um,

I have a headache just from talking about it. How about you, Chuck, I do kind of dance and it is. It was really good article. Now thanks man. If you want to read the article that I wrote, um and pour my blood, sweat and tears into you can type Narco States. That's two words in the handy search bar at how stuff Works dot com. And uh that means it's time for listener mail. Yeah, you know it's funny, is this morning? Emily asked me while we were getting

ready for a day. What we're gonna podcast on it? Said Narco state? She said, what's a narco state? Not I don't know, And here, like eight hours later, my mind is about arco or at least enough to talk about it for twenty five minutes? Has it only been twenty five minutes? Thirty five minutes? Cherry's thirty five? Josh, I'm gonna call this um DNA database London. Email. Hello, John and Chuck love your show. I thought you may be interested in little story in regards to the podcast

about crime databases. I am from Yakima, Washington, but I've lived in the UK for the last decade. I mean train driver engineer. Lisa is thirty. She's an American train engineer living in England. Met interesting. So a friend of mine, who was also a conductor, had a recent experience with

the British Transport Police. In regards to this, he was spat on by a member of the public who was abusive while carrying out ticket duties, so the police were called on the day and for weeks after, my friend was pretty much harassed by the police because they wanted a DNA sample from him for quote exclusion purposes. He steadfastly declined each request to the point where he put it in writing to the police he would get a solicitor involved to ensure he never had to submit a sample.

The outcome is basically that he the offender, went unpunished because the police won't follow it up anymore because the guy who was attacked and spit upon won't surrender his d n A for exclusion purposes. So I just thought you may want to know here in England, even victims of crime are being coerced into giving samples. Keep up the great work from Lisa x x X from Lisa. Wow, not an x O buddy triple x. That's from Lisa

and Stoke, Hammond, Buckinghamshire. And I guess that's a place, Yeah, you know I can spit on before and spit back. Did you get spit on by a cab driver? And nice really such a jerk and tried to charge me twenty bucks for like an eight block cab ride. I was like, I'm not giving you that much, and he was like, yes you will, and I I just like blinked and like put my hand in my face and sure enough there was a spit and I just spit

right back into place. This in France. I thought he was going to explode, not even in a narco state. It was in Nice. Did you pay him? I paid him, so I didn't pay him twenty bucks? What a jerk? Spit on, Josh, no doubt. Yeah, he's got a meeting with me scheduled. Thanks, buddy, I'm gonna go find this guy. Yeah, let's go to Nice, all right? All right? Well, if you have any stories about spitting on or being spit upon, um, you can send an email to stuff Podcast at how

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