12:44
[♪ suspenseful music playing] [Officer Alberson] On the morning shift, we do find a lot of prohibited items. It's probably one of our busier shifts here in pedestrian. Just because that's when a lot of people are crossing for work and everything.
Found something. Inside that backpack. [♪ theme music playing]. [Officer Alberson] There was a traveler with a backpack, and inside that backpack, he had a couple of tools. And then a taped, wrapped bundle. [Officer Duron] Let's do a little test. This is very early in my career here with CBP. In the past couple of weeks, we found small stuff, personal use marijuana. So it is positive for heroin.
Like something like this, I didn't think I'd see this soon. I just graduated from the academy just two months ago. I've been an officer for a month and a half. That's how long I've been here, like, uh, manning the borders. My first thought was like, "Wow. It's actually happening," right? What I see on the TV and in the movies, it's happening here, right, and right in front of my eyes. Okay.
1.2 kilograms of heroin right here. [Officer Alberson] This was a first for me. Very cool find to know that, you know, that stuff isn't making it in, at least, today. [squawking] [♪ energetic music playing] [Specialist Zelada] It looks like there's some luggage, on this side. Here it goes. All right.
We are the Agriculture Enforcement Team. And we're gonna be looking at some higher risk shipments coming from countries that are bringing possible fruits and vegetables, cultural items, and we're gonna just make sure that none of these items could, potentially, be harmful to U.S. agriculture. [Specialist Zelada] Are they candied or fresh? -They're fresh. Addy, is this something? -Yup. -Last year, agriculture specialists here, in Miami International Airport, submitted almost 15,000 different pests.
-We'll place the shipment on hold. And we'll wait for the final decision from the, from the USDA to make our final action. [Officer Munoz] We work together also with agriculture specialists inside the airport. [Agriculture Specialist Ortiz] Let's go. Come on. Let's go find it. My partner's name is Snoopee. He is a beagle mix. We work here, in the passenger environment.
What is it? Show me. We'll open it. Hello. -Miami's one of the biggest airports that we have, and we're always on high alert. -Oh, okay. Because different commodities, different plants, or animals, can be coming from different places. And since we do have such a tropical environment, that can be a nice breeding ground for our little enemies of pests to come and live. -There's only a very small percentage of us, as agriculture specialists who work here at the airport in the passenger environment. And then our core work in cargo, because the biggest thing that comes in here is our flower import.
[Officer Munoz] This week, before Valentine's Day, is really, really busy for us. We receive maybe 35,000 stems or flowers. -Typically we inspect one flower from each farm. So I'm checking to see if there's any bugs in here. For the most part, it looks clean. I don't see any diseases on the leaves. Everything looks good.
If a possible disease or an insect, that we've never encountered before, comes into our country, it can cause a lot of economical damage to our agriculture here. We're catching bugs and we're, you know, doing the dirty work, but it's actually nice to give 'em a little whiff every now and then. It smells, they smell kinda nice.
-Good to go. -I just found an insect. I'm gonna go ahead and grab the bug, put it in the vial, and then we'll send it to our local plant inspection station so that they can identify it. They'll make the final determination. If this insect is harmful to our, our agriculture, then more than likely, the, the flowers will be fumigated.
Our job here is to intercept the bug and make sure that the shipment stays on hold. Something that small can cause so much chaos to our agriculture, so it just lets us know that we're doing something impactful here. [♪ suspenseful music playing] [Agent Mike] These packages were seized by CBP. And these are three suppressors. They were sent in from China to addresses here in Los Angeles. So this one here, especially, is meant for an AR-15 type rifle, assault rifle.
They're illegal in California no matter what. Suppressors are not allowed. Anyone ordering these is probably because you have a weapon at home. Otherwise, you wouldn't be ordering it. And that's another reason we need to go to their residences. -LA is such a gigantic hub for criminal activity. We currently have three operational groups that we're running. They do everything from narcotics to money laundering to firearms cases, firearms parts, suppressors.
[Agent Michael] All right, everybody. Thanks for being here today. We're gonna go over the search warrant briefing. The subject imported silencers from China. It arrived and it was seized by CBP. The silencers that were coming in, they're illegal in the state of California. But, additionally, the individual is a four-time convicted felon. So, as we know, a felon in possession is not allowed to have a gun, right? So that's why we're going out.
[♪ intense music playing] Are we jumping in my vehicle? -Okay, just making sure. We're gonna be going out and executing a warrant over in the east LA area. We're trying to see if the individual is actually at the residence or not. So we're gearing up, getting ready to go, getting everyone in place, and we'll see how it goes from there. -Everybody's all good? Everything solid? -Yup, sounds good to me. -All right. -Already up and out. Let's do this.
[Agent Mike] Go ahead. The others will fall in. We are ready to go to our target residence. We're gonna head over there. It's about a few minute drive. We'll go up there and hit the door and see what we get. All right. We're gonna dismount here. [cars beeping]
[Agent Mike] It's a third-floor apartment. Slowly go upstairs. [♪ suspenseful music playing] [knocking] [slam] [♪ suspenseful music playing] -Uh-hmm. -Small room? [Agent Mike] So we just executed the search warrant on the individual's apartment. No one was there right now. But we have located his car at a hotel a couple cities over.
You want to go over? [Agent Mike] And then Kevin will stay here with these guys. We are now gonna head over there to execute the search warrant on his car. And we're leaving a search team here to finish off searching the apartment. They're up there searching. I'm taking a few guys with me over to the hotel right now. -Okay. -We'll hopefully get over there in time before this guy gets notified by any neighbors. [Agent Mike] Loud and clear. [agent] Copy.
[Agent Mike] We are out here at the target hotel now. [agent] Is this the target? [Agent Mike] Vehicle is there. I'm set up on the street. He's parked next to the street. Our guys are parked in the lot near him. We're just sitting hard on the car. Maybe we'll see which room he comes out of when he goes to it. We got notification from the guys back at the other residence that we already hit, and so far they found some drug residue and some ammunition. So as soon as he gets to the car, they'll go approach him.
[Agent Mike] That's him. [agent] Confirmed, going to the car. [Agent Mike] Let's go. [agent] Do it now! [♪ suspenseful music playing] -Go find. Most of our job is smelling bags and smelling carry-ons that people may have on them.
Come on. Let's see. Yes. Good boy. These bags are sort of like a leftover bag, or maybe the person is delayed a little bit because of the immigration side of the house. So then, it's good to work with just the bags. A little bit easier for the dog. So that's what we call a change. And sometimes it's just to better smell a bag. And then he hasn't made up his mind and so he said, "No."
We'll find a lot from plant material, fruits, vegetables, meat. We get a lot of stuff. Yes. Good job. Um, I definitely can tell that at least there's three different species of plant. Just by the different leaves, how this one is different from this one. With fresh plant material, it could still have live pests. This one here has some stuff right here I'm gonna look at. These could be scale insects. They have a shell on their back that protects them.
Once I get in the lab, I'll check with a microscope and it's easier to see if it is actually a shell or it could be sap on the leaves. We're gonna take it to the lab. Okay. Let's go. -Hi. -Hola. -Where are you going to now? -To school? How long you have left? -All right. Congratulations. Thank you. -Thank you. -Bye.
I've been an officer here for about a year now. Honestly, every day is different. It really is. There, every hour is different. Once we know that there is an alert, this could be it, this could be the possible next load that we do catch. [in Spanish] Hello, how are you? -Okay. Vehicle going into lane four.
-The driver was nervous. So we're gonna inspect the car now. It's not always an indication of guilt. A lot of people are just genuinely nervous around law enforcement. But I see that type of behavior, I definitely send them in. -I'm already on it. I'm like, "Okay, let's do this. Let's break this car down. Do whatever we have to do just to figure it out." [♪ suspenseful music playing] -Good girl. Ooh! Ho-ho! My K9 just alerted to the back of the, of the underneath, the spare tire. So the officers need to investigate to see what's gonna be underneath the tire.
-Now we're gonna take the vehicle and bring it to Area 51, where we can dismantle it and pull the tire down. And we'll inspect it from there. -Let's go ahead and bring it down. -I, I do get butterflies, 'cause it's like, "Okay, this is my first one, so we're gonna see what's in there." So you just never know. -Is it going down? -Yeah, it's going down.
-Do you see anything? -Yeah, it is going down. -It's kinda heavy. They taped it. They probably cut it so they can use it as a compartment. So they are probably gonna stuff bundles inside the tire, so I'm gonna go ahead and check it. [♪ suspenseful music playing] As you can see, it's gonna be loaded. [♪ suspenseful music playing] -It has multiple bundles inside the tire.
A few more on this side. -Woo! -So, good job. -All right. [Officer Gonzalez] There's gonna be more. [Officer] Pretty sure there's more deep down inside. Oh, you stuffed it in there. Ah, there we go. Could be fentanyl, could be methamphetamine, could be cocaine, it can be anything. I think there's more.
[Officer Gonzalez] Sure enough, I can feel a bundle right now. -Different kind of bundles, we just don't know until we get it out and we do test it with the Gemini. [Officer Gonzalez] It was a total of 18 bundles. So we'll go test it with the Gemini to see what kind of narcotics we have at hand. So let's see if we're right. With the fentanyl out there, it became really important for us to protect ourselves, using gloves, using a mask, using something to cover your eyes, because of the dangers of fentanyl.
Scanning the substance right now. And positive for the properties of methamphetamine. So we have a positive for meth. So we're gonna go ahead inside and weigh it on a scale. Uh, this particular load was 8.58 kilos. -I feel good. I do feel good. We got it. There's so many ways, different compartments in a vehicle, where you can hide the drugs.
You can put it in a spare tire, we'll find it in a quarter panel the next day. Lift up the hood, it could be there. So we can't just focus on one. We have to focus on everything. On to the next. [♪ suspenseful music playing] -Police! Hands up! -Don't move. Paul, watch behind you.
[Agent Mike] When we approached him here as he got to his car with his girlfriend, he complied. He didn't give us a hard time at all, so there was no fight which was nice. Especially when worrying about guns and silencers. So they got him down, cuffed him real quick. [Agent Mike] The car's on the warrant. So we can search that too.
[♪ suspenseful music playing] Nothing? [Agent Mike] All right. We'll check the room. -All right, yup. -Okay. Anything in there that's gonna hurt us or anything? -That's it? -Nothing else? No guns, no knives, no nothing? [Agent Mike] But you're cool with us looking at it. [Agent Mike] He's giving us permission. Room 117. -Right there? -Second door, yeah. He did admit to which room it was and we went back and searched that room also.
-Negative. [Agent Mike] But there was nothing in there. It was just his, uh, belongings and his girlfriend's. Yeah, we're cutting the girl loose 'cause she's not part of any of this. Other than that, there's not much we can do. There was nothing. -Interesting. -They found, yeah, they found, I think, just some ammo at the house. [Agent Mike] Yeah. We'll go back, process the evidence from the other location, the first location this morning, draft all the reports up, get it to the District Attorney's office, and then he'll have to face the music as a felon
in possession of, uh, firearms and ammunition. [♪ suspenseful music playing] [Agriculture Specialist Ortiz] So, what we're gonna do here is look under our compound microscope and see if we can get a better glimpse as to what these white dots are on the leaf.
Um, looking here on the leaf, we see that most of the specks are under the leaf. It seems to me like a scaled insect. Oh, definitely scales. We are gonna ship them to USDA. They are our entomologists and our botanists there. And ultimately they will make the decision on whether this is what is called an actionable pest, something that's considered dangerous in a sense. [♪ suspenseful music playing] You ready? We're working on a hot flight for us as agriculture specialists, especially the K9s, coming from Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Yes? Alright. A bag in a bag. What is it? It looks like there's something in here. Yes. That's a good job. [♪ suspenseful music playing] [Agriculture Specialist Ortiz] Good boy. -From Haiti, they can bring in goat meat and other ruminants, like beef. But judging by the bones, I'm pretty sure it's pork.
A big thing that we are worried about right now is African Swine Fever. That has already come into the Dominican Republic. So we are really trying to stop meats from coming in from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, or the Cayman Islands. So that is why pork is not allowed. This is a notice of inspection, so a courtesy to let the passenger know that their bag was opened. This pork, we're gonna put it in our quarantine hold, and then later we'll take it to the holler for it to be steam sterilized.
Yeah, good boy. You did it. Such a good boy. Good job. All right, let's go. Come on. What you got? What is it? What you got? Show me. That's a good boy. Show me. Oh, what is it? Oh, this stuff has blood on it. [♪ suspenseful music playing]
-Hi. [Officer Coleman] What happened? [laughing] -That's a bandaid. [Officer Coleman] I'mma need to get that. That's, that's. [laughing] All right, how y'all doing? [Officer Coleman] Good. Where are you going to? -All right. What were y'all doing in Mexico? -All right. All right, y'all have a good night. -Thank you. -You're welcome. I'm new. It's my first year with Customs and Border Protection.
The training that we receive, it really prepares us when we come out here day one. Because we gotta hit the ground running, because they're not gonna wait on us. The people that cross are not gonna wait on us, the smugglers aren't gonna wait on us to learn what they do. So we gotta be ready day one. [Officer Coleman] All right.
The trunk won't open so I'm gonna have to just send it in to secondary just to be sure, 'cause we don't know what's inside of it. Secondary, secondary. Red Avalanche coming into lane number one. Check it through the, uh, x-ray. See if there's anything inside of there. -As the vehicle went through the x-ray, we see the anomalies that are in the trunk area. And we're gonna send it into Area 51 to see if we can figure out what it is.
[♪ suspenseful music playing] [distant sirens] -Thank you everyone for coming out on short notice. We're gonna brief up this operation real quick. Through an investigation, we recently determined that uh, there's a trafficker here in Southern California, trying to sell 37 pounds of crystal methamphetamine. The undercover has established communication with this trafficker. So pretty soon, we're gonna set up in a parking lot. Uh, once the undercovers meet with the trafficker, they're going to determine if he does have the product,
which is the crystal methamphetamine. At that time, he will summon us in, we'll go in, and affect an arrest. Thank you. Crystal methamphetamine is a major issue in Southern California. We do see it a lot in bulk amounts coming freshly over the border from Mexico. So we try to intercept that before it reaches distribution hubs and gets distributed to the rest of the United States. We're heading over to a parking lot, so that the undercover can verify the trafficker has bulk methamphetamine with him.
So I think this is a good spot. Is the undercover in position at the target parking lot? -Copy that. So it appears the, the undercover has arrived in a white van. We've got the UC on the phone with the target, describing his vehicle to the target. [Agent Mike] HSI, copy.
There it is. It's traveling southbound. It's about to make a left-hand turn and go right in front of me, so I'm going down. [agent] It's occupied by two. -We're kind of sunk in our seats in case he's looking for any signs of law enforcement. We don't want him to see us in here performing surveillance. Undercover's calling the target now. So if we see that truck go over there, we know that's our guy. Okay, we've got the target moving.
Truck is approaching UC. So now we're waiting for the undercover to verify that, uh, that truck does have the methamphetamine, and then we will go in. We've got the undercover at the driver side of the suspect vehicle. He's having a conversation with the suspect right now. [sirens] -Police, search warrant!
[sirens] [barking] -Turn around. [Agent Mike] We saw two also. We've summoned the first suspect, got him safely into custody. We believe there may be a second subject in there. -Step out of the car. -Hup-hup. Hup, hup, hup, hup, hup, hup. Here, here. Move. Haw. [barking] [Agent Mike] So the K9 handler believes there's no one in the vehicle.
Now we're gonna actually clear the vehicle just to have 100% confirmation that the vehicle is clear, that there's nobody else in the truck. [barking] [Agent Mike] Vehicle's clear? It was a miscommunication. There's only, uh, one suspect. All right, we're gonna see what we got.
[overlapping chatter] -There it is. -Bingo. -Looks like we have crystalline methamphetamine. -We're gonna take this box back to headquarters and weigh it and see what we got. We're also gonna interview the suspect that brought this here, see if we can figure out how it made its way into the United States and, uh, where it may have come from. [♪ suspenseful music playing]
[Agriculture Specialist Ortiz] We found some Santeria items. Santeria is a religion in Cuba. The reason that some people put the animal blood on it is an offering to the spirit. It could also be from a ritual that was done. The other religious articles that they have inside also does have blood on it. We don't know what kind of animal it could be from. As you see, there's a lot of red pigmentation, so it's pretty fresh. Because of blood pathogens, there could be diseases in the blood that's on here. And different animals can contain different diseases
that can transmit from animal to human, which is why we're concerned about it. -I'm gonna refer this passenger in. He has some religious articles that are contaminated with fresh blood. -Yeah. -All right. -Snoopee. Right there. -It's good to go.
[Agriculture Specialist Ortiz] Unfortunately, we did have to take the items from the passenger, um, and destroy them. Agriculture is a very big thing here in the United States. So it's something that we really cherish. It feels good to be finding good seizures. It feels good to be a member of the team. Not just saving the agriculture, but doing your part. Sometimes it's not fun because you do feel for the passengers, you do sympathize with them. But ultimately it is what we have to do.
Perfect. Good job. [♪ suspenseful music playing] [Officer Coleman] When we see anomalies in vehicles, we check them. Many of the times, there's nothing there. It's just probably just either food, suitcases, tools, and sort of stuff like that. But there's a small chance it might be something that's
actually big seizures. When we see those, we dive right on it. We may do a full inspection on it. [Officer Valenzuela] Four, maybe five, bundles back here. It's a strong odor. [Officer Coleman] What is it? [Officer Valenzuela] Looks like marijuana. [♪ suspenseful music playing] -You see clear plastic wrap.
There's a strong odor of marijuana coming from the bundles right now. We haven't seen a marijuana load in El Paso in maybe a month or so, right? Since it's become legal in the surrounding states, it's not always illegally brought into the United States anymore, right? However, Texas is a state where marijuana is not legal. And on top of that, as federal officers, we adhere to our customs laws, prohibiting the importation of marijuana.
Looks like we're having a total of five of them. We're still gonna go ahead and dismantle the rest of the vehicle just to be sure there's not something that we're overlooking. [♪ suspenseful music playing] -When you find one thing, there might be something else. You don't wanna let it go. Gotta make sure you get everything in the vehicle.
This is the, this is the, this is why I joined in the first place, 'cause I wanted to find stuff like this. That ain't good. Uh-oh. I found a tag. So they know where the vehicle is. They're pinging it, so most likely somebody knows, whoever sent this load over, they know that the vehicle's right here and it probably got caught. [Officer Valenzuela] The vehicle's clear. I'll take it. We're gonna be testing it to see what it is.
-Cool. There we go. [♪ suspenseful music playing] So right here, we have a positive for cannabis. Today is my one-year anniversary with Customs and Border Protection. And it's great to get a nice birthday present for it right here.
This is my big cake. This seizure, even though it's just one, it affects a ton of people, the people who buy it, the people who sell it, the ones who brought it over. It's a great feeling to get to know that I stopped somebody from doing this. But there's a lot more out there to find and we gotta get back out there and do it every day, every single day.
[♪ suspenseful music playing] -Alright. -They want to just move the box over there. [Agent Mike] We're gonna field test methamphetamine now. Take a small sample and insert it into the test kit. [cracking] Sample did turn blue, so it is positive for methamphetamine.
-Right now we are putting all the individual bundles on the scale to try to get a total weight. [♪ suspenseful music playing] [Agent Mike] We have officers and agents interviewing the suspect now, see if we can figure out how this methamphetamine made its way from Mexico into the United States. It's always really good if we can get bulk narcotics off the street before it reaches distribution hubs and gets distributed throughout the rest of the country, and cause harm to the communities.
All in all, it was a successful day. Captioned by Cotter Media Group.
