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00:00In a cartel compound, Mexican police
00:03discovered 14 heavily modified trucks
00:06ready to wage war against rival gangs and the authorities.
00:11Cops have dubbed them monstruos, meaning monsters,
00:14but they're also commonly referred to as narco tanks.
00:17Three men break out of Alcatraz prison in 1962.
00:21The FBI would later discover more than 80 handcrafted tools
00:26used in the escape.
00:27They had stolen or collected more than 50 rubber raincoats
00:31to make life jackets and a 14-foot inflatable raft.
00:37Suspicious power grid issues lead Tennessee police
00:40to an empty home with an underground secret.
00:44Beneath this beautiful house was a massive natural rock cave,
00:48fully outfitted as a subcarranean marijuana drill operation.
00:51The world's most inventive criminal minds.
01:01Lawless ingenuity, born out of greed.
01:04From back alleys to the high seas.
01:07secret structures, custom-built vehicles, high-tech innovation.
01:14What happens when engineering genies ends up on the wrong side of the law
01:20and starts building bad?
01:24In June of 2023, Mexican federal authorities raided a drug cartel compound
01:40in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas and discovered 14 trucks
01:44that had been heavily modified to wage war against rival gangs and police alike.
01:50Cops have dubbed them monstruos, meaning monsters,
01:54but they're also commonly referred to as narco tanks.
01:57An apt description because some of them look like homemade military trucks
02:00or something you'd see careening across the desert in Mad Max.
02:04The area where they were found is a hotbed of cartel activity because it's close to the U.S. border,
02:11which gives it strategic value to narcos looking to move drugs into the huge American market.
02:17No fewer than four criminal organizations are vying to control Tamaulipas.
02:24The Gulf Cartel, the Zetas, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and the Sinaloans.
02:32It's become a violent, lawless war zone, so finding the narco tanks was no big surprise.
02:39What was surprising was the sophistication and ingenuity of the vehicles.
02:45They had come a long way over the past few decades.
02:50The first discovery of a modified narco truck on record happened in 1979 in Miami,
02:56the cocaine capital of America.
02:59It would be linked to one of the most brazen drug slayings in the city's history.
03:05Miami was so violent back then, Scarface might as well have been a documentary.
03:10In 1980, there were more than 500 homicides in the city.
03:14To put that number into perspective, there were only 31 in 2023.
03:21Ruthless drug lords were turning the streets into the Wild West,
03:24and no drug lord was more ruthless than Griselda Blanco, the infamous Colombian godmother.
03:33Following orders from Blanco, on July 11, 1979,
03:37two men emerged from what looked like a standard white delivery truck,
03:41entered a liquor store, and opened fire in broad daylight.
03:47Inside the store was a rival coke trafficker and his bodyguard.
03:50So there's this huge gun battle.
03:52The two targets get killed, and two store employees get wounded.
03:57The incident becomes known as the Daedland Mall Massacre.
04:01Investigators located the delivery truck abandoned at the far end of the mall's parking lot.
04:09Stenciled on the side were the words,
04:12Happy Time Complete Party Supply.
04:15Quite an interesting sense of irony.
04:19Upon closer inspection, the cops discovered the truck was equipped with reinforced steel,
04:23gun portholes, and contained enough automatic weapons and bulletproof vests to supply a small army.
04:29They dubbed it the war wagon, and the age of the narco tank began.
04:35The 1990s saw the formation of the Los Zetas cartel in Mexico.
04:41They would go on to become one of the most feared and brutal crime syndicates in the country,
04:45and pioneers of the narco tank.
04:49Early Los Zetas members were elite special forces soldiers who had deserted from the Mexican army.
04:55At first, about 30 of them acted as personal security for Ocel Cardenas Guillén, the head of the Gulf cartel.
05:03But their numbers soon began to grow, and they eventually became enforcers for the entire cartel.
05:10The Zetas were more like a paramilitary group than a criminal gang.
05:14They were well-trained professionals, with recruits including ex-U.S. Army soldiers,
05:20corrupt federal, state, and local police officers, and former members of the Guatemalan Special Forces.
05:31Following the arrest and extradition to the U.S. of Ocel Cardenas Guillén in 2010,
05:38the Zetas broke ranks with the Gulf cartel and became independent.
05:43At this point, they had more expertise and more influence, so they figured they could make
05:47more money as a separate organization. But that turned out to be a costly decision.
05:54The Zetas became Mexico's public enemy number one, and the increased attention from authorities led to
06:01the 30-odd original members all getting killed or captured or extradited to the U.S.
06:09But like any good criminal organization, there were people more than willing to fill the power
06:15vacuum, and the Zetas expanded quickly, becoming Mexico's largest drug cartel in terms of geographical
06:22dominance. They controlled more than a dozen states, primarily in the eastern parts of the country.
06:31Because of their origins, Los Zetas led the way when it came to adopting military tactics and weapons
06:38into the drug trade. The logical next step was to integrate military-grade vehicles.
06:45As armed clashes with rival cartels and law enforcements became more frequent,
06:51the Zetas needed to protect themselves and their drug shipments. But you can't just walk into a
06:57dealership and buy a tank or an armored truck. So they needed a little DIY magic.
07:09The early versions of narco tanks were fairly basic, little more than lightly modified commercial
07:13vehicles like pickup trucks and SUVs. They would add some internal armoring, bulletproof glass, and
07:19tires to protect against small arms fire and light explosives. But as the drug war has escalated,
07:28cartels and authorities began to use more powerful weaponry, and the early narco tank designs were
07:34rendered ineffective. The first builds were limited in what they could protect against. Small caliber handguns,
07:42no problem. Even grenades were fine, but they were still vulnerable to rocket launchers and heavy machine gun fire.
07:51The early narco tanks also lacked offensive capabilities, so there was no way of fighting
07:57back if they ever fell under attack. They were sitting ducks.
08:01What you started seeing were so-called popemobile narco tanks, with pillbox armored firing positions
08:11mounted on the back of the pickup trucks. Basically, they were just big metal boxes with holes in the
08:17side for shooting through. Pretty rudimentary, but they at least allowed the occupants to return fire when attacked.
08:23As the designs of the narco tanks evolved, the cartels began dramatically increasing the size and complexity of the vehicles.
08:34Instead of just using commercial SUVs and pickup trucks, they started to roll out flatbed trucks,
08:38dump trucks, and even tractors. All modified to the nines and starting to resemble military vehicles with full exterior armor plating.
08:47Heavy duty trucks that could bear more weight were also deployed.
08:50Known as dualies because they have dual rear wheels, these trucks can typically haul over 2,000 pounds.
09:00And the extra tires come in handy should one get shot out in battle.
09:07You also started to see innovations like huge metal battering rams on the front ends of trucks
09:12that they could use to break down a blockade or break down a gate or even just smash into an enemy vehicle.
09:20The progressive sophistication of the narco tanks shocked authorities and attracted the public's attention
09:28for the capture of a behemoth dubbed Monstro 2010 in the western state of Jalisco.
09:35This thing was crazy. It could transport up to 20 men with assault rifles and the exterior was covered in one inch thick steel
09:46that was installed on an upward angle to deflect bullets.
09:51All the glass was taken out and armor plating was put in its place.
09:56There was a reinforced turret for a sniper in the front, the tires were protected with a steel plate,
10:02and a bulletproof ring was added to each tire.
10:05There was also a lot of high-tech gadgetry, satellite communication systems for eavesdropping on law enforcement,
10:14devices for creating smoke screens, dropping nails, and oil slicks to fend off anyone chasing them.
10:21It was even equipped with an electrified grill capable of delivering 700 volts of shock power.
10:28But for all its ingenuity, Monstro 2010 still had some pretty serious drawbacks.
10:35Because of all that extra weight, it was pretty slow. It could only go about 30 miles an hour.
10:40It was also hard to maneuver, and it sure wasn't stealthy.
10:43And the required retrofitting of all these tank parts resulted in lots of things malfunctioning,
10:49so you'd often see them sitting abandoned on the side of the road.
10:55A 2015 raid of a narco truck workshop at a winery in Tamaulipas showed that maybe the cartels were
11:01moving away from elaborate builds like Monstro 2010 and scaling designs back in favor of speed and stealth.
11:10They found 13 vehicles, eight of which were in the process of being outfitted with protection.
11:15But instead of massive military-like vehicles, these were mostly commercial pickup trucks.
11:19There was extensive machinery for cutting and fabricating metal,
11:23work likely done by mechanics with years of experience modifying cartel vehicles
11:28to smuggle drugs across the U.S. border.
11:31An arsenal of ammunition was also discovered in the shop. AK-47 magazines, 308 Winchester rounds,
11:39and heavy-duty .50 caliber ammo used in Barrett sniper rifles and M2 Browning machine guns.
11:47These are substantial guns, and based on other narco tank builds,
11:51the authorities speculated that they likely would have been mounted in the truck beds.
12:00In November of 2023, a discovery by Mexican authorities revealed that the cartels
12:06are now outfitting narco tanks to keep up with the latest weapons technology, drones.
12:13It was a modified four-door Dodge Ram that had been improvised with a metal screen mounted over the hood
12:21and cab to protect from aerial drone strikes, which are being used increasingly by the cartels.
12:27In the military, they're called cope cages, and they first appeared on Russian tanks just before
12:35the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Now, they're widely used on both sides of that conflict,
12:41and they've been seen on Israeli defense force tanks in the Middle East.
12:47While some of the engineering may not be as audacious as seen in the monstros of a decade ago,
12:53the statistics suggest that narco tanks aren't going away altogether anytime soon.
13:00In Tamaulipas alone, more than 260 armored trucks were confiscated and destroyed by the authorities
13:07between 2019 and the first half of 2023.
13:13Narco tanks have become this weird status symbol for the younger generation of cartel members. You can see
13:18them in TikTok videos and other social media, usually with some rap song or some ballad,
13:23glamorizing the narco lifestyle.
13:28Cartels have taken to decorating trucks with their initials or cutting-edge camouflage patterns,
13:34sometimes making it very difficult to tell them apart from legitimate military vehicles.
13:39And they're pretty proud of their results. Some gangs have even released YouTube videos
13:44showing off their narco tanks and weaponry as veiled threats to cartel rivals and the authorities.
13:53As for the 14 trucks discovered at the compound in Tamaulipas in June of 2023,
13:59they were demolished in the border city of Reynosa. A small dent in the armor protecting the cartels
14:06precious cargo.
14:18On the morning of June 12, 1962, prison guards doing the morning rounds at the notorious Alcatraz
14:24prison in San Francisco Bay discovered something shocking. Three missing inmates.
14:30Two brothers, Clarence and John Anglin, along with a third man named Frank Morris, were not in their beds.
14:39The facility immediately went into lockdown. Sirens wailed across the bay and a panicked search for
14:44the missing men kicked off. This is Alcatraz, the supposedly inescapable fortress. Before 1962,
14:55there were 12 escape attempts involving a total of 31 men. Now, 20 of those were surrendered or recaptured.
15:03Eight of them were shot and killed and three drowned. That's 100% failure rate.
15:11It's called the rock for a reason. It's a slab of stone spanning around 22 acres, roughly a mile and a
15:20half offshore from San Francisco. The water in the bay is frigid, dipping as low as 48 degrees Fahrenheit.
15:30And the currents are treacherous. So even if one were able to escape the prison, getting safely to the
15:38shore was always thought to be an impossibility. Prior to its incarnation as a home to some of
15:46America's most infamous criminals, Alcatraz Island served as a military installation for many years.
15:54The U.S. federal government acquired Alcatraz in 1849 and built a fortress to guard San Francisco Bay,
16:00which was overrun with fortune hunters because of the gold rush. But although the fort was originally
16:06built to protect against outsiders, its most important period was during the Civil War when it
16:11began to house military prisoners. This would eventually become its sole purpose.
16:17In 1909, inmates were put to work constructing an ambitious new complex. And upon its completion in 1912,
16:24it was the largest steel-reinforced concrete building in the world. It had 600 cells, each of which
16:31was just five by nine feet. The U.S. Department of Justice took over the operation of Alcatraz in 1933
16:40and set about modernizing the buildings and improving security. The cell bars were strengthened and guard
16:46towers were strategically placed around the island. A year later, the most famous federal prison in
16:53American history began taking in the country's worst offenders. Early residents of Alcatraz were some of
17:03the most storied criminals of the most storied criminals of the day, including Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly.
17:09But the door was always open to anonymous scoundrels like the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris.
17:16Morris was convicted of his first crime at the tender age of 13. By his late teens, his rap sheet would boast of a
17:25wide range of offenses from narcotics possession to armed robbery.
17:29He was in and out of institutions his whole life, starting with reform school and then graduating to adult penitentiaries.
17:41For John and Clarence Anglin, crime was a family affair. They had been convicted of bank robbery,
17:46along with their brother Alfred, and sent to the federal penitentiary in Atlanta.
17:49The three men shared an enthusiasm for escape, and in 1960, officials sent Morris to Alcatraz after
17:58a series of failed breakout attempts. The Anglin brothers later followed him to the rock,
18:03when the authorities grew tired of their escape bids too.
18:08The thing about Alcatraz is it didn't just house the country's most brutal criminals.
18:13It's also where they sent inmates who had tried to escape from other prisons.
18:17It was pretty much the end of the line for men with itchy feet and grand schemes.
18:22So it makes perfect sense that the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris would reunite there.
18:28On the morning the men went missing, a guard went to Morris' cell when he didn't respond to the wake-up bell.
18:34A poke of the inmate left the guard in shock when a dummy head rolled off the bed and onto the ground.
18:40Every 24 hours at Alcatraz, they did 13 head counts. And that meant that if anybody was trying to escape,
18:48they needed some way to fool the guards into thinking they were still in their cells,
18:52so they had enough time to run.
18:55In a bit of crude jailhouse ingenuity, the head was fashioned mostly out of sand and cement mix.
19:01The outside was then covered with a layer of white cement paint,
19:04and then painted further with flesh tones taken from the prison's art supplies.
19:09It even had human hair attached, likely collected from the prison barber shop,
19:14complete with eyebrows and eyelashes. There was even an ear attached that was surprisingly realistic
19:21looking, right down to the shape of the folds and a hole.
19:25The Anglin brothers occupied cells adjacent to Morris, so it wasn't long before the guards discovered
19:33two more dummy heads in place of the missing inmates.
19:37While John Anglin's head was similar in composition to the one found in Morris' cell,
19:41Clarence's was made of soap layered over white cotton rags and toilet paper.
19:47With a sculptor's touch, he molded the soap into facial features and then painted over it.
19:52All the heads were only decorated on one side, and they were set up on the pillow facing the middle
19:58of the cell. And where the body was supposed to be, they used watered up blankets and long underwear.
20:06As the authorities frantically searched the cells,
20:09they discovered that the three men had slipped out through ventilation grates on the back wall.
20:15The grates were only five inches by nine inches, far too small for anyone to fit through.
20:22But what they did was gradually puncture holes in the wall surrounding the opening,
20:28using homemade tools like sharpened spoons, and even a makeshift drill made from a vacuum cleaner motor.
20:37Most of his work would have been performed during happy hour, when the prisoners were allowed to
20:42play musical instruments, and the sound would have drowned out whatever noise the Anglin brothers and
20:47Morris were making in their cells. They would hide their progress with cardboard inserts painted to
20:52look like the wall, or just put objects in front of the opening. Once through the wall, they were able to
20:59access a narrow utility corridor. And from there, they climbed up a plumbing fixture to a landing on top of
21:05the cell block that served as their secret workshop in the months leading up to their disappearance.
21:11This is where they would have made the dummy heads and fashioned their tools. A homemade
21:16periscope cobbled together using canvas board, tape and mirrors was discovered, presumably used to keep
21:23an eye out for guards.
21:35A man named Allen West, who helped plan the escape attempt, but ultimately didn't participate, had access
21:44to the landing area to do maintenance work. While painting one day, he noticed a ventilator hole that
21:50wasn't sealed over with concrete, a possible way out.
21:54The ceiling was about 30 feet above the landing area, but there were these pipes that the men could
21:59climb to get up there. Thing was, though, to get it onto the roof, you'd have to remove a covering that
22:05was heavily bolted down. So that was a huge challenge.
22:10They would need some more DIY inventiveness, and West was able to supply it. He managed to engineer a
22:15wrench by removing clamps from his bed and bolting them together, which he successfully used to loosen
22:20the bolts on the ventilator cover. It was left in place so that nothing would appear out of the
22:26ordinary until they made their dash for freedom. But how were they going to possibly make it off the
22:32island and onto the shore? Historically, that's a suicide mission. Upon discovering the workshop,
22:40authorities came across several items that seemed to be fashioned out of standard prison-issue raincoats.
22:46Allen West would later tell the authorities that they had stolen or collected more than
22:5050 rubber raincoats that they cut up and glued or stitched together to make life jackets and a 14-foot
22:58inflatable raft. And they even used hot steam pipes to vulcanize the rubber to make it stronger and more
23:04elastic. Building a makeshift raft and life jackets out of raincoats is an impressive feat,
23:10but how they managed to inflate these things is truly genius.
23:14A month before the escape attempt, Clarence Anglin had ordered a concertina,
23:21a musical instrument similar to an accordion. They removed the keys, inserted a valve, and then
23:27used it as an air pump. How they even thought of that is beyond me. I suppose sitting in jail with nothing
23:33to do but plot your escape, spark some creative juices.
23:39With no sign of the escapees on Alcatraz, authorities took their search to the frigid waters of San
23:45Francisco Bay. Several law enforcement and military branches were brought in, including the Coast Guard
23:52and the FBI. A bunch of stuff was found in the water. Two life jackets, pieces of a makeshift wooden
24:00paddle, a waterproof package belonging to the Anglins that had a bunch of names and addresses and
24:07photographs in it, and also a letter. According to Allen West, they'd intended to paddle the raft to
24:14Angel Island, roughly two miles north of Alcatraz. Once there, they would sink the raft, get some rest,
24:21then swim to the mainland from the other side of the island. The Anglin brothers and Frank Morris
24:27were never seen or heard from again. Whether the escape was successful, or they perished in San
24:33Francisco Bay, has been the subject of rampant speculation over the years. The odds of them
24:40surviving the cold water and strong currents in a homemade raft are pretty slim. Also, they plan to
24:48steal a car and rob a clothing store, and yet no such incidents were reported.
24:56Some have theorized that maybe someone picked them up in a boat, but it would have been virtually
25:00impossible to coordinate with limited communication between the inmates and the outside world.
25:06But there's a catch. The bodies were never found. And as long as there's no concrete evidence that those
25:12men died that night, people will always embrace the idea that they did what no one thought was possible,
25:19that maybe they escaped from Alcatraz.
25:26The FBI recovered over 80 homemade tools used in the breakout, a testament to the jailhouse ingenuity of
25:33the Anglin brothers, Allen West, and Frank Morris. The Bureau officially closed its case on December 31, 1979,
25:42and turned it over to the U.S. Marshals Service, where it's still considered an open and active investigation.
25:48In December of 2005, a series of power grid issues in the Trousdale, Tennessee area prompted an inspection by the
26:07local utility company. They discovered that a series of unauthorized wires had been spliced into a main
26:14power line on Dixon Springs Road and connected to a nearby property. The authorities were summoned to investigate.
26:25Police responded, expecting to deal with a routine violation, but were met with something unexpected.
26:31The house was empty, without a single piece of furniture or window covering.
26:36On December 14th, the house was raided by national and local law enforcement agencies, hoping to find out what was going on.
26:44Investigators confirmed that the home had never been lived in and quickly realized why. The home was
26:51actually a front for a major drug operation that until now, no one had even suspected.
27:01Beneath this beautiful house was a massive natural rock cave. But it wasn't just any cave,
27:07it was a cave fully outfitted as a subterranean marijuana grow operation.
27:11It was an enormous criminal enterprise and a lair befitting a classic Hollywood villain.
27:19With 15 to 20 foot ceilings and 20,000 square feet of floor space teeming with thriving marijuana plants,
27:26the cave stretched from under the house to the interior of Cato Mountain behind it.
27:31around five years before this bust, a man named Fred Strunk had purchased the property to build
27:39a dream home for his wife. The natural cave actually drew them to the property with the
27:44hope that it could be turned into a storm shelter. Unfortunately, his wife passed away before the
27:50home could be completed. Strunk understandably lost interest in the home after her death and listed the
27:57spectacular yet unfinished property for sale. After a short time, a buyer did come forward,
28:04but he was far more interested in a bizarre deal than the home itself.
28:10Strunk stated that he was hired by this man to transform the site from a safety-conscious dream
28:15house into a money-making pot operation. A $50,000 a month deal that Strunk couldn't refuse.
28:22Strunk was an engineer with no criminal record, but he was seduced by the prospect of a substantial
28:31payday and loved to challenge. So he set his mind on turning the underground cave into a
28:37sophisticated grow operation. The first step was to design and construct a hidden entryway.
28:46Inside the home's basement garage, Strunk built a fake storage closet to conceal the access way.
28:53The wall at the back of the closet was then cut out and mounted to a hydraulic system that turned
28:58the storage area into a remote operated door to the inner working of the cave.
29:03From inside the garage, no one would ever suspect that the closet had a massive steel and cinder block
29:10reinforced door. When activated, the door opened to a landing that connected to a cinder block and concrete
29:1810-foot square, 40-foot long descending hallway. Strunk laid a massive continuous wood floor to level
29:28the space. He then divided the large open cavern into functional rooms that would be needed when the
29:34space was operational. At the front of the cave, Strunk designed a bunk room, kitchen and bathroom for the
29:42crew that would eventually be required to manage the operation. And at the back, he built a storage area
29:49for tools and equipment. With these things out of the way, Strunk had to face his first hurdle,
29:56how to supply light to a dark cave so that the plants would grow.
30:01People have been growing plants in controlled environments under electric lights for over 150
30:08years. The earliest attempts date back to the 1860s, and the term electro-horticulture was coined in the
30:151880s. Since then, scientists have developed fluorescent lighting, which emits a broader spectrum
30:21of light to improve controlled growing outputs. The lighting system in the cave was divided into different
30:29areas, as required by the needs of the marijuana plants. The front room, where the seedlings were, contained
30:36mostly overhead fluorescent lighting, while the back room used high-intensity discharge or HID lights.
30:45As soon as the young plants were ready, they graduated to this room where the lights offered
30:51a spectrum of light that more closely resembled the sun. The HID lights also gave off a lot more heat,
30:59which is beneficial to the climate control of the environment, but required finesse so the plants
31:04wouldn't burn. Strunk rigged these lights to an elaborate pulley system so that they could
31:08maintain a safe distance from the plants as they grew. The lights, in combination with ventilation and
31:15circulation systems, kept the room at the perfect temperature, 87 degrees.
31:23Having seemingly solved the lighting dilemma, Strunk faced another challenge, water.
31:30Proper and consistent irrigation was a necessity. Strunk could have done this in a couple of ways.
31:37Either he pulled water from the county system that the house had been connected to,
31:41or there was a natural well on the property near the cave, plentiful enough to support the system.
31:49In the end, regardless of source, Strunk was able to run enough water to the cave
31:55that they could grow up to a thousand plants at once.
31:59What he figured out resulted in thousands of feet of tubing run back and forth throughout the cave,
32:06with drip systems for each and every plant. And to make things easier while maximizing plant growth,
32:13the choice was made to grow the plants entirely hydroponically. The plants were grown in buckets with
32:20a mineral-rich broth. Strunk was the architect of the cave and an engineer by training, not a marijuana
32:31farmer. So outside labor was required to run the extensive operation. But a large number of people
32:39coming and going from the house every day would obviously draw unwanted attention. So he had to devise a
32:47solution. Experienced migrant farm workers were recruited in Arizona and driven in secrecy to
32:54the Tennessee property. These men were taken to the cave blindfolded and then sealed inside to work.
33:02But sealing people inside an underground cave carried some obvious risks. With all the electrical
33:08activity, fire was a serious concern. Not to mention any unexpected visit from the authorities could
33:15result in dozens of arrests. Strunk had one last trick up his sleeve to address these issues.
33:23Resting in the corner of the front room of the cave was a ladder. It didn't really attract much
33:28attention because the ceiling above it just looked like rock. But really, it led to a long,
33:34wide, corrugated steel pipe with a built-in ladder that led directly to the yard of the A-frame house above.
33:41At the top of the pipe was a hatch operated by a heavy-duty hand-cranked hydraulic lift to ensure
33:48that the seal was very secure. From the ground, it was hidden by a false boulder that laid just a
33:53hundred yards from the back of the house. Strunk tried to think of everything. There were even low-tech
33:59booby traps like spiked boards scattered around the property to discourage any trespassers.
34:04By the time the electric company and police finally caught on to Strunk nearly five years later,
34:12the operation had already paid for itself several times over.
34:17Based on the estimated output of the pot cave at the time it was discovered, the setup he created
34:23amounted to 100 pounds of marijuana every eight weeks. That worked out to 12 to 14 crops per year,
34:31with a value of half a million dollars per crop. The cave was producing six to eight million dollars
34:37a year. But in the end, Strunk's dream home turned into a nightmare. For now, the property or what's
34:48left of it remains empty. A reminder to the community that you can never really know what goes on behind
34:55close doors. After the December 2005 raid, three men, including Fred Strunk, were arrested. Strunk received
35:06the longest sentence of 18 years, despite his clean record. Prosecutors didn't believe this was his first
35:13time being involved in such a complex drug operation, a damaging endorsement of his engineering genius.
35:20The mysterious man who hired Strunk to build the marijuana farm was never brought to justice.
35:38On October 20th, 2017, near the town of Salamanca, Mexican federal police pulled over a suspected stolen SUV.
35:46The four passengers were identified as members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel,
35:53or CJNG, and promptly arrested. A search of the SUV revealed a bizarre and unexpected piece of cargo.
36:04Inside the trunk of that vehicle, next to an AK-47, was a high-tech quadcopter drone ready to deploy.
36:10And not just that, it was crudely rigged with a dangerous homemade explosive payload.
36:17This seizure marked the first time weaponized drones had been found in the hands of the cartel.
36:23Known as a narco drone, this discovery was seen as a major warning sign to Mexican and American authorities.
36:30Portable quadcopter drones surged in popularity among hobbyists during the mid to late 2000s.
36:40And in 2010, a French company released the first Wi-Fi-controlled, commercially successful consumer version.
36:49Other companies would later release improved designs featuring high-quality video cameras
36:54and machine learning capable of tracking ground-level objects or people.
37:00The surveillance capabilities would have been a clear selling point for the cartels.
37:05With little effort, they could be used to track sensitive shipments, spy on competitors and authorities,
37:11or be deployed as lookouts or scouts to assess the viability of trade routes.
37:16Even the most basic models had real-time video to track the movement of border agents or authorities
37:23in order to establish better time transports or clear legal border crossings.
37:29It's believed that up to 10,000 narco drones crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022 alone.
37:35But given the adaptability of drone technology, surveillance isn't their only use in this setting.
37:41Drug trafficking is a multi-billion dollar annual business for cartels.
37:46They produce, package, and transport illegal drugs from Mexico and South America across the border
37:52into the U.S. by any means necessary.
37:56There have been many strategies employed over the years by the cartels to evade commercial ports of entry,
38:03but the arrival of readily available drone technology offered a unique opportunity for the cartels
38:09to navigate these physical barriers with less regard for geographic limitations.
38:14They bought up all the state-of-the-art drones they could find from a couple hundred bucks to a few
38:19thousand dollars, tested their range, their navigation, their payload capacity,
38:24all to see which ones could best add to the cartels tool chest.
38:29On average, small hobby drones can carry between one to four pounds, while the largest commercial drones have the
38:35ability to carry up to 44 pounds.
38:38The cartels, used to sacrificing entire boats, planes, and people to their cause,
38:43were not shy about pushing the drones to their max ability.
38:45In June of 2015, authorities tracked a drone that made multiple cross-border trips to drop bubble-wrapped
38:56packages of heroin into California.
38:58A person awaiting delivery used a radio controller to command the drone to drop the packages
39:04when it reached its destination.
39:06It took several hours and three successful trips, but by the end,
39:11nearly 30 pounds of heroin, with a street value of around one and a half million dollars,
39:17got into the hands of traffickers in the US.
39:19It's believed that around 1,000 drones are flown over the US-Mexico border every week
39:29to drop packages of drugs or act as decoys to confuse authorities.
39:35Drones used to smuggle drugs are difficult to track and capture,
39:38because traditional radar systems were designed to track high-speed, high-altitude planes.
39:43Drones have lower radar and heat signatures.
39:45They travel much closer to the ground, and at an average speed of 40 to 65 miles an hour,
39:51to many of these systems, they appear as just birds.
39:55While drone trafficking has clearly been successful,
39:58and it's still a tactic used by the cartels today,
40:01it's not the only application of this growing technology.
40:06In July of 2018, two narco drones with crudely rigged fragmentation grenades
40:12duct tape to their bodies attempted to attack the house of a government official
40:16in the Mexican state of Baja California.
40:20Only one managed to make it onto the property, and it crashed without detonating.
40:26Taping explosives to a drone is one approach, but handcrafted bombs seem to work for the cartels just as
40:32well. Using a light explosive base with a combination of readily available household
40:37items like tape or glue, and then the addition of SIM cards and burner phones as detonators,
40:43you can turn a trafficking drone into an attack drone overnight.
40:47The first weaponized attack drone, found in the hands of the Halesko New Generation cartel,
40:55used this very strategy. A homemade improvised explosive wrapped in tape was strung to the drone.
41:06No matter how advanced the drone technology may be, the modifications remain low-tech.
41:11The bomb was a specific kind of homemade explosives called Papa Bomba or potato bomb.
41:18They get their name from the layers of duct tape wrapped around their rounded,
41:22hand-formed shape that resembles a literal baked potato.
41:27Potato bombs have an inner core made of a malleable explosive substance in the form of a putty
41:32that is then packed with metal objects like nails or pieces of scrap that become shrapnel when the bomb explodes.
41:41Narco drones can be rigged either of two ways. You can have a release mechanism so the drone flies
41:47in, deploys the weapon and then comes back to get more. Or you can have a weapon permanently attached
41:54to the drone and then when it goes in, it doesn't come back. But buying and physically adapting the
42:00drones is only one aspect of mastering this technology. Just like a race car needs a driver,
42:07a drone needs a skilled operator. In 2021, the CJNG invested in the development of a 12-man team called
42:17Operadores Droneeros. They are an elite squad of expert drone operators trained by American explosive
42:24experts and Colombian drone pilots. This team is narco drone warfare down to a science.
42:31Safely from miles away, they can confirm the presence or the location of the target
42:37and then drop the payload or explode the drone with a high degree of accuracy.
42:47On November 27, 2022, the CJNG launched an audacious attack on Mexican authorities in the state of Jalisco,
42:55firing on them from a Cessna airplane, while multiple drones dropped homemade explosives.
43:08In response to rising violence, in 2023, Mexican President Obrador proposed new legislation that
43:16would equip Mexican law enforcement with more funding and charge anyone caught in possession of a
43:23narco drone with up to 60 years in prison. Mexican authorities would later speculate that the four
43:31CJNG members caught with a weaponized drone in the SUV near Salamanca in 2017 were likely headed for
43:38Salaya, a nearby city where dismembered corpses have been turning up regularly. If not for the intervention of
43:47the police, more blood would have been spilled on Mexico's already crimson streets.