America's War on Drugs Season 1 Episode 3

Name: America's War on Drugs Season 1 Episode 3
Uploaded: 2025-10-25T15:30:17+00:00
Duration: 1 h 21 min 55 s
Channel: Reality Insight Hub

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America's War on Drugs (2017) Season 1 Episode 3 - Gangs, Prisons & Meth Queens

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00:00:00now America's war on drugs enters its third decade he was owned lock stock and barrel by

00:00:14drug dealers and you know who's supporting the enemy the casual drug use the militarization

00:00:20begins in Los Angeles jury deliberations continue today in the trial of four Los Angeles police

00:00:26officers Daryl Gates created this approach and that's what started the riot mother's little

00:00:33helper the little pill that was meant to make the lives of American housewives tolerable we've

00:00:39been partying like a week straight at FBI I got DEA that said where's AC DC yet when Kurt Cobain

00:00:46dies Phil Clinton even calls it a cultural death experimented with marijuana a time or two and I

00:00:51didn't like it the perfect answer became I didn't inhale drugs is big money and NAFTA was big money

00:00:57it's not only that more people are going to prison but it's that people are staying for longer our

00:01:04great challenge is to take our streets back let us stick with a strategy that's working and keep

00:01:10the crime rate coming down I was in prison when the Berlin Wall fell and I remember watching TV every

00:01:31day the Cold War was ending and there was tremendous pressure on Bush to try to do something about the

00:01:39drug menace it's been 18 years since the war on drugs was declared newly elected president George HW

00:01:47Bush has been in office seven months when he addresses the nation live on TV this is crack cocaine it's as

00:01:57innocent-looking as candy but it's turning our cities into battle zones Bush has ordered the invasion of

00:02:20Panama it's the first war of the war on drugs when the US invaded Panama under George Bush's direction it

00:02:31was unprecedented because for the first time the United States military was being called upon to invade a

00:02:39country to topple one man outside the presidential estate is Panama's leader Manuel Noriega he has

00:02:56turned his country into a center of the international drug trade Panama was meeting ground if you pay the

00:03:01right price to the right person pretty much anything can happen Noriega owes much of his wealth to doing

00:03:07business with some of the biggest drug lords in the world including Pablo Escobar he was completely

00:03:13corrupt owned lock stock and barrel by drug dealers I mean when you got the top guy in your pocket the

00:03:22country is yours the US had been intervening in Central America for decades but what was perhaps new and

00:03:37different about the Panama invasion was the the role of drugs in its justification American troops quickly

00:03:50to subdue Noriega's army but when they kick in the door of his lavish home they're surprised by what

00:03:56they find a lot of red women's underwear cocaine machetes for satanic rituals the US intelligence

00:04:09community had had some inkling he'd become more sort of in his own little weird world I don't know if

00:04:14they realized how far off the rails he had gone President Bush offers a million dollar reward for

00:04:20Noriega's capture and 26,000 troops fan out across the country in the largest manhunt in American history

00:04:27this picture will be in every post office in town that's the way it works he's a fugitive drug dealer the

00:04:35interesting thing about Noriega's relationship with the US was not only was he involved and in bed with

00:04:43these big Colombian drug dealers he was also a CIA asset so he had his relationship with the Bush

00:04:51administration Noriega's ties to the CIA go back to the early days of the Cold War as a young officer

00:04:58he provides information on Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution in the 80s Noriega is enlisted in Reagan's

00:05:05fight against communism Noriega offers to help the CIA fight its covert contra war in Nicaragua which had

00:05:12become entangled with cocaine trafficking but there's an a piece of the story that that's that's

00:05:21missing Panama was created to be kind of like the Switzerland of Latin America in the 1980s the CIA

00:05:28was using these banks to launder money to pay for secret activities in Central America and when General

00:05:37Noriega became the head of Panama he became the trustee of this secret CIA banking system but he

00:05:46started inviting Pablo Escobar and other narco traffickers to do their banking in Panama

00:05:52with American troops closing in Noriega flees to the Vatican's embassy where he's given sanctuary

00:06:09but the US Army surrounds the embassy and begins blasting rock music 24 hours a day to drive him out

00:06:19soldiers phone in requests for songs like paranoid by Black Sabbath and Van Halen's Panama

00:06:27Undeterred Noriega takes to the radio to rally his supporters to battle

00:06:39to all Panamanians this General Manuel Noriega our rallying cry is to overcome or die not to step

00:06:49backwards and to come forward the victors but Noriega is surrounded by the world's most powerful army and a mob

00:07:03that wants his head when he finally gives up ten days later it's agents from the DEA that cuff him

00:07:14and charge him as a drug trafficker George Bush had to take out our ally because he violated the sacred

00:07:26trust of being the leader of Panama the US had to go in and break open those narco trafficker piggy banks

00:07:34get the money out and give the DEA a roadmap to go after these cartels in the early 90s

00:07:43as one boss is brought down in Panama next door another is about to rise

00:07:51cocaine is often still being processed in Colombia but it wasn't being shipped as frequently through

00:08:03the traditional routes of Florida things were changing Pablo Escobar was on the run others had

00:08:09been eliminated one thing that's true about the war on drugs is that every time you eliminate one leader

00:08:16somebody else gets a promotion it's a law of physics almost this is what began to happen in Mexico on this

00:08:24plane is a powerful yet little-known Mexican drug trafficker who's come to Cali Colombia to

00:08:30make a deal that will change the war on drugs Amado Carrillo Fuentes born in the Mexican state of Sinaloa where

00:08:44locals worship a drug trafficking saint and his favorite uncle as a legendary smuggler Amado Carrillo Fuentes was a

00:08:51really strong strong thinker and functioned more as a CEO than he ever did as a drug trapper he determined

00:08:59that he could advance his objectives by dealing directly with the Colombians Carrillo is here to

00:09:06make a deal with representatives of one of Colombia's most powerful cartels the Cali Cartel controlled by two

00:09:14brothers Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Aurelia for a decade the brothers have had a gentleman's

00:09:20agreement with Pablo Escobar is more powerful Median cartel to divide up cocaine distribution in the United

00:09:27States when Escobar gains control over 70% of the market he becomes public enemy number one in Colombia

00:09:34and the Cali Cartel sees the opportunity to expand the Cali Cartel wants to move more cocaine into the US

00:09:48the Mexican has a plan a model determined that the Colombians were always receiving the lion's share so we

00:10:00thought he'd be a little bit more sinister he said to them for every kilogram that I train ship for

00:10:08you you pay me a product you give me one half kilogram so the Colombians thought to themselves hey no

00:10:13money we'll just synthesize more but then he started to deluge in west of the Mississippi markets with his

00:10:21own product gnawing at their market share he started flying literally commercial airline loads of cocaine into

00:10:29Mexico he had his own fleet that's when Mario Curio Fuentes became known as Lord of the skies the

00:10:38Mexicans started to dominate the cocaine market in North America absolute brilliance with General

00:10:45Noriega behind bars and Pablo Escobar under increasing pressure the Cali and Mexican cartels are free to take

00:10:52over and flood the United States with cheap cocaine

00:10:56in the early 90s the flow of cocaine coming into LA via Mexico has made the city the

00:11:25center of the crack cocaine epidemic battles over the crack trade from the streets into a war zone LA

00:11:43county sees over 2500 murders in 1992 over seven a day most people don't understand that even though the crack epidemic started in the 80s at the height of the crack epidemic

00:12:05homicide skyrocketed 1992

00:12:12everybody's carrying guns smoke some crack cocaine and you see somebody and you perceive that individual to look at you disrespectfully you're gonna kill it

00:12:20with Los Angeles flooded with crack cocaine the streets are about to explode and two of America's most notorious gangs the Bloods and Crips will find surprising common ground

00:12:35by the early 1990s the crack epidemic has leveled inner city America crime and murder rates are at all-time highs Los Angeles has been flooded with crack cocaine sold by two street gangs Bloods and Crips

00:13:02and Crips

00:13:09I'm down by long I quit my way around too much too much growing up in Watts we didn't have the more positive black role models the Martin's the Malcolms so gangsters drug dealers these became our new role models

00:13:17I was one of those young guys who was a street dealer small street dealer who sold crack just for survival purposes 90% of the community was involved in

00:13:21selling drugs we've seen the violence that was surrounded by crack people being murdered and Watts was looking like a third world country

00:13:28the crack trade is so dangerous for gang members traveling a few blocks outside your turf could mean a death sentence

00:13:35often it meant blood against blood crip against crip

00:13:43in charge of stopping the violence

00:13:58Daryl Gates

00:13:59L.A.'s hard-as-nails top cop

00:14:01we have a war a shooting war

00:14:05not in the Middle East right now we have it on the streets of every major city in this country

00:14:11and you know who's feeding and supporting the enemy the casual drug user

00:14:20Gates creates an elite paramilitary unit he calls community resources against street hoodlums or crash

00:14:27Gates launches raids with military names like operation hammer

00:14:34in one weekend nearly 1500 people are rounded up and arrested dozens of officers raid apartment buildings punching in walls even leaving their own graffiti on the sides of buildings

00:14:53the Los Angeles police department up under Daryl Gates they was kind of looked at as gang members they sent us

00:15:08I mean it's like man they was untouchables

00:15:11keep your hands where I can see you partner

00:15:14keep your hands up

00:15:16keep your hands up

00:15:17keep your hands up

00:15:18keep your hands up

00:15:19keep your hands up

00:15:20keep your hands up

00:15:21but on March 3, 1991

00:15:23relations between the LAPD and the citizens they police take a darker turn

00:15:28it's not just about Rodney King it's about this entire regime of policing that has grown more and more intense

00:15:56the police were being told for now 20 years that they were fighting a war that more and more of the public was the enemy and thus war is the appropriate set of methodology

00:16:18a year after the king beating while a jury deliberates the fate of the officers charged

00:16:23in South Central LA something extraordinary is happening

00:16:28a movement is brewing to bring peace to the warring gangs a truce between Crips and Bloods

00:16:34in order for us to get the respect of law enforcement is that we had to respect ourselves first

00:16:44inspired by the 1982 Egypt-Israel peace agreement Crip OG Daud Sherils calls a meeting of rival gang leaders

00:16:57y'all can give to your kids that your kids

00:16:59the Israelis and these people have a relationship in blood

00:17:03we had Crips and Bloods fighting each other who was really just black Americans fighting over a color

00:17:13we started drafting a truce that fits the scenario of the environment in which we was coming from

00:17:20no jobs poor education gangs you know drugs

00:17:26listen y'all we gotta take this back

00:17:28there have been over 800 gang related homicides in LA that year alone

00:17:33listen listen we need to calm it down are the drugs really that good in your own neighborhood

00:17:39that ain't the kind of money that y'all wanna be giving to y'all's kids

00:17:42this is our community

00:17:44it was difficult and hard we talking about gang wars between all these different rival neighborhoods

00:17:49we got people who've been shot we got people that was in prison

00:17:52based upon participation in some of these wars and then nobody believed that it was possible

00:17:57but after years of warfare fueled by the crack cocaine explosion

00:18:01the gangs agreed to a truce

00:18:04in that we was some of the most notorious sets in the city of Los Angeles

00:18:11that we can unify and they can unify

00:18:14but it's a black thing

00:18:16it's a black thing

00:18:18as the word spreads celebrations break out across South Central

00:18:23come out hundreds of young men and women converging on a whole neighborhood that they was at war with

00:18:32mothers crying the word is circulating now

00:18:35reunifying getting the opportunity to know one another

00:18:40two days later the celebrations will stop

00:18:44jury deliberations continue today in the trial of four Los Angeles police officers

00:18:59accused of beating motorist Rodney King

00:19:05the city is on edge as it awaits the verdict in the Rodney King beating

00:19:09during the trial the police testified that King was high on PCP and displaying superhuman strength

00:19:16I've seen this man shot with a taser

00:19:20hit with a baton

00:19:22and a powerful blow in the head

00:19:25and he was still on his feet

00:19:28right here, right here

00:19:31the people in the community they're watching this

00:19:34they're already angry

00:19:35and they see themselves

00:19:37as Rodney King

00:19:39I am Rodney King

00:19:41because they've done that to me

00:19:43you know and there's thousands of people that that's happened to

00:19:46and they're watching this

00:19:47and they're going

00:19:48man

00:19:49okay

00:19:50we the jury

00:19:53find the defendant

00:19:54Stacy C. Coon

00:19:55not guilty of the crime of assault by force likely to produce great bodily injury

00:20:00and with a deadly weapon

00:20:08with a non guilty verdict of four LA police officers

00:20:11riots break out of neighborhoods across south central LA

00:20:15over 60 people die

00:20:33and a billion dollars goes up in flames

00:20:36anytime you have a citizenry base

00:20:40who historically was segregated

00:20:43who was oppressed

00:20:46and who was never given opportunities outside drugs

00:20:49you know

00:20:50then it adds up

00:20:51and it adds up

00:20:52then it adds up

00:20:53then it boils over

00:20:54it led to the destruction of their own communities

00:20:59after the smoke clears

00:21:01gang leaders speak out

00:21:02asking for alternatives to the drug trade

00:21:05the streets of south central become noticeably safer murder rates plummet

00:21:12did the violence decrease as a reaction to the riots

00:21:13or because of a now forgotten truce between gang members

00:21:15the reasons are still debated

00:21:16the reasons are still debated

00:21:18Gates must go

00:21:20but for Darrell Gates

00:21:21his war on drugs is over

00:21:23Terrell Gates must go

00:21:25his war on drugs is over

00:21:26The streets of South Central become noticeably safer.

00:21:29Murder rates plummet.

00:21:33Did the violence decrease as a reaction to the riots?

00:21:37Or because of a now forgotten truce between gang members?

00:21:41The reasons are still debated.

00:21:46But for Daryl Gates, his war on drugs is over.

00:21:51I go out of office without a tinge of anger, without a tinge of bitterness.

00:21:57I've had fun. This has been the grandest trip of my life.

00:22:00I loved every moment of it and I love every moment right down to the very last moment.

00:22:05Thank you very much.

00:22:08The story of the militarization of American policing begins in many ways in Los Angeles.

00:22:13That is the first police department to start incorporating the methods of counterinsurgency

00:22:20from America's foreign wars directly into policing.

00:22:23The country was given a choice and what happened was it doubled down on the war on drugs.

00:22:29In the heartland, a new drug is taking off, fueled by the sister of a Hollywood star.

00:22:38Everybody here is the Mexican drug lords. I mean, that's what you see on TV.

00:22:44So I never considered myself a drug dealer and then I realized I was one.

00:23:00In the early 1990s, crack cocaine is devastating America's inner cities.

00:23:15But in the heartland, another just as powerful drug is quietly gaining popularity and will give rise to an unlikely drug lord.

00:23:25I grew up in kind of a back in time town, I guess.

00:23:29Leave your doors open.

00:23:34I have five brothers, one sister.

00:23:35Yeah, just a regular family, kind of.

00:23:40I grew up pretty quick.

00:23:41Junior high school, drinking.

00:23:43Mad Dog 2020, out front of school.

00:23:45Back then, black beauties, Christmas trees, pink hearts, that and pot.

00:23:51Lori Arnold is the sister of Hollywood star Tom Arnold, at the time the sister-in-law of Roseanne Barr.

00:23:59First married at 14.

00:24:01By the time she's 20, she's living in a riverfront shack with her infant son and her husband Floyd, who runs a motorcycle gang called the Grim Reapers.

00:24:10Arnold's life changes when Floyd's brother offers her a line of a new drug.

00:24:14Good, you don't have to snort a lot of it, so we just have a little line to start with.

00:24:19It burns and then, once you get past that part, then the feeling starts.

00:24:25First sold as a cure-off for fatigue.

00:24:28Methamphetamine affects the central nervous system, instantly giving users a heightened sense of focus and energy.

00:24:35Adolf Hitler is high on meth for most of the war.

00:24:37Nazi soldiers take it so they can fight for days without sleep.

00:24:42Meth first takes hold in the United States in the 1950s, when it becomes popular with bikers, sleep-starved truckers, and adrenaline junkies surfers.

00:24:52But America's biggest amphetamine users are the ones you might not expect.

00:24:57American women often have the deciding voice in whatever we come to buy.

00:25:02It was known for years as Mother's Little Helper.

00:25:05The little pill that was meant to make the boring lives of American housewives more tolerable.

00:25:11You would actually see in magazine ads for those drugs directed at housewives.

00:25:16Red devil to amphetamine.

00:25:19U.S. government decided that it was going to crack down on the number of pep pills that were being made,

00:25:24which then created the underground market.

00:25:27Arnold takes a couple of grams to a local bar and offers some to friends.

00:25:35We all did some lines in the bathroom on the toilet tank.

00:25:40About a half hour later, everybody's just talking and dancing and having a good time and everything.

00:25:46Wanted more of that stuff.

00:25:48So I just started selling to just make some extra money.

00:25:54So I lived in this $6,000 cabin.

00:25:56Didn't have heat, didn't have running water.

00:25:58I started with just a little bit of eight ball, three and a half grams.

00:26:02So I'd get $25 for a quarter gram.

00:26:05And then I would get about five bucks out of that.

00:26:08Sold it. My brother-in-law got me a quarter ounce.

00:26:10That went same day.

00:26:11So the next time he brought me a quarter pound, figure a hundred bucks a gram.

00:26:18I had quite a bit of money, you know, and I stashed it at my wall because I didn't know where else to put it.

00:26:24Soon, most of her friends are doing meth and rely on her for their next fix.

00:26:29It makes you sociable.

00:26:32It made them something they wanted to be, but didn't know how to be.

00:26:36Arnold buys a bar and it soon becomes the local party spot.

00:26:40But Arnold can't get enough product, so she looks for an out-of-state connection.

00:26:45Arnold's crew heads to California to meet with a Mexican supplier.

00:26:49They call themselves Mexican Mafia.

00:26:52Whether they were or not, I don't know.

00:26:53We got a little bit of vibe that they might be dangerous.

00:26:57And we always kept a check and took pictures of the property and what was around it.

00:27:03So we could go get them if we had to.

00:27:05We didn't want any kind of violence or anything to happen to our friends.

00:27:10Or us.

00:27:12But I needed them at that time because, you know, they had good dope and it was cheap.

00:27:18So it was just strictly business with them.

00:27:23We'd keep driving this same car out there.

00:27:26Well, we don't want to get caught, of course.

00:27:28So I bought a car dealership.

00:27:31Just a small one.

00:27:32So we'd have a different car each time.

00:27:46The business picked up so much that we'd have to go out to California and Arizona every three days.

00:27:54So like, okay, well, we need to either find somewhere closer to get it or do it ourself.

00:28:00I get some books, science type, like a catalog.

00:28:04I said, okay, well, I can just order a lab right on here.

00:28:08So I just ordered parts, bought a lab.

00:28:11Arnold builds a lab in a trailer and hires the best chemist she can find.

00:28:15Hello?

00:28:17Hello?

00:28:19You in there?

00:28:20You lying?

00:28:22Why don't you come in here?

00:28:23Why don't you come in here?

00:28:30So he'd go up there three days.

00:28:33He didn't do his own stuff until after the batch was made.

00:28:37And he'd shoot it up because that's the way he could tell.

00:28:40He said if it was going to kill him, we didn't want to sell it.

00:28:42Yeah.

00:28:43Whoa, Kelly.

00:28:45Oh, she's crying.

00:28:46The investment in her lab pays off.

00:28:47Instead of paying like $10,000 a pound at that point if I was getting somewhere else, it's about $2,000 to make it.

00:28:55At the height of her production, she's bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars every month.

00:29:01Lower level dealers begin buying Arnold's Pure product and cutting it several times, flooding entire regions of the Midwest with the

00:29:21cheap meth.

00:29:23Crystal meth is nothing more really than some really good amphetamine.

00:29:28And it is a product of backyard cooks just simply figured out that they could use pseudoephedrine to cook up meth.

00:29:38Getting your hands on ephedrine or pseudoephedrine is as easy as buying cold medicine and crushing up the tablets.

00:29:47And all of this new profit streaming in does not go unnoticed by the pharmaceutical industry.

00:29:55People understand that a pseudoephedrine precursor is being used to cook up meth.

00:30:00And the pharmaceutical industry realizes it's selling an awful lot of this stuff.

00:30:05For the next 20 years, pharmaceutical companies will fight Congress's attempts to regulate the precursors for crystal meth.

00:30:17Mainstream pharmaceutical companies play an important role in this whole global production chain.

00:30:24They don't knowingly sell these amphetamines to drug dealers, but I mean that is the source that methamphetamine is made for me.

00:30:32I did work for a number of large manufacturers over my 15 year tenure in the industry.

00:30:39And what I saw was that market share and the profit and bottom line, you know, getting the cells for the shareholders was the primary motivation of each company.

00:30:49But Arnold needs industrial amounts of chemicals, so she uses her used car lot as a front.

00:30:55I could order any of the chemicals I needed, so I'd get a 55 gallon drum, cost me $55,000. They deliver it.

00:31:05The money starts rolling in. She buys a dirt track racing car, a 140 acre ranch and 50 race horses.

00:31:12You know, I'm driving around in a tunnel, Iowa with a red Jaguar and diamonds over my hand and got all these houses.

00:31:19I mean, it's pretty obvious, but you know, as long as nobody's getting hurt, you know, I'm not doing anything wrong because I'm helping people live, you know, I'm helping the economy.

00:31:30But federal agents have been tracking Arnold's California connections and they've also been watching her.

00:31:36We've been partying like a week straight. They waited till everybody went to bed.

00:31:42They waited till everybody went to bed.

00:31:56I woke up with a guy sitting on top of me. All I thought was something on my head and his gun barrels rest on my forehead.

00:32:04Looked around. I'm like, okay, I got FBI. I got DEA. I got OPD. I said, where's ACDC at? You know, trying to make a, you know, lighter situation out of the whole thing.

00:32:17The feds charged me with 350 pounds of meth and $10 million in money laundering.

00:32:34Nobody wants to be a drug dealer. I mean, I don't think that's what your goal is in life.

00:32:40So I thought everybody gets bond, you know, so I'll get bonded out in a big deal.

00:32:46Nope. I didn't go home for 20 years. So yeah, it's crazy.

00:32:53And Lori Arnold's story is sort of a, an exemplar story of the irony of the war on drugs.

00:33:01We're a country that we pride ourselves on our entrepreneurial spirit.

00:33:06And yet we're completely baffled when we look at somebody like Lori Arnold and ask,

00:33:11well, why would this nice person from the Midwest get into drug dealing?

00:33:15Well, she was an American. It unleashed the animal spirits of, of her capitalism.

00:33:20And meth in, in the short term for her had a, it had a wonderful effect on her life.

00:33:27And then it destroyed it, of course.

00:33:29Eventually the DEA will begin a sweeping crackdown on domestic meth producers.

00:33:54But new, more powerful forces are about to move into the meth business.

00:34:06The drug market in the United States is constantly changing.

00:34:10You will see that the Mexican cartels take over the meth market in the United States

00:34:15from what was originally a domestic operation and expand their authority over the drug trade.

00:34:21Deep in the heart of the Santa Monica Mountains, just north of Los Angeles, the war on drugs is about to find an unlikely victim.

00:34:42Donald P. Scott, an eccentric 61-year-old millionaire who lives on a sprawling 200-acre ranch, he calls Trails End.

00:34:55On the morning of October 2nd, 1992,

00:35:00Heavily armed policemen smash through Scott's front door.

00:35:03Scott comes rushing downstairs with a pistol he keeps for home protection.

00:35:12Before he can understand what's happening, police shoot Scott two times in the chest and arm.

00:35:17Scott dies almost immediately.

00:35:29The police claim Scott was growing marijuana in the attempt to take possession of the dead man's ranch,

00:35:34using a powerful weapon in the war on drugs arsenal.

00:35:38Civil asset forfeiture. The laws allow federal and state authorities to seize money and property allegedly associated with a crime.

00:35:46Civil asset forfeiture is the idea that not the individual, but property can be charged with a crime,

00:35:53prosecuted, taken in by the government, and then law enforcement gets to keep almost all of those assets within law enforcement itself.

00:36:02The Donald Scott case shows the potential dangers of asset forfeiture laws.

00:36:07When no evidence of drug activity is found on the property, the Ventura County District Attorney's Office investigates.

00:36:15They conclude that one of the motivations behind the raid was the seizure of Scott's land.

00:36:23The police don't succeed in seizing the ranch from Donald Scott's widow,

00:36:27but the case is just one of a growing trend in the war on drugs.

00:36:32It's almost a separate reality.

00:36:40People can get arrested and have their property seized.

00:36:44They may never be convicted of a crime.

00:36:46They may actually never even be charged with a crime.

00:36:50But their home could be taken from them, their car could be taken from them,

00:36:54if in fact they were believed to have been involved in criminal activity.

00:36:58By 2014, authorities will take in more money through civil asset forfeiture

00:37:04than was stolen in all burglaries across the country.

00:37:08They will take in more money.

00:37:09They will take in more money.

00:37:10They will take in more money.

00:37:11They will take in more money.

00:37:12They will take in more money.

00:37:13Cash, homes, cars, and entire estates are taken by authorities

00:37:16from people they say are involved in drugs.

00:37:18The 1992 presidential campaign.

00:37:34A young candidate promises a new era in American politics.

00:37:38Hi, old lady.

00:37:39Hi.

00:37:40What's your name?

00:37:41Destiny.

00:37:42Destiny.

00:37:43What a wonderful name.

00:37:44Boy, are we glad to meet you.

00:37:45We've been looking for you for months.

00:37:48William Jefferson Clinton.

00:37:50Raised in rural Arkansas, Clinton rise to become governor of the state,

00:37:55then the Democratic Party's breakout star.

00:37:59I want every person in this hall and every person in this land

00:38:05to reach out and join us in a great new adventure.

00:38:12He played saxophone.

00:38:14He was more down and more black than George Bush.

00:38:18So he was deemed as the first black president because he smoked weed.

00:38:23He played the saxophone.

00:38:27But when Clinton's challenged over his alleged marijuana use,

00:38:30it becomes a defining moment of his career.

00:38:33I experimented with marijuana a time or two and I didn't like it.

00:38:38And didn't inhale and never tried it again.

00:38:41If he answered, yes, I did use marijuana,

00:38:43he lost older Democrats who would have voted for him.

00:38:47If he said, no, I didn't use marijuana,

00:38:50he lost baby boomers and younger folks who don't believe him.

00:38:54So the perfect answer ultimately became, yes, I did, but no, I didn't inhale.

00:39:00Clinton was sort of at the head of a parade of disingenuous baby boomers

00:39:06about their marijuana use or drug use in general.

00:39:10But Clinton can't escape the drug issue.

00:39:13The crack epidemic is in full swing,

00:39:15and the crime rate is nearly the highest in American history,

00:39:18with over two million violent crimes in 1993 alone.

00:39:27There is a combination of exaggeration and hype and also real crisis.

00:39:33This is when crime rates actually peak in the United States.

00:39:39And at the time, people didn't know that it was the peak, right?

00:39:43They thought maybe it was going to go up, up and up.

00:39:46A lot of us perceive who Clinton was in, you know,

00:39:52it's like the great white hope for black community.

00:39:54Do solemnly swear.

00:39:55I, William Jefferson Clinton, do solemnly swear.

00:39:59Bill Clinton comes into office but faces too much pushback

00:40:04and by 1994 is presiding over the biggest, baddest,

00:40:13omnibus criminal justice bill of the war on drugs.

00:40:16For six years, Washington debated a crime bill without action.

00:40:21While more and more children died and more and more children became criminals.

00:40:28But today, at last, the waiting ends.

00:40:40Clinton passes the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.

00:40:45It puts 100,000 more cops on the streets and earmarks billions for new prisons.

00:40:49There was a choice and the answer was more drug war.

00:40:54That's the story of the Clinton drug war.

00:40:58The ironic thing about it is that as Clinton was passing the Omnibus Crime Control Act of 94,

00:41:05at the same time, he gave international drug traffickers a huge gift.

00:41:10A new trade agreement will open the doors for Mexican cartels to send massive amounts of drugs across the border.

00:41:20And the drug lord will start eliminating the competition to control the lucrative trade.

00:41:25Cancun, one of Mexico's most popular resort towns.

00:41:41Hey, mum.

00:41:42Hi there.

00:41:43Having a good time on the beach here?

00:41:44Wish you were here.

00:41:45It's 35 degrees.

00:41:46It's safe to have a good birthday, I think, yeah?

00:41:47Yeah.

00:41:48But among the tourists is one of the country's most wanted drug traffickers, on the run with his family in tow.

00:41:59Assassins have just killed the Juarez Cartel's Rafael Aguilar Guillardo, one of Mexico's most powerful drug lords, and left his son critically wounded.

00:42:18When police arrest the killers, they learned they were hired by one of his own.

00:42:25Amado Carrillo Fuentes has now taken full control of the Juarez Cartel.

00:42:31Juarez was really the most important border city when it came to smuggling drugs.

00:42:38It's not much to look at, but for drug traffickers, this is an absolute Shangri-La.

00:42:43For love.

00:42:44Juarez, Mexico is just on the other side of the border from El Paso, Texas, making it the perfect hub for drug trafficking.

00:42:55The history of drug smuggling is all about securing trade routes.

00:43:00From the Mafia's control of Havana to move their French connection heroin.

00:43:04To the CIA's secret bases in Laos, where opium was trafficked by the ton by its Air America Airlines.

00:43:11To Carlos Leiter's bohemian private island, a way station for the Medellin Cartel's cocaine smuggling into Florida.

00:43:19Now under Carrillo's leadership, the Juarez Cartel is on the front door of the U.S.

00:43:26Along the entire border, of course, there will be smaller amounts that are transported by motorcycles and any other type of vehicle.

00:43:34But the large amounts in the tractor trailers, they all move toward a type of choke point.

00:43:40What is connected to many of the larger byways that allow for the movement of larger amounts to the north.

00:43:48As Carrillo consolidates his power in the strategic city of Juarez, his main suppliers in Cali, Colombia, launch a dirty war against their rival.

00:43:58The Cali Cartel's primary mission in life is to get rid of Pablo Escobar.

00:44:04So they formed this group called the Pepes, the people persecuted by Pablo Escobar.

00:44:08And they began doing what the police hadn't been willing to do, what DEA hadn't been willing to do.

00:44:14Los Pepes torture and kill Escobar's lawyers and accountants.

00:44:18They burn his antique car collection, kill his racehorses and their trainers, and attempt to destroy everything he loves.

00:44:26In his accusations, they have help.

00:44:30The DEA had contact with some of the Pepes.

00:44:34What they needed was for the DEA and the police to stand out of the way and let them do what they wanted to do.

00:44:41Under pressure from Los Pepes and the U.S. and Colombian governments, Escobar finally makes a mistake.

00:44:59A trace phone call leads the DEA and the Colombian police to a quiet Medellin neighborhood.

00:45:04Police have searched over 15,000 houses looking for Escobar.

00:45:16This time, they kicked down the right door.

00:45:18Los Pepes realized that it was pretty much over and he couldn't go back to prison, so his options were to die or to die.

00:45:24He hears the police downstairs and climbs out on the roof.

00:45:30But he's surrounded.

00:45:36And the most famous drug lord in history goes down for good.

00:45:40When Pablo Escobar was finally killed, thousands of people turned up to his funeral to pay their respects.

00:45:56Despite the fact that this was a guy who had terrorized Colombia for years, he was responsible for the murders of thousands of people.

00:46:02And yet, his public image really was quite strong.

00:46:08It was a rainy day and there was a little chapel.

00:46:12And everybody was pushing in around the chapel to the degree they broke all the windows in the chapel.

00:46:17And at the top of this little knoll was Pablo Escobar's mother.

00:46:23She started yelling, those are journalists and they're responsible for the death of my son.

00:46:29We thought we were just going to be there sort of taking notes and observing.

00:46:32And suddenly, people just turned on us and were spitting at us, kicking us.

00:46:36And we were trying to get out as best we could, but it was so slippery we kept falling on the wet grass.

00:46:41And what I remember is this sort of sense of panic, these guys were actually going to kill.

00:46:45And the mother just kept screaming, she just wouldn't stop.

00:46:48We're like, man, we'll get out of here.

00:46:54Cocaine will be made and sold in Colombia long after Escobar's death.

00:46:59But as Colombian authorities continue pressuring their cartels, the power and wealth shifts north to the Mexican drug lords.

00:47:06And they're about to get some unexpected help from an American president who claimed he never inhaled.

00:47:17The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, is sold as a boon for corporations looking to make goods cheaper and get them to market faster.

00:47:25This is our opportunity to provide an impetus to freedom and democracy in Latin America and create new jobs for America as well.

00:47:34It's a good deal and we ought to take it. Thank you.

00:47:37To this day, politicians are still facing blowback from the NAFTA vote.

00:47:43So Bill Clinton knows that this is going to be extremely close and he orders the DEA and his drug advisers not to say word one about what the effect of NAFTA is going to be.

00:47:57If the drug policy concerns had been able to be aired at the time, it's quite likely that NAFTA would have failed.

00:48:04NAFTA passes. Restrictions on trade are all but eliminated. And economies on both sides of the border benefit. But few benefit more than Mexico's drug traffickers.

00:48:17The border is not a line in the sand. It's a zone. And everything that happens in that zone is different than what happens outside of it. The rules are different. The game is different. Everything.

00:48:32Corruption and the drug trade, they're all kind of intermixed.

00:48:38It's the dawn of a new era in the war on drugs. At the crossing between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico,

00:48:46thousands of trucks stream across the border.

00:48:50It doesn't take long for the cartels to think up ways to beat the overwhelmed border agents.

00:48:56When customs agents make a bust, sometimes it's all part of the cartel's plan.

00:49:02They will go to the individual driver and they'll say, look, you're going to be the pitfall.

00:49:09But we're going to take care of your family and we're going to take care of you.

00:49:13So they lose a small shipment compared to these large shipments.

00:49:20Let's say you have 1,400 trucks and let's say that 400 of them are crossing two or three tons of drugs.

00:49:27And let's say that the immigration stops 10 of the trucks.

00:49:32It's nothing. NAFTA was a dream for the drug cartels.

00:49:38Drugs is big money. And NAFTA was big money and continues to be big money.

00:49:51And no one benefits more than Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

00:49:55With NAFTA in effect and Escobar dead, Carrillo has a clear path to the top of the drug trade.

00:50:01He knew that money can buy everything in Mexico.

00:50:08He was like a Robin Hood.

00:50:12He was nice to everybody and everybody was nice to him.

00:50:15That's why he has this big network of people who was protecting him.

00:50:19When DEA started pursuing Amado's wealth, his ill-gotten games, Amado started feeling the pressure.

00:50:38Amado actually became a victim of his own wealth. There was too much money.

00:50:43A nightclub in Seattle at the height of Grunge Rock.

00:50:58A powerful white powder made from a small bright flower is the drug of choice.

00:51:02Are you okay?

00:51:13Somebody help! Help!

00:51:16Over the past year, Seattle has seen a huge increase in overdoses.

00:51:22All from one drug.

00:51:24Allie! Allie!

00:51:27When the voice of a generation, Nirvana's lead singer, Kurt Cobain, kills himself with a shotgun.

00:51:37High levels of heroin are found in his blood.

00:51:41Heroin chic takes hold.

00:51:43The fashion industry helps transform it from a taboo drug into something cool.

00:51:49Heroin gains popularity across the decade's diverse subcultures.

00:51:53And this slacker generation is created.

00:51:56You know, the 90s, you get the grunge movement out of Seattle.

00:52:00And also, there's a bit of a 60s revivalism going on.

00:52:05The Grateful Dead never stopped touring, but they're all of a sudden popular among kids again.

00:52:10And it's heroin that contributes to the death of the dead's founding father, Jerry Garcia.

00:52:15Bill Clinton even calls it a cultural death.

00:52:18This is what happens to your brain after snorting heroin.

00:52:20But few people are aware that heroin is also fueling a conflict that's killing thousands half a world away.

00:52:32In Afghanistan, a civil war is locked in a bloody stalemate, and the country is near total collapse.

00:52:50An army of religious fanatics rise from the opium-rich south to bring order to the chaos.

00:53:07The Taliban were just simple village folk. Many of them could barely read.

00:53:14The Taliban are under the command of Mullah Omar, a top marksman who loses an eye in battle.

00:53:21His background is shrouded in mystery.

00:53:23The mythology, at least, is that some villagers outside of Tandahar approach Mullah Omar.

00:53:33They say, look, there's a local thug, a bandit, who had been raping some girls and terrorizing villagers.

00:53:38And so, uh, Mullah Omar gathers up some of his friends and they go, they find this guy and they hang him from the barrel of an old broken down Soviet tank.

00:53:48And they begin to shut down these petty little warlords one after the other.

00:53:53But Mullah Omar knows the key to a Taliban victory lies here in Afghanistan's largest cash crop, the opium poppy.

00:54:09Afghanistan is in the heart of the so-called Golden Crescent, a region rich in opium poppy cultivation.

00:54:16But it wasn't always that way. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union and the United States are competing in a global Cold War for power and influence.

00:54:26Afghanistan was right on the doorstep of the Soviet Empire.

00:54:31Afghanistan successfully played both sides off against the middle.

00:54:35President Eisenhower authorizes one of the largest aid packages in U.S. history.

00:54:40The goal? Transform Afghanistan into a modern nation and win its people over to our side.

00:54:49America finances highways and entire cities.

00:54:53New dams irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres.

00:54:57Wheat, fruit and cotton sprout from the desert.

00:55:01But farmers soon begin to notice the newly irrigated salty soil is perfect for another, much more profitable crop.

00:55:07The opium poppy.

00:55:11The United States has inadvertently created the perfect conditions for a drug boom that will one day become entangled with a new war.

00:55:19A war on terror.

00:55:25The seeds of terror are planted in 1979.

00:55:29The Soviet Union has invaded Afghanistan to prop up a failing communist government.

00:55:33And when President Reagan takes office, Soviet aggression becomes one of his most pressing issues.

00:55:40The Reagan administration starts thinking about, OK, well, what can we do about this growing threat?

00:55:47We can't fight the Soviets head on.

00:55:49We can back insurgency groups that, even if they're not aligned with us, they're at least against our enemies.

00:55:56The U.S. government realizes, whoa, this is the way that we can give the Soviets their Vietnam.

00:56:04The CIA begins financing a small force of religious warriors known as a Mujahideen.

00:56:10There's a wave of international volunteers comes in to support the Mujahideen.

00:56:29They're actually recruiting centers for the Mujahideen in Brooklyn.

00:56:32The Mujahideen had always been asking the Saudis who were sending money, he said, send us a Saudi prince.

00:56:37Apparently none of the princes wanted to go.

00:56:39So they send the next best thing, one of the sons of the top construction company in Saudi Arabia.

00:56:45Osama bin Laden is the 17th son of one of the richest men in Saudi Arabia.

00:56:49He helps finance a support group of Mujahideen fighters.

00:56:54He calls it the base or Al Qaeda.

00:57:00The CIA looks the other direction as its new Cold War allies find alternative ways to finance their war.

00:57:07The Mujahideen start collecting a poppy tax from farmers.

00:57:10The United States was interested in undermining the Soviet presence.

00:57:19There was not as much an emphasis put on the pursuit of drug traffickers.

00:57:23In fact, there was none.

00:57:25The Mujahideen sent hundreds of tons of raw opium to heroin labs across the border in Pakistan,

00:57:31creating a million addicts and feeding new habits in Europe and beyond.

00:57:35After a decade of war, the Soviet Union pulls its troops out.

00:57:44A superpower defeated by a small guerrilla force financed by the CIA and drugs.

00:57:50In the wake of the Soviet retreat, Afghanistan devolves into civil war.

00:58:03And many former Mujahideen find a new cause, the Taliban.

00:58:10Mullah Omar's Taliban took the capital, Kabul.

00:58:14And like the Mujahideen before it, the Taliban use opium to finance their goals.

00:58:20There were edicts that said it's not a sin to sell drugs to non-believers,

00:58:25but you shouldn't do drugs yourself.

00:58:27So they allow the people to grow poppy and they tax it.

00:58:30The country is now a religious narco state.

00:58:35The Taliban begin executing women for adultery and destroying ancient monuments.

00:58:41And Mullah Omar welcomes back his old friend Osama bin Laden in his Al Qaeda network.

00:58:49The colossally tragic irony is that our efforts in Afghanistan to help them defeat the Soviets during the Cold War lay the groundwork for the war that we would then have to fight the war on terror.

00:59:07While Afghanistan is deteriorating into a narco state, and Mexico is not far behind, back home the war on drugs is starting to see results.

00:59:31Our great challenge is to take our streets back from crime and gangs and drugs.

00:59:38In New York City, murders are down 25%, in St. Louis 18%, in Seattle 32%.

00:59:44The crime bill of 1994 is critical.

00:59:47Let us stick with a strategy that's working and keep the crime rate coming down.

00:59:57After reaching all-time highs in the early 90s, crime is down across the country.

01:00:01But the effects of President Clinton's get-tough policies are just beginning to be felt.

01:00:16Come on, man. We're studying.

01:00:18Douglas Lindsay, a 26-year-old army veteran making his way through college while working as a mental health professional at night.

01:00:25But Lindsay is struggling for money. To finance his education, he sells pot and crack cocaine. It'll soon catch up to him.

01:00:38Bill Clinton's 1994 crime bill was one of the most far-reaching laws in American history, pushing policies like three strikes you're out and long mandatory sentences for drug dealers.

01:00:50Mandatory minimum sentencing largely removes judges from the decision-making process.

01:00:57They become auditoms, where they just simply have the amount of weight of the drugs, the circumstances that they were caught in, come up with some calculation, and come up with a multi-decade prison sentence.

01:01:09There's a proliferation of three strikes laws. The amount of time that people are now doing for relatively small amounts of drugs increases massively.

01:01:19It's not only that more people are going to prison, but it's that people are staying for longer. This reverberates through the communities.

01:01:26A year after his last drug deal, Lindsay is arrested by federal agents. And when seven of his friends who are arrested with him are threatened with long mandatory sentences, they agree to cooperate with the government, testifying that Lindsay was their ringleader.

01:01:27A year after his last drug deal, Lindsay is arrested by long mandatory sentences.

01:01:28A year after his last drug deal, Lindsay is arrested by federal agents. And when seven of his friends who are arrested with him are threatened with long mandatory sentences, they agree to cooperate with the government, testifying that Lindsay was their ringleader.

01:01:32Mandatory minimum sentences created a velvet glove over the head of anybody who had been busted for drugs.

01:01:39And it incentivized them to take a plea bargain for decades that they otherwise would not take the chance to take a plea bargain.

01:01:46You just simply didn't want to take the chance at trial. You just simply didn't want to take the chance of getting 50 or 60 years in jail when you were supposed to take a plea bargain.

01:01:53with settling for 10 years.

01:01:54But Lindsay was their ringleader.

01:01:55Lindsay was their ringleader.

01:01:56Mandatory minimum sentences created a velveted glove over the head of anybody who had been busted for drugs.

01:02:02And it incentivized them to take a plea bargain for decades that they otherwise would not take the chance at trial.

01:02:10You just simply didn't want to take the chance of getting 50 or 60 years in jail when you were supposed to be okay with settling for 10 years.

01:02:21But Lindsay takes the case to trial.

01:02:26He's convicted of two felony charges and at a sentencing hearing pleads for mercy.

01:02:31This is my first time offense, sir. I've never before been convicted of a crime. Please.

01:02:37Under new mandatory sentencing laws, Douglas Lindsay faces at least 10 years.

01:02:42On Christmas Eve 1996, the judge sentences him to life in prison.

01:02:49A lot of people who heard Clinton admit on the campaign trail that he had smoked a joint expected he would maybe dismantle aspects of the war on drugs.

01:03:03But in fact, the opposite happened.

01:03:07Starting in the early 1990s and really accelerating under Clinton, the war on drugs became increasingly to be about how many Americans were being put into prison.

01:03:18The more the U.S. government increased its targeting of street dealers, the more dealers they created because they created a class of people who could work in no other industry.

01:03:46But the drug trade. And this is how the war on drugs has perpetuated itself.

01:03:53It's almost Halloween night and three members of the Hispanic street gang known as F-13 are driving around Huntington Beach looking for blood.

01:04:09They think they've just found a rival gang members house.

01:04:16They've missed their target. The shooter, Jose Munguilla, has killed an innocent 11 year old girl.

01:04:32He and his friends have just crossed the line set by one of the most dangerous gangs in the country.

01:04:39La M.A., also known as the Mexican Mafia, a Mexican-American street gang whose leaders reside in California's prisons.

01:04:46They rule over numerous Hispanic gangs on the outside with a strict code of street justice.

01:04:53Their disciples carry out murders, kidnappings and extortion, but their most lucrative business is drugs.

01:04:59The Mexican Mafia, they got a lot of power.

01:05:18This idea that the Mexican cartels control street level drug operations is not correct.

01:05:30They control the flow of the drugs, but they don't control the street level operations.

01:05:37The distribution of drugs are controlled by the street level gangs, like the Mexican Mafia.

01:05:48September 1993, Elysian Park, Los Angeles.

01:05:52More than a thousand gang members from across Southern California converge.

01:05:57La M.A. has called a meeting to lay down a series of laws for the gangs under their control.

01:06:03The goal, keep away unwanted attention from the authorities.

01:06:07Preserve the drug trade at all costs.

01:06:10Scores should be settled face to face.

01:06:13Those who break the rules will pay.

01:06:16So they passed a directive that anybody caught doing drive-bys from then on was gonna be targeted.

01:06:27Killed or, you know, assaulted, primarily killed.

01:06:31It's a week after the little girl's death, and the shooter, Jose Munguia, is at home.

01:06:44Two fellow gang members have come to enforce the Elysian Park rules.

01:06:49Now remember, killing to these individuals is not that big of a deal.

01:06:56They've already done it.

01:07:04What's up?

01:07:05I don't think it was that difficult of a thing for them to do, to go over there, knock on the door, and say,

01:07:12hey, you know, sorry homeboy, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then walk away.

01:07:18Munguia dies almost instantly.

01:07:21The killers are arrested later that night.

01:07:37Inside a California state prison, the two killers are welcomed into La Eme's fold.

01:07:48They're now part of a vast criminal enterprise whose headquarters are behind bars.

01:07:54The Mexican Mafia is composed of elites, of street gang members, the cream of the crop, in other words.

01:08:07They're charismatic.

01:08:10They're intelligent.

01:08:11They speak well.

01:08:13They educate themselves on Mecca Valley and, you know, philosophy.

01:08:17Really exceptional individuals criminally.

01:08:20And if they're not exceptional individuals when they get into the Mexican Mafia, they will be by the time they leave.

01:08:27The 1990s sees an almost 50% increase in the prison population, and with it, a new level of sophistication in prison gangs.

01:08:38Within the prisoner network was completely controlled by these gangs, to the point where they buy the guards.

01:08:45And by corrupting the guards, they take over control of the prisons.

01:08:48They were able to get drugs into the prisons.

01:08:51They were able to deal drugs within the prisons.

01:08:53Mexican Mafia became unbelievably powerful.

01:08:56The feds tried to break that up.

01:08:58So they would take these guys from these prisons and spread them out all over the country.

01:09:02But by doing that, all they did was create regimes within prisons that had never seen them before.

01:09:11Other race-based gangs take control of prisons across the country, including the Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Guerrillas, and Nuestra Familia,

01:09:20all with their own piece of a nationwide drug distribution network.

01:09:26Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the Lord of the Skies, has become the richest drug trafficker in the world.

01:09:38But Carrillo's control over much of Mexico's drug trade has not gone unnoticed.

01:09:43As the pressure was turned up by the Mexicans and DEA, he became obsessed with his own safety.

01:09:48To the extent that he was traveling in ambulances that were conventional on the outside, opulent on the inside.

01:09:53He had body doubles prancing around Mexico to throw others off his trail.

01:09:59And even to the extent that he decided to change his physical appearance.

01:10:04Carrillo has taken over an entire floor of a Mexico City maternity ward.

01:10:08A plastic surgeon team traveled to Mexico and agreed to alter not only his facial features, but also his rather corpulent body.

01:10:24Throughout a 10-hour surgery, 30 pounds of fatty tissue were taken from his body and his face was altered considerably.

01:10:35The count goes from some of those present in the room.

01:10:39He woke up and was feeling such great pain, reached for a gun, ordered more pain medication.

01:10:49And when the doctor was looking at the bore of a handgun, he decided best to do what the boss said.

01:10:54He said,

01:11:11It is said that Amado, the Lord of the Skies, died of respiratory arrest.

01:11:30The circumstances of his death are so mysterious that some think he faked it and escaped.

01:11:41But the gory truth soon comes out.

01:11:53DEA and the Mexican authorities went to the location where they found the body.

01:11:58His body is so disfigured that his identity can only be confirmed by fingerprints and DNA.

01:12:05He looked like a Frankenstein monster because he was all stitched and there was so much reconfiguration of his body.

01:12:10It's not the only grisly find made by authorities.

01:12:14Months later, Mexican workers discover cement-filled oil drums.

01:12:18Inside are the badly decayed remains of two of Carrillo's doctors and another unidentified person.

01:12:24Each has been handcuffed and blindfolded, burned and tortured, their fingernails pulled out.

01:12:30But the killing has just started.

01:12:36Now the city of Juarez is up for grabs as rival factions battle it out to control the Juarez cartel.

01:12:44The city experiences a bloodletting as the bodies of traffickers litter the streets.

01:12:49When Amado died, the other cartels knew the power he left doing business with the Colombians was open for everybody.

01:13:00So it was this empire that became headless after he died.

01:13:09Three years after Carrillo's death, a changing of the guard is taking place.

01:13:18The nation's ruling party is on the edge of collapse.

01:13:23They've lost the presidential election for the first time in 70 years.

01:13:27The institutional revolutionary party, also known as the PRI, had a grip over Mexican politics, Mexican life, and also the Mexican drug trafficking trade.

01:13:36An academic once called it the perfect dictatorship.

01:13:40As long as the cartels kept quiet, they didn't engage in any killing sprees or any major disruptions, the PRI more or less allowed the cartels to do their own thing.

01:13:49The PRI has left the people in poverty, the Peso nearly worthless, and the cartels are wary of the new regime's promise to fight drugs and corruption.

01:14:02One man, however, is not waiting to find out if they follow through.

01:14:09Pacing around the medical bay of Puente Grande prison is Joaquin Guzman Larrera, also known as El Chapo.

01:14:17El Chapo is one of the leaders of the Juarez Cartel's rivals, Sinaloa.

01:14:23A former protege of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, he's in prison for the murder of the Cardinal of Guadalajara.

01:14:30He has a logistical mindset, so he was able to figure out a new product, and he was ruthless enough to deal with rivals because at his level, you know, they're all apex predators, and, you know, it's kill or be killed, and he was able to survive that world.

01:14:47Chapo has been enjoying a privileged life in prison, paying off his guards.

01:14:58But with a new government in place, he's worried he'll be extradited to the U.S. on trafficking charges.

01:15:04Five SWAT officers storm the medical bay.

01:15:19They hand Chapo riot gear, a gun, and a mask.

01:15:23Six officers walk out the front door of the prison.

01:15:26The brazen escape is a new low for the Mexican government and the police.

01:15:42But it's not a surprise.

01:15:44Anybody that thinks that Chapo Guzman escapes is not dealing with reality.

01:15:50Chapo Guzman can do whatever he wants to do in Mexico, and there's a reason that Amado Carrillo Fuentes and Chapo Guzman, among others, have stated,

01:16:00Why would I want to be president of Mexico? I am more powerful than they are.

01:16:05And it's a pretty accurate statement.

01:16:08Over the next decade, the cartels will become more violent, more powerful, and bring new agony to its country and its neighbors.

01:16:16But an even more fearsome act of violence is about to be unleashed on the United States.

01:16:22And the seeds were planted decades before on a continent far away.

01:16:27Suicide bombers have attacked the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

01:16:46224 people die in the twin attacks.

01:16:49And the blame soon falls on the son of a Saudi billionaire turned Islamic radical.

01:16:53Many people have come to think that bin Laden's first attack on America was 9-11.

01:17:00In fact, bin Laden's first attack was the 1998 Nairobi bombing.

01:17:08These acts of terrorist violence are abhorrent. They are inhuman.

01:17:13We will use all the means at our disposal to bring those responsible to justice.

01:17:23Before the al-Qaeda attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam,

01:17:29Osama bin Laden was forced to flee Sudan, where he had been operating from.

01:17:33And he came back to the one country he knew would welcome him, which is Afghanistan.

01:17:41Pressure builds on Afghanistan's Taliban government to turn over bin Laden,

01:17:45as sanctions and famine cripple the nation's economy.

01:17:48The Taliban had an enormous PR problem by this point.

01:17:51They had blown up the Bamiyan Buddhas.

01:17:54They were beheading people and chopping off their hands in football stadiums around the country.

01:17:59They were under enormous pressure to give up bin Laden

01:18:01and the enormous amount of drugs that were coming out of Afghanistan.

01:18:05And so by banning farmers from growing poppy, they could get a PR win.

01:18:16The Taliban's leader, Mullah Omar, issues a fatwa on opium.

01:18:21Production across Afghanistan grinds to a halt as the Taliban punish farmers who defy them.

01:18:27Within a year, 65% of the world's opium has seemingly disappeared.

01:18:32American and U.N. officials hail the crackdown.

01:18:37There's only one problem.

01:18:39It's a scam.

01:18:42They came up with a strategy that was very, very clever.

01:18:45They went to the international community and said that they were going to ban farmers from growing opium.

01:18:51But very quietly, they continued to allow opium traffickers and heroin producers to process opium into heroin.

01:18:59And they continued to allow narcotics to be exported.

01:19:02It was like an insider trading deal.

01:19:04They pulled a fast one on the international community.

01:19:09With a drop of supply, Afghan traffickers sell their surplus opium at a premium, making millions.

01:19:16Everybody kind of wanted a good news story about Afghanistan.

01:19:23Everybody wanted something to succeed and something to seem to be moving in the right direction.

01:19:30So again, you have this willingness by the U.S. government not to look at the problem too closely because you might not like what you see.

01:19:36America sends millions in aid as they stockpile tons of raw opium in warehouses.

01:19:43The Bush administration gave them $43 million to support these drug eradication efforts.

01:19:49That was in early spring of 2001.

01:19:53And as everybody knows, history took quite a different course later that year.

01:19:57Four months later, on a sunny September morning, a new war will begin.

01:20:14With both the war on terror and the war on drugs, the U.S. government, its leadership openly declared wars on these open-ended enemies and phenomenon.

01:20:29And people would make light of the fact that how do you declare a war on terror, it's not a country, it's not a person, it's an idea.

01:20:41And similarly, how do you declare a war on drugs, which are used commonly throughout the world, they're grown everywhere.

01:20:50And there's a principle at work here, and it's that, you know, one thing that really makes a state grow and thrive is having a war.

01:21:02On the final episode of America's War on Drugs.

01:21:089-11 happened, and the United States invaded one of the largest opium producers in the world.

01:21:14These terrorists must be pursued, defeated, and brought to justice.

01:21:17And that effect, the Patriot Act, is that it refueled the war on drugs.

01:21:21I helped murder families in Colombia.

01:21:23Mexican cops will go out and carry out a hit, and then they'll come back a couple hours later and investigate the murder they just committed.

01:21:29Coked in many innocent, it's an invitation to your own murder.

01:21:33You smoked it, and you certainly said, wait a minute, this stuff isn't so bad.

01:21:36We've got some legal weed!