[old piano playing]
[Prost in French] In France, weâre the biggest consumers of hash.
[music evolves with hard beat]
This suburb is where itâs at. Itâs where the turfs are.
Thereâs a huge market here.
[Pistachio in French] The Moroccan sends it to a Spanish guy,
then my guy goes to get it from the Spaniard.
Then he brings it here and makes a big profit.
[officer in Spanish] Raul, go quick!
It is confirmed that it is our boat. Itâs on the way.
[siren wails]
[dealer in French] I wake up in the morning.
I want to make money.
Their parents will cry. Their parents will cry.
[Pistachio] Let the game commence.
["Logilo Mixtape Vol.4 Index N04" playing]
[Pistachio] Welcome to Hell.
The ninety-three.
Itâs dangerous, if you...
If you donât play by the rules.
[man in French] Itâs OK, we know.
[Pistachio] Iâm waiting for him. I donât feel good here...
because heâs not replying.
Maybe he got caught and Iâm here waiting.
I donât know.
[narrator] Wholesaler Pistachio is expecting
a delivery of five kilos of hash.
[in French] Yeah, Iâm taking a lot of risks.
There's only the police that's walking around at these hours.
[narrator] He could get 30 years if heâs caught.
Iâm going to call him to see where he is.
Hello.
You coming?
What? Yeah. Itâs me.
OK, fine.
Hey! Heâs arriving.
[mysterious music playing]
- [M'Bizi in French] Are you alright? - [Pistachio] Very good.
[M'Bizi] Police are everywhere!
And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere!
We need to be quick.
The quicker you get rid of it, the safer.
[narrator] Now that they've got it, they need to break it down fast.
["Ready" playing]
♪ A man not afraid to die gave his life for a dream ♪
♪ Born hustler so the game conceived ♪
♪ A caged beast, but now I'm free How can you blame me ♪
♪ I was born for this The game chose me ♪
♪ Now I've been training for this My whole life ♪
♪ Carpe diem, huh Seize the moment right, right ♪
♪ We gon turn up and rock plenty ice ♪
♪ This is our time, yeah I'm bout that life ♪
Heâs weighing out the two grams...
and then he puts it in the bags and wraps it.
Heâs the packing guy.
Two is 10â¬.
From one slice...
they can make 50 bags of 10â¬.
Itâs their turf, not mine.
Iâm a supplier.
On 5 kg, Iâll take 1,000â¬.
[narrator] Pistachio is flipping the hash
straight on to a local street dealing gang.
[Pistachio] What they do with it after that, itâs their problem.
[slow beat music playing]
[narrator] This five kilos will sell for 25,000 euros in just a few days.
[mobile phone buzzes]
[in French] Yeah?
Yeah, Iâm here.
OK.
Yeah, itâs all good.
Fine.
Itâs my buddy at the end of the street whoâs acting as a lookout.
There are no cops, itâs cool. For now.
We must hurry up though.
[narrator] Masterminding the street operation is Mâbizi.
[M'Bizi] Makes you a bit paranoid.
Got to pay attention to everything, look behind your back.
Be sharp, you have got to be sharp.
Otherwise you can get caught.
["Up Early Like a Boss" playing]
[indistinct chatter]
[dog growls]
[narrator] Skirting the edges of France's first city,
the 93rd, Seine-Saint-Denis, region has the countryâs highest crime rate.
Here, the hash industry is estimated to be worth over one billion euros a year.
And both cops and customers are always on the lookout for dealers.
[M'Bizi] I arrive, thereâs a line, theyâre waiting for me.
Yeah, these are my regular clients.
There must be about a 100 each day. One hundred to 150.
They come about once a day...
all week long.
I try to do it as discreetly as possible.
Iâve got my secret stashes.
A good place is where you wouldnât expect to find something.
You wonât know, you won't expect it,
In fact, the dumbest places make the best stashes.
Can I hide it again? You got it?
If I put all the drugs here, tomorrow they will come back here.
If I put it there, they will go over there.
Thatâs the way it is.
[rap music playing]
Two grams per person, but there are some that want two.
So four grams.
It goes quickly...
very quickly.
Gets real high.
We're talking big sums.
[narrator] Operating in the 93rd,
a gang like Mâbiziâs can make around 65,000 euros a week.
[M'Bizi] I make my money and I keep quiet.
If I donât do this, I donât eat.
What am I gonna do if I donât do this?
What am I gonna do?
Itâs very easy money.
[narrator] And it's not just the dealers who are cashing in
on this booming underworld economy.
The entire 1200 mile supply chain from Morocco to Paris is paved with gold.
The first link, the speedboat pilots who make a killing
getting the hash into Europe.
[MacGyver in Spanish] The sea is like a plate.
Flat, flat, flat, flat.
Not even one wave.
Today is a perfect day
for smuggling hash
with a rubber boat.
Perfect, today is perfect.
[upbeat music playing]
[Narrator] MacGyver is a freelance hash pilot.
[MacGyver] My whole life, since I was...
I started when I was 17 years old...
and now I am 45.
In order to get me in the water,
at least 15,000 euros.
I've worked for Moroccans a lot because...
they say, "MacGyver.
I work with MacGyver because heâs got balls.â
[narrator] He risks a hash run once every 15 days,
and heâs about to make another one.
[MacGyver] Thereâs eight miles to Morocco.
So in two hours, youâve got the hash over here, in Algeciras.
If you donât have a good speedboat...
you canât do anything.
[narrator] Heâll be using a rib with a 1,000 horsepower engine,
in case he has to take on the cops.
[MacGyver] The Guardia Civil shoots at you when they can't catch you.
I was shot once...
and got five holes.
It went in, it split my femoral vein, the aorta artery,
It went in, then out.
It went in again and broke my fibula.
In the middle of the sea.
Itâs a miracle Iâm alive.
They donât want me in Heaven. Not in Heaven, not in Hell.
[upbeat mysterious music playing]
[boat motor roaring]
[seagull cawing]
[MacGyver] The technique we use to avoid the police
is always to have three boats leaving at once.
Two of them will play around with them.
go to the Morocco coast, come back, go there, back again.
And then thereâs me, the one who comes back loaded.
[phone rings]
[in Spanish] Hello, good afternoon. Guardia Civil from Algeciras speaking.
[narrator] The Guardia Civil is Europeâs first line of defense
against the narco traffickers.
[officer] Here, the Algeciras Precinct
has 112 km of coast.
Along this 112 km,
are strategically placed SIVE stations
with radars and optronic systems
for both day and night.
These operate 24/7, 365 days a year
to detect all kind of boats, either with immigrants or with drugs.
[narrator] Their officers must be vigilant 24/7.
Shark zero, Shark zero from COS.
[voice on radio in Spanish] Go ahead, go for Shark zero.
Thereâs a suspicious boat in the center of Algeciras bay.
Try to get close to check what it is.
[voice on radio] Message received. Weâll go out with Dolphin 21.
OK, received.
[adventurous music playing]
[officer] There are seizures on a weekly basis.
They come loaded with hashish.
A boat usually carries around 2,000kg of hashish in burlap bales.
Itâs a game of cat and mouse, always the same.
[officer] If you have helicopters in the air,
can they go and support Dolphin 21
which is on its way to intercept this boat?
[helicopter rotor starting up]
[officer] Now they usually use three-engine boats.
Each engine is 350 hp.
We're always... If you look at it, we only have two engines of 300 hp each.
So we are always behind, why? Because they have much more money.
[narrator] The hash smugglers often outrun the Guardia Civilâs boats.
But when it a chopper gets above them, thereâs no getting away.
In a bid to avoid prosecution, the smugglers often dump the product.
But if the cops can recover it, thereâs a chance the narcos will go down.
Hash smuggling across the Strait of Gibraltar
is now so common that the entire coastline
is getting sucked in to the drug trade.
But ground zero for this hash invasion is the small town
of La Linea de la Concepcion.
Here, as many as ten narco boats are landed every night.
Some carrying up to three tons of hash.
[drum and bass music playing]
[Camo in Spanish] Yeah, things are pretty fucked over here.
Not great for business.
[narrator] Camo works as a lookout for a local narco gang.
[Camo] Everything that may look weird to me...
If something seems strange, then I have to call someone.
If I see something, I call another lookout.
Then, we would call the boss,
so they can change the route or something like that.
[narrator] Tonight the gang plan to land three hash boats
on one of the local beaches,
and Camo is their eyes on the ground.
[Camo] This is a good viewpoint. You can see the port, you see everything.
You can get in here and see the police boats.
I can spend many hours here. Seven hours, six hours...
keeping an eye on the area so they don't ruin the plan.
[narrator] If the landings are successful, Camo will earn 500 euros.
Tonight, I think itâs going to be quiet because it all seems fine.
[narrator] But what Camo doesnât know
is that a new team of cops has been drafted in from Madrid
especially to bust the narco boats.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[in Spanish] Our mission is to make it difficult for them,
and if anyone has the nerve, try to catch him.
[narrator] Fresh from the city
Sergio Gomez and his team are hungry for some action.
Because of how the sea and the weather are right now,
tonight could be a good night for smuggling.
So weâll have to be especially vigilant.
[narrator] The cops have got intel that a landing is about to go down.
[Camo] The police are there. I have to make a call now.
I just saw the Jais, I just saw our cousins from Albacete.
We've only got seconds. We havenât got five minutes, just seconds.
So every second we waste over here...
Bye-bye. Everyone will get caught red-handed.
If it's your mistake, fuck...
They can break your legs, they can hurt you.
They can do something bad to you. Something really bad.
[narrator] The cops have made it to the beach
where the narcos are due to land.
[officer] Listen! Listen!
Listen to that sound, thatâs the rubber boat.
The boat is somewhere close to here.
Thereâs a white rubber boat...
stopped there, behind that red light. Thereâs a buoy and itâs stopped there.
Itâs one of the three boats that have been passing by all night long.
Normally, this area is used for hashish smuggling.
[Insp. Sergio Gomez] I donât know if they're looking for a good landing spot
or theyâre just waiting for a better opportunity.
[narrator] After lying in wait for over an hour,
the cops realize something isn't right and move on.
[Insp. Sergio Gomez] The promenade and everywhere is full of people,
and some of them might be informing.
There are usually lots of people who look out for the police
and pass the information by phone or even small walkie-talkies.
And they can be from kids around 14 or 15 years old
to even an elderly person.
[narrator] With narco collaborators dogging their every move,
the cops begin to target any suspicious-looking locals.
[Insp. Sergio Gomez in Spanish] When something gets our attention,
we stop, we ask for documentation,
we conduct a small search of their personal belongings.
[narrator] Their best bet is to catch the spotters with contraband
and take them off the streets.
[Insp. Sergio Gomez] When you search someone,
they already know which parts we do and donât touch.
So they hide things there.
From huge knives inside their pants,
drugs in different parts of their clothes, in their shoes.
People have a great imagination when it comes to hiding things.
[narrator] But these suspects are clean.
[Insp. Sergio Gomez] This is how it is, itâs intense. Weâve received a few calls,
and thatâs why weâre moving back and forth, that's how it is.
But a lot of the calls are intended to drive us crazy
and keep us busy by moving us around.
So if we go to one spot, theyâll unload at the next, and so on.
[narrator] While narco collaborators create a smoke screen with fake tip-offs,
the hash boats gain safe passage.
[man on radio] in Spanish There were two white ones escaping.
[officer] Itâs hard.
The Guardia Civil has called. They said that one got in,
and another one got to the rock, got in and unloaded.
Weâve received three calls in an hour.
They unloaded three times and were smuggling.
Our team has seen three or four boats,
which have driven past us.
[narrator] With gangs of local collaborators
unloading each boat,
the narcos can land tonnes of hash in minutes.
[seagulls cawing]
Spiriting it away to secret stashes around town,
known in the trade as nurseries.
[Kiké in Spanish] It's hard, isn't it?
- [Santiago in Spanish] Thank God. - [Kiké] Did you lock the back door?
[Santiago] Yes, donât worry.
[narrator] Local hash wholesalers Santiago and Kiké
are feeling nervous.
Yesterday, I saw an undercover police car driving around here,
and three hours later, a car from the Policía Nacional driving around.
They pretended to go into a park, but I think they were trying to fool us.
They are watching over someone here. Iâm suspicious.
[narrator] And with good reason.
Theyâve just restocked their nursery.
[country rock music playing]
[Santiago] Right now, we have 27 kg.
It just arrived, so itâs of the best quality.
Once it gets here, we unpack it and split it in two.
One part we leave here, for us to sell,
and the other part goes straight to France.
We already got it prepared and packed.
One kilo of hashish bought in Africa
costs between 100â¬ and 300â¬,
depending on the hash quality, the quality of the goods.
As soon as it gets here, we buy it for 1,000â¬ or 1,500â¬ at most.
[narrator] If all goes well, Santiago and Kiké could make 20,000 euros
in a matter of hours,
by flipping half their product to French buyers.
But La Linea is buzzing with police.
In a lock-up a few miles away,
cops have made one of their biggest busts of the year.
[José Luis Fernandez in Spanish] We have been able to locate a nursery
here in this town, on these premises
which is a small parking garage.
When we arrived, it just looked like a normal garage,
but during our search,
we realized there were some holes in the back wall...
and it was a fake wall,
which could be unlocked remotely.
We found 110 bails of hashish,
with an approximate weight of 3,600 kg ready for distribution.
This operation has cost the narcos around three million euros.
This weakens them immensely.
Today is a good day for the Civil Guard and for all Spanish people.
Itâs never a victory, thereâs always something missing.
[narrator] And thatâs why Kiké and Santiago are so wary of the police.
[Santiago] The truth is that nowadays, things are getting worse every day.
They brought new police units to try and control this,
so things donât get out of hand.
There is a lot of chaos, to be honest, a lot of chaos.
- [Kiké] I want to get rid off this. - [Santiago] We must be careful.
[Kiké] They donât stop driving around the block. They don't, man.
I spend all day at the window watching every car that stops, honks.
Everything, bro. Do you get me?
Letâs sell it, quickly.
Theyâll be here any moment.
[narrator] Theyâre meeting their international buyer in minutes.
[Kiké] Listen, these people are strange.
Theyâre armed, theyâre dodgy people from France. That is not Algeciras.
it is a different world.
Itâs another country, a bigger one. Stranger people.
[dogs barking]
[narrator] If things go to plan,
the Spanish role in the smuggling operation is done.
Now, it's over to the French.
[Prost in French] My thing is the go-slow.
You canât be stressed out. You've got to be sure of yourself.
Itâs not like it is in the movies.
VoilÃ .
[narrator] Prost has one of the riskiest jobs of all.
He must smuggle the hash all the way to Paris,
right under the noses of the police.
[Prost] You have to disappear in the crowd.
You just have to be another guy in a car,
blending in with all the other cars driving around.
[narrator] And that takes nerves of steel.
[Prost] For the go-slows, you need a more basic car,
like everyone has.
Something like a company car.
We buy it clean.
You go with a fake ID, a fake document
and then you buy the car in cash.
It's best to cross over to Spain in the early evening,
and drive through France at night.
Always.
["Run On" playing]
♪ You may run for a long time ♪
♪ Run for a long time ♪
[narrator] The vast majority of European hash follows this route
from the south of Spain into France.
But that means crossing a notorious bottleneck.
The Pyrenees mountains...
making it the ideal area for the French authorities to intercept
le go-slow.
♪ Let me tell you that God is gonna cut you down ♪
[music fades out]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Insp. Julien in French] Itâs an entry point in the sense that...
a lot of Moroccan cannabis transits via Spain.
So, this afternoon weâre doing dynamic checks on the A9 freeway
and on the national road running from Spain to France
to search for narcotics.
[narrator] Today, Inspector Julien and his team
are laying a trap for any traffickers coming up from Spain.
[Insp. Julien] We have eight agents on foot...
and four agents on motorbikes.
Weâve installed a spotting scope...
at a spot that gives a good view of the freeway.
The agents manning the scope
are responsible for bringing cars or trucks to our attention.
And the agents already on the freeway will intercept them.
[narrator] When the trap is sprung,
the freeway team will intercept the suspect vehicle
and escort it to the search area,
where a team of agents lies in wait.
[Prost] You canât be afraid. Itâs adrenaline, youâve got to take it.
Got to take it and be confident.
Your job is your job.
[narrator] Prost has removed his mask,
ready for the most challenging part of the entire journey,
the crossing into France.
But after years of trafficking,
he's confident he's perfected the go-slow technique.
[Prost] Always a car in front and one behind.
The car with the stuff always in the middle.
In this car, the biggest load of hash is 150 kg.
You always need to keep 10 km to 15 km between the vehicles.
Maybe the lookout car at the front will warn you,
or you never know if theyâre rushing in from behind.
Either way, youâre warned.
[Insp. Julien] JérÃ´me, he just drove by. Weâre ahead of him.
[narrator] The police spotters have flagged a vehicle.
Weâre soon reaching the first Narbonne exit.
Weâre at the 3 km marker, weâre coming.
[siren wailing]
[narrator] They scramble the bikes in case the target decides to run.
[motorbike police siren wailing]
Weâre arriving.
Weâre 300 m from the resting area. Weâre bringing a car.
[man on radio] Understood.
[People speaking in French]
[Insp. Julien] Classic Customs check.
We search the vehicle to make sure itâs not transporting
something weâre after, be it narcotics, weapons.
[mysterious music, building up]
[narrator] The search is negative,
but across the parking lot...
the canine unit is out.
[Insp. Julien] The bikes stopped this vehicle with five occupants.
We took out every piece of luggage, and the dog is going over it all.
Searching the luggage has led us to a small quantity of cannabis.
[narrator] The students escape with a 200 euro fine,
but their cannabis will be sent to a secret location to be destroyed.
[Prost] There are police everywhere.
You've got roadblocks. They lie in wait around corners.
They even get the choppers out nowadays.
Got to be discreet, got to be smart.
[narrator] After making an epic journey, the hash is nearing its final destination.
[Prost] My merchandise always arrives here in Seine-Saint-Denis.
This suburb is whereâs itâs at.
Itâs where the turfs are.
Thereâs a huge market here.
If you want to make money with drugs, thereâs plenty to be made.
[narrator] Prost is one of the main suppliers in the 93rd.
One of his shipments can sell for over 300,000 euros.
[Prost] Once youâre in the 93, thatâs where things can get dangerous.
Because they can sniff you out.
Here they can sniff you out.
Better to arrive at night.
[music stops]
[knocking on door]
[hip hop music playing]
[Pistachio] Itâs the best from Morocco, straight from Morocco.
The less I know, the better, as we say back home.
Knowing too much can bring problems.
[narrator] While Mâbizi and his gang break down the next load,
Pistachio counts the take from the last.
[Pistachio] We live better lives than most I guess, even though no one can see.
Basically, you canât do anything except maybe save it up
and one day disappear with the whole stash
if you manage to put it by.
I hope Iâll either make enough money so I can stop before I get caught
or keep climbing higher.
[dogs barking in the distance]
[narrator] Thereâs a limit to the amount he can spend in the hood,
or risk blowing his cover.
I made 3,000â¬ in a day and a half.
I take my money, I sleep quietly at home every day.
Iâm not greedy, Iâm not a guy whoâs only into luxuries.
When you keep chasing more and more... thatâs when you fall.
Greed is a deadly sin.
[in French] We donât want to reveal too much
because this is where we bring all the seized items,
and we donât want anyone to find out where it is.
[narrator] The French Customs anti-trafficking operation
is also drawing to a close.
[customs officer] Some say the quality of the cannabis
we seized today is worth roughly 10â¬/g
and we got roughly two tons.
We put all of the merchandise we seized into an incinerator.
So for us, this is where the game ends.
Consumers, traffickers and Customs all share a single objective,
to see hash go up in flames.
["It's Ours" playing]
♪ I'm from the home where them boys will leave you without a hope in hell ♪
♪ A lonely world I used to think you would know me well ♪
♪ Ready for war so I brought more liquor ♪
♪ Sharpen my sword like a broadmoor killer ♪
♪ Come from down in the dust that'll never settle ♪
♪ Never reach my level, I'm a born rebel ♪
♪ I'm a born rebel Turn your silver chain to a gold metal ♪
♪ Yeah and ain't nobody stoppin' me ♪
[music stops]