Narco Warriors: Secrets From The Global Drug War

Most people meet Fidel Castro in history books. Alan Pamplin met him because of a drifting ship packed with cocaine. Cuba is facing one of its worst crises in decades. Blackouts, fuel shortages, and growing unrest. And the pressure has intensified since the U.S. cut vital oil supplies from Venezuela. But the legacy of revolutionary president Fidel Castro looms as large as ever. In the mid-19...

From a secret partnership in Tehran, to the high-society smuggling scandals that rocked the British establishment, these are the extraordinary stories of the UK’s overseas drug enforcement officers. Phil Matthews walks a diplomatic tightrope with Iranian police, Jim Jarvie’s young sons dive for cover as bullets fly at their school, and Mike Gough Cooper confronts a drug smuggler who turns out ...

Cocaine isn't just smuggled by speedboats and drug mules. For decades the cartels have built something much bigger... In the late 1990s, the cartels changed the game, constructing a floating supply chain that crisscrossed the ocean with tonnes of cocaine. Then came the tip-off no one believed. A young Drugs Liaison Officer uncovered intelligence so explosive his bosses thought he’d been readi...

Frankie the Strangler was one of the most feared Mafia assassins. A ruthless enforcer with alleged links to powerful crime families. But British Customs and Excise found him hiding in plain sight in a quiet English village. This episode reveals how UK Customs unknowingly arrested a Mafia godfather who slipped into Britain under the radar. What started as a routine operation became one of the ...

You thought your first week at work was bad? How about turning up unarmed to a gunfight… It was meant to be a routine bust on a Caribbean beach. It ended with machine-gun fire and a dead body. This is Barbados in the 1980s. A tropical paradise on the surface, but part of a vast drug smuggling network. Former UK Customs officer Graham Honey takes us inside two of the most dangerous postings of...

An embassy. A vengeful informant. A loaded pistol. And is it ever a good idea to send your family undercover? In the early 1990s, Thailand was the crossroads of the global drug trade. It was where power, corruption, and survival intersected. Northern Thailand included what became known as the Golden Triangle, the lawless borderland where Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet. This region was one ...

A dead body in a water tank. Rogue informants. Narco submarines. Ever wonder who the government sends to the other side of the world to fight the drug trade? Meet the Drug Liaison Officers. The secret weapon in international narcotics enforcement. From embassy etiquette, to flipping reluctant mules into informants, this is the inside story of law enforcement’s most unusual diplomats. These ar...

The investigator becomes the target, the airport that became a temple of crime and how NOT to sample a cocaine stash. Law enforcement veterans Philip Matthews and Graham Honey trace their unlikely beginnings in 1970s Britain, as UK Customs & Excise investigators quietly transformed from suitcase checks into a global drug-fighting force. From ripping drug parcels, to dismantling corruption at m...

Missile strikes. Narco terrorism. A president taken in the night. In the first episode of Narco Warriors, Lindsay Charlton sets the scene for a global conflict that has entered a dangerous new phase. As the United States declares drug traffickers “narco terrorists” and launches missile strikes on suspected smuggling boats in the Caribbean, our insiders ask a fundamental question: Has the war...

This is the true story of how the narcotics trade went global and how a secret war, fought for more than 50 years, still shapes our world - told by the international investigators who lived it. Episodes drop Mondays 6am GMT