Introducing: Bad Seeds

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
He told us, if you had caught me at my house,
it would have been shootout type of situation. The phrase
black market evoke sinister images stacks of AK forty seven's,
crates of cocaine, caged tigers, but potted succulents on a
window sill. No one is calling crime stoppers for that,

(00:22):
but maybe you should, because here's a secret. The biggest
black market you've never heard of might be blooming right
under your nose. Rare plants are an untapped gold mine.
Whether it's a four thousand pound cactus shoveled from the
Arizona desert or delicate orchids pinched from the tangled forests

(00:43):
of the uf, plants are at the center of a
rapidly growing and lucrative world of crime. This plant could
sell for between ten and fifteen thousand dollars on the
open market, and where there's big money, there are bigger risks.
One of my friends to me and said, dude, we're
being rated. We would just tied up. We won't look

(01:03):
like gobblin string behind now backs. These big mci stain
stop to our heads. I'm Summer rain Oaks. I'm a
plant expert and author on the Bad Seeds podcast, we
plunge straight into the underworld of plant crime, from Mexican
drug cartels to corrupt elected officials. We explore how the
black market for plants has repercussions for you, me, and

(01:27):
the fate of the planet. The thought process it was
just a planet. It'll grow back in many cases. On
some of these pieces, it won't and we'll never see
it again. From School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts, This
is Bad Seeds. Listen to Bad Seeds on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Starting April twelfth,