December 16, 2009 • 31 mins
In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss Narco States, places where illegal drugs are traded openly with government support -- or without government interference.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark with me as always as Charles W. Zonkers Bryant's Yeah,
I'm always. I just sit here with wondering what you're
(00:21):
gonna call me. How's it going? Great, sir? You pretty good?
You look good. You're as good as you were ten
minutes ago when he recorded that other podcast, Shack. Have
you ever been to Mexico? I have been to Mexico.
Have you been to t J. I've been to t J.
You've been to Warez. No, just t J and like
the Baja area. Okay, Well, had you gone a little
(00:42):
further east along the border to Warez, you would have
been in a narco state. Yes. And you know what
I'm ashamed to say, Josh, that I did not know
what anarco state was. Really. I've heard of it, but
I didn't really know what it was. I can't remember
if I pitched this win or if Channel did, but
it's a well done. Thank you very much, thank you. Yeah. Um, well,
(01:05):
Chuck and I are talking about narco states. As you
probably were tipped off by the title of this podcast,
and for those of you who don't know what a
narco state it is, uh, Josh, I'm just gonna give
my own definition, which is, it is a country where
they sort of allow drug trafficking and in some cases
even participate in the drug trafficking. Yeah. And it's it's
(01:29):
very very rarely an entire country. Um. Most of the time.
It's like a region of country, very small area city.
Although there are cases where there have been narco states,
like fully functioning countries that are run by drugs, like
the their gross domestic product is almost fully funded by drugs.
(01:49):
The government's in on it, military is in on it. Um.
And right now, as far as I could tell, there's
only one functioning narco state in the world. Afghanistan. No,
it's close though, uh Guinea bissauth Oh yeah sure. In Africa, yeah,
West of Africa. I can't wait to tell that story.
It's a good one. So okay. So, narco state, as
(02:10):
Chuck said, is basically any area where the government is
either directly involved or turning a blind eye to drug trafficking. Yes,
in the Central Mexico, Central America. South America always known
as being rife with this kind of thing because chances
are if you're doing drugs in the US, chances are
it did not come from inside the United States. No,
(02:32):
unless it was meth or pot. Yeah, and even then,
chances are it probably didn't, although there was a lot
of domestic uh meth labs and and pot farms and
stuff like that. Yeah, but yeah, the chances are it
came through Mexico if not from Mexico. Mexico didn't used
to be nearly as violent, you know. Warez, which we
were talking about, Um had I think three hundred murders
(02:55):
in two thousand seven, and then all of a sudden
there was a drug war started. It's still going on now.
And in two thousand and eight they had murders. Yeah,
that's a heck of a stat Yeah. Yeah, Detroit had
like less than three hundred murders in two thousand seven.
To Detroit, safer than someplace. It's just safer than Warrez,
believe it or not. Well, thank god for that. I
(03:16):
didn't get the stats on Tempi though, so I can't say. Yeah. So, um.
One of the reasons why uh, And we'll see that
American intervention, one way or another, uh usually has an
impact on the formation of anarcho state. But one of
the reasons why Warez and some of the other border
towns along Mexico have turned into narco states, uh, is
(03:37):
because the Coast Guard in the d e A effectively
shut down the Caribbean in the nineties. That was the
main route from um South America to the US for coke.
And Americans love coke. A lot of the world does.
And one thing that I learned from reading this article
and just by living as a human in the world
(03:58):
is that drugs will find a way to get into
the country. They definitely will. Like for example, when the
crib Dow was shut down, they started moving in through
Central American came another run way or another. And the
reason why is um. Well, like I said, Americans love cocaine.
We consume of the global supply of it every year.
Europe does a lot of cocaine. Loves the junk too.
(04:20):
Oh No, Europe is the heroine. Yeah, they have eleven
percent of the global population in Europe, but they have
one third of the world's heroin addict big deal. Yeah,
it's weird how it's localized like that. It is, but
think about it. I think about how much closer Europe
is to the heroin producing countries of the South Asia,
and think about how close we are to the cocaine
(04:41):
producing countries of South America, which affects the price. Of
course it definitely does. Um, you want to give them
that stat josh, a kilogram of uncut cocaine, as you
hear on the cop shows, as it goes for dollars,
that same kilo fetches uh about a hundred and twenty
thousand dollars in Moscow. That's a big markup. It's a
(05:03):
huge markup. Is that street value as they call it.
And I'm sure those are way off. I'm sure you
could get a kilo for a lot less or pay
or whatever. But um, one of the things that FEDS
like to do is pump up their numbers so that
they can get more funding. But yeah, you can definitely
get a kilo of cocaine in America a lot cheaper
than you can, um in Russia. In Russia. Yeah yeah,
(05:26):
so chuck um, all of that, all of those kilos
add up pretty quickly. And the drug trade, the global
drug trade, UM makes an estimated three hundred billion dollars
a year. That's nuts. That is a lot of casts.
You could bail out two A I G S for that.
So Chuck, we talked about, um, the narco state being
(05:46):
a an area where government's either looking the other way,
or selling drugs directly or helping them out, maybe just
hating them. Um, there's a big problem with this, I
would say so, but well, I mean you just think
about it. You're like, oh, the government's not supposed to
do that. To stop and think why why that? Why
the government's not supposed to do that? Yeah, Well, because
they're supposed to protect their citizens. Yeah. There's something that
(06:08):
um Thomas Hobbs called the social contract, right, and basically
it said, like in exchange for certain freedoms, like we
can't just do anything we want to write that we
give to the government, We're going to give that power
to the government. One of those things is the state violence,
the state monopoly on violence, where like the government can
put you in jail, the government can um kill you,
(06:28):
execute you. But the government is supposed to be the
only one who does that. So if somebody, you know,
shoot your kid, you don't go shoot them in the head.
You get the government to go after this guy and
incarce rate or kill him. Right. Yeah, And in the
civilized world. The social contract is kind of how we
developed as nations of the world, and it works pretty
well for the most part. We'll say, I mean, that's
a whole other podcast right there. But in Narco States,
(06:51):
it's a little different because that's a little bit of
a sham. They kind of have that contract as long
as it doesn't interfere with the drug trade. Right, the
government's given it's uh, it's power to drug traffickers at
the expense of the people they're supposed to be protecting
and representing. So that's number one. Yeah, right, So how
does this happen? Right? Well, one reason why that might happen.
(07:14):
There's a bunch of different ways that could happen, but
one reason is if, um, let's say you're in Colombia
and all of a sudden, you've heard the term Columbian
necktie I have. Yeah, all of a sudden, your judges
in your council people, and your and your politicians are
getting knife and executed in back alleys by the dozens.
(07:34):
All of a sudden, the government might say, wait a minute,
we might want to not go after these drug traffickers, right,
because if the state is doesn't have a monopoly on
violence any longer. If you know paramilitary groups affiliated with
drug traffickers do yeah, then yeah. Apparently in Colombia they
came at the justice building with tanks. Yeah. This wasn't
the military, this was a rebel faction. Yeah. I think
(07:57):
it was FARK that did it, right, Josh FARK. That
is f a r C. That stands for the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Columbia translated into English. Uh. And they're
actually a communist guerrilla group, they are. And um, they
actually got into drug trafficking in the eighties, I think. Um.
(08:18):
So okay, So you have a huge armed guerrilla army
attacking your justice department in the country's capital. That's a
good way to get a narco state started, right. Sometimes
you're bribed into it. That's another one too. All of
a sudden, if your coffers are being filled, a lot
of politicians are willing to look the other way. Um.
(08:38):
And also, if your intelligence services become compromised by drug traffickers,
you're in big trouble. Those are corrupted, you're finished. Yeah,
Because the intelligence services are usually toward the top of
the military hierarchy, and if they're corrupted, they can turn
the entire military against you know, the government, which there
(08:59):
is a division. Um, and after that happens again, you're
in big trouble. In a narco state conform yeah, plus state.
They know a lot about smuggling, the intelligence community, and
if all of a sudden they're on your side, then
all of a sudden, you know a lot about smuggling, right, Yeah,
it's it's uh. You have to know how to get
people or arms or something in and out of countries
(09:20):
without being detected. So you know where all the airfields are,
you have access to planes and boats and stuff. You
just start throwing kila's a coke in there, and all
of a sudden, you're a drug smuggler. Yeah. Um. And
it's kind of tough for us to think about this
in the United States because we've had a pretty stable
government for the last couple of hundred years. But uh,
in in areas in countries where there's been high government
(09:43):
turnover and lots of internal conflict. Um, let's say, infrastructure
like roads, bridges, water, electricity, these things have been cut
throughout these civil wars and the government's too poor to
fix them. All of a sudden, the government's delegitimized. And
another like a rebel faction can step in and say, hey,
(10:05):
we're taken over. And by the way, we love drug traffic.
(10:39):
I got a couple of stats for you along those lines.
Guatemala endured a thirty six year long civil war, El
Salvador in a twelve year long civil war. In Nicaragua
had one that lasted nineteen years. And so what this
means is it's a very unstable region, easily swayed by
whoever has the power, drug traffickers or the government. And
(11:00):
it also means there's a lot of guns, yeah, and
a lot of former veterans that are out of work,
but you know how to use those guns and can
serve as a guerrilla army. Yeah. And a lot of
times these are poor countries too. So in fact, I
would say almost every time, it's a poor country, and
it's it's you don't have to be genius to figure
out you got guns, you got these former military guys,
(11:21):
you've got really poor people, and you have loads of drugs.
It's worth a lot of money. It's really not too
hard to devolve into a narco state. No, it's not. Uh,
And of course the root of all narco states is money. Either,
like Chuck said, bribes that kind of thing. Or Um,
the GDP Afghanistan. Um, Apparently their g d P is
(11:41):
like six billion annually, which what's the United States that
think has fourteen trillion GDP something like that. Um, So
it's kind of like, holy cow, how do you live
like that? They've been doing pretty good, but half of
that has been through Heroin So cars I how may
car I who was Um, I'm gonna make air quotes
(12:03):
elected president of Afghanistan twice and made air quotes again. Yeah,
re elected. Um. He has is well known for turning
a blind eye while saying we need to get rid
of these poppies. Um. And the US is like, okay,
well let us spray and he's like, no, no, we
have to do it all by hand. Um. And apparently
(12:23):
the American forces over there, um I have to well,
the d e as over there as well, but the
American commanders of the armed forces in Afghanistan don't let
the d e A in at all, and they're frustrated
pulling their hair out because they're not getting any support whatsoever.
And it's kind of one of those things like everybody
(12:46):
knows that Afghanistan produces poppies. As a matter of fact,
in two thousand and six they produced the highest poppy
harvest in recorded human history just a couple of years ago.
It was double what it had been the year before.
So clearly they're not pulling enough by hand. No, because cars,
I won't let them spray overhead. Yeah, which is I
(13:07):
should explain that that's a common method to uh, like
you crop dust fields to to put chemicals on them.
You do the same thing if you want to eradicate
and kill them, right, And it is very effective. It's
worked in Colombia. Columbia, Uh finally has a president. I
shouldn't say finally, but Columbia as a president is very
sympathetic and friendly to the US, and he's let the
d e A in there and they have eradicated a
(13:29):
lot of um cocoa fields using that that method. Yeah,
so it does work. But cards I was like no.
And apparently there's been more and more and more reports
of the people who are involved in the central government
are all drug lords or most of them are drug
lords too. So Afghanistan is teetering right on the edge
of being a narco state, if it's not already. So
(13:52):
contributing to half of your GDP. That's another reason for
a narco state to develop. Yeah. And well, since we're
on money, another thing that money brings is uh, bribes
and corruption like we were talking about. And I have
to mention this because you uncovered this great fact from Guatemala.
The federal judge that's just hard to believe. The federal
judge was accused of accepting thousands of dollars in bribes
(14:14):
to dismiss a drug trafficking case and at the end
of the seed dismissed the case. At the end of
this trial. Uh, this judge was seen driving the defendant
from court. Yeah, so it goes pretty deep. Yeah, and
Guatemala is UM is a de facto narco state right now.
UM and in Central America itself, which is, like we said,
since the UM, since the Caribbean has been shut down,
(14:37):
Central America started to play a really key role as
a as a supply line between South America and North America. UM.
And actually, because of all those conflicts that you mentioned earlier,
there's now a ratio of five to one illegal unregistered
guns to guns held by UM legitimate police and armed forces.
(14:59):
Not good. So let's keep an eye on in Central America.
That means trouble is coming. Okay, So Central America, UM, again,
we talked about how it's been destabilized by conflict. There's
tons of guns, there's terrible infrastructure, but there's plenty of
drugs and narco states and you know what else. Dide
in Guatemala, they have corrupt government officials there have drafted
(15:22):
legislation that prevents UM extradition. And as we know, extradition
is a really valuable tool for us when we're trying
to prosecute these drug lords. And they said, he can't
do it. No, So that kind of says, right there,
let us make our money. Yeah, us stay out of
her hair. Once you have the Congress, in the judiciary
in your pocket, that's even more valuable. In the military,
(15:45):
although the military is a really good first step. Yeah,
that's true. UM. Alright, So Chuck, one of the reasons
why you might notice that UM Central and South America
keep popping up. One of the reasons why is because
UM Central America specifically was a Cold War battleground where
the U S and the USSR fought one another in
(16:05):
proxy wars UM through throughout the Cold War. Basically both
countries just completely used nations in Central and South America
to fight, fight one another, try to bleed one another out.
And you know what that means. What that means that
these people that live there being trained by either Russian
or American military. They're being supplied with guns and ammunition
(16:29):
and all the things that you need. Once you stop
and say cold wars, over all those guns and trained
dudes are still there and they're like, well, what should
we do with all this stuff? Yeah, it's from throughout
and not only that, we are not getting funding from
the Soviets of the Americans anymore, but we still the
war didn't end for them. The conflict didn't end for them.
The power struggle didn't end for them just because the
(16:50):
Americans and the Soviets suddenly lost interest. It's still going
on and there they are funding it through drugs right
um and also uh the US backed right wing paramilitary
groups or right wing um dictatorships, and the Soviets of
course backed left wing groups like farc Um and farc
has a reputation for being extremely brutal. They used child soldiers,
(17:14):
they engaging kidnappings, bombings, um kill their own people. Sure
at one point, Um, they offered a thousand dollars to
anybody who killed the government official. So they were outsourcing
their terrorism and their communists, and they were supported by
the Soviets. So of course they're horrible. The US supported
equally brutal regimes and groups like lack of Frida. You
(17:36):
know about them, they're Guatemala. Yes, they were very much
supported by the US and they helped kill as many
as two hundred thousand of their own people during that
civil war. Josh, lacka Frida wasn't the only one, right,
Remember the nineteen eighties when President Reagan launched the War
on drugs. You know what was going on At the
same time, we were providing funding and weapons for the
(17:59):
same anti communist paramilitary groups that were producing and distributing
this cocaine. Yeah, right, at the same time. Yea, yet
we were fighting a war on drugs. Yeah, doesn't add up,
doesn't Not only that, you remember Manuel Noriega and we
went down to Panama in nine Delta Force was there,
Special Forces was there, um, and we captured him and
(18:21):
then put him in prison in Miami for a couple
of decades. Yeah, he was a CIA asset for eight years. Yeah,
he was operating a narco state under our supervision. Yeah,
you could say, yep uh. And then once news leaked
out to the general public that he was a drug dealer, um,
we went down and immroved him from power, right and
gave I believe he's still in prison, right, No, he
(18:42):
just got out really yeah, okay, like a year ago
or something like that. Good for him. And again, this
is the same thing that's going on right now in Afghanistan. Um.
We're well aware that cars I is totally cool with
the heroin production in that nation, which by the way
is far and away the the largest producer of heroin
or b um poppies um in the world. So it's
(19:03):
still going on. Although we we donated a lot of
are donated. I guess that's not the right word, but
we gave them close to eight hundred million dollars for
counter narcotics operations and measures. I'm sure every penny went
to that thing. Um. So it's still going on. But
we the reason why it's really disturbing that this is
still going on is because we haven't learned a very
(19:24):
clear lesson from this, and that's when we support groups
that engage in drug trafficking. It invariably comes back to
bite us in the ass um. Like I mentioned Laco
Frida in Guatemala. The two guys who are running that show,
running Guatemala as a narco state, we're both trained by
(19:45):
the United States at the School of the America's Fort Benning,
I think, kay, right here in Georgia. Yeah, that's where
they trained foreign people, no specifically South Latin America, Latin
Americans specifically to train them pretty controversial, Yeah, because they
trained them in assassination, in assembling guerilla armies and destabilizing
(20:06):
central governments, that kind of stuff. So we're training these
guys to go fight the serviews. But then again, after
the Cold Wars over, these guys are still going. They're
still around. Yea Um. The Mexican Gulf Cartel, which has
become hugely violent and kind of big um, is run
by a couple of guys who were also trained at
the School of the America's. So basically the world's biggest
(20:28):
drug dealers were trained by the United States and the
art of smuggling and all sorts of other stuff. They
were trained in their craft, and I think the Russians
used Escobar right, Yeah, to to help guard their poppy fields,
is that right. Yeah. Farc actually started out um guarding
Escobar's coco fields in Colombia for the Median cartel. Right,
(20:51):
and then apparently they're like, wow, this guy is making
a bunch of money. We're gonna go out on our own,
and they became rivals. And then again Delta Force goes
down there and over ever sees the assassination of um Escobar. Yeah.
So I don't mean to sound paranoid, like I really
researched this article and all this is fact. Yeah, everything
that is in fact. I've made like verbal air quotes
(21:13):
with like this is this is documented stuff and so
much money and legitimate publication. You know, it's all about
the green backs. Yes, so much money at stake. So
let's talk about Africa, man, that's the place to be
these days. Well, if you're in the narco state, Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Africa has really risen since the mid eighties. That was
the first sign of a drug presence in Africa and Zombia,
(21:36):
although it was marijuana in uh in Zombia at the time.
That's how it started out, at least the gateway drug.
Even when you're talking narco states. Sure, yeah, it's funny.
So Zambia goes um is exposes a narco state. Apparently
the government wasn't aware of this one, but a group
of prominent citizens were operating like a sub state. Yeah,
(21:56):
sub narco state, just under the noses of the functioning government.
And again very poor people, which is key. That's yeah.
If people don't have any money, and all of a
sudden people come and give them gobs of money. They'll
you know, you want to be a drug mule, We'll
give you this much money. Problem. Um. So Zambie was
(22:35):
the first to start in Africa and then the nineties. UM.
The reason why it picked up speed in the nineties
because it was the end of colonialism and just ended
within the last decade or so. UM. And this European
influence and influx of money and exploitation UM left a
vacuum economically, financially. Uh. And oftentimes with central governments there's
(22:58):
just a vacuum and nobody's doing any there's no way
to make any money or anything. So narco states are
setting up. Synegal was another one in the nineties that
believe heroin and cocaine really were on the rise, and
here's the stat that you you dug up. It was
pretty good. In two thousand and eight, the Telegraph newspaper
in England reported that the cost of a bribe to
look the other way at the airport when you're flying
(23:20):
in at into car with drugs nine grand per kilo
of cocaine. Right, and Chuck just mentioned a little funny
little word, and it was cocaine. You know, associate Africa
with cocaine normally, Well, yeah, that's true. You do now though, yeah,
big time. And one of the reasons why um, it's
popped up in Africa's because West Africa is a perfect
(23:41):
stop for cocaine en route to Europe. Or we talked
about Europe having a huge problem with heroin. One of
the reasons they didn't have a big problem with cocaine's
because the Colombians and other South Americans hadn't figured out
how to get it to them. Now, all of a sudden,
West Africa's devolving into narco states because they finally figured
out we need a port and West Africa's right, specifically
(24:04):
Guinea Bissaal. This is this is, like we said earlier,
the one true functioning narco state right now, Yeah, a
hundred and fifty million dollars worth of cocaine passes through
the borders of Guinea Bissau each month, and that was
in two thousand seven. And what is a hundred and
fifty million dollars times two to them? Uh, they're gross
domestic product. It's half of their gross domestic product. So
(24:27):
the entire nation, all of the goods and services produced
in Guinea Bissau and above the boards, equals three hundred
million dollars a year and they have half of that
coming through their country in cocaine cocaine a month. Yeah.
Tell the story of how this started there is so
interesting it is, Uh, what year was it, Chuck? Two thousands?
(24:51):
There are a group of Guinea Bissau and fishermen who
were out um in their boats and there was a
big old package floating or maybe several small our packages
is floating there. So they hauled them in with their
nets and they took them back to land. They opened
them up and there was this white powder inside that
they've never seen before. They didn't know what to do
with it, so they actually used it as fertilizer on
(25:12):
their crops, which they killed their crops very really yeah.
And then finally, one day, while they're still puzzling over
this stuff, god knows what else they did with it,
a man, a South American man, shows up and says, hey, um,
I believe you have something that belongs to us. Yeah,
and uh, that's cocaine. That's our cocaine. Will give you
a million dollars for it, which is one of the
(25:35):
entire gross domestic product, remember of Guinea Bissau. And so
they say okay, and by the way, can we do
this again? And that was the birth of the Guinea
Bissau and narcos. It completely happened by accident, it did,
I mean, can you imagine that? And Guinea Bissau is
a perfect narco state. The cops literally in this in
the capital Um Bissau, it's the capital city of the country.
(25:59):
The cops have five cop cars and they almost never
have gasoline to fuel them. And they have a hundred
and fifty million dollars worth of cocaine going through the
borders with five cop cars. Right. It was a former
Portuguese colony, the Portuguese left um And getting into how
there's not an airplane associated with that country, but they
have air fields out on like barrier islands that are
(26:20):
just totally unused, unpatrolled. UM. And what's more, the military
is completely in the pockets of the UM. I think
they're mostly Colombians that took the place. Over built stucco mansions.
They have UM direct TV antennas on their roofs. In
this incredibly poverty stricken country, they stick out like sore thumbs.
(26:41):
They don't care. One of the reasons why is, like
I said, the military is on their side. How did
how do we know that, Chuck Josh. In September of
two thousand six, Uh, cops, they are arrested to Colombian
guys in a house with seven hundred kilos of cocaine,
and the soldiers came. They showed up the police station,
surrounded it and said give me the cocaine and the
(27:04):
men and uh they did so, and they got in
their cars, loaded up the coke and drove away. The
cops watched the military load up the coke and just
leave with the guys, said thank you for your time. Yeah,
and that was it. That was UM. That was the
beginning of the end. The military engaged in an all
out war with the government and ended up assassinating the
(27:24):
president after laying siege to his mansion for several hours. Yeah,
just this year, right, March. Huh he was he was
assassinated in March. Yeah. So there's no central government in
Guinea Bissau. The Colombians are they're selling drugs, uh, using
it as Actually they're not selling it in Guinea Bissau
as far as I know. They're using Guinea Bissions as mules.
Who they're even more perfect because it was a Portuguese colony.
(27:47):
They don't have to have visas to get into Europe. Yeah.
I mean, it's like it's like Pablo Escobar went, God,
I need you to do me a favor. I got
some friends back there on Earth, and they need a
place in West Africa, need a perfect narco state that's
a perfect narco state. And God's like getting miss And
I think you said the average annual income there is
like five bucks a year for a civil servants job. Yeah,
(28:10):
so it's clear that if you start waving just small
amounts of money under their nose, that they're gonna be
at your beck and call. So getting Missau on your watch,
I mean, it's just insane right there. Sure, it's not
a safe place to be. No, Nope, so that's Narco States. Um,
I have a headache just from talking about it. How
about you, Chuck? I do kind of dance and it is.
It was a really good article though. Thanks man. If
(28:31):
you want to read the article that I wrote, um
and pour my blood, sweat and tears into you can
type Narco States. That's two words in the handy search
bar at how stuff Works dot com. And uh that
means it's time for listener mail. Yeah, you know it's funny?
Is this morning? Emily asked me while we were getting
(28:53):
ready for a day what we're gonna podcast on and
I said Narco State. She said, what's a Narco state? Not?
I don't know. And here, like eight hours later, my
mind is or at least enough to talk about it
for twenty five minutes? Has it only been twenty five minutes? Minute?
Cherries is thirty five? Josh, I'm gonna call this um
(29:14):
d NA database London Email. Hello, Josh and Chuck love
your show. I thought you may be interested in little
story in regards to the podcast about crime databases. I
am from Yakima, Washington, but I've lived in the UK
for the last decade. I'm a train driver engineer. Lisa
is thirty. She's an American train engineer living in England.
(29:35):
That interesting. So a friend of mine, who was also
a conductor, had a recent experience with the British Transport
Police in regards to this. He was spat on by
a member of the public who was abusive while carrying
out ticket duties, so the police were called on the day,
and for weeks after, my friend was pretty much harassed
by the police because they wanted a DNA sample from
(29:57):
him for quote exclusion purposes. He steadfastly declined each request,
to the point where he put it in writing to
the police that he would get a solicitor involved to
ensure he never had to submit a sample. The outcome
is basically that he the offender, went unpunished because the
police won't follow it up anymore because the guy who
was attacked and spit upon won't surrender his DNA for
(30:20):
exclusion purposes. So I just thought you may want to
know here in England even victims of crime are being
coerced into giving samples. Keep up the great work from
Lisa x x X from Lisa, Wow not an x
O buddy, triple X. That's from Lisa and Stoke, Hammond, Buckinghamshire.
And I guess that's a place. Yeah, you know, I've
(30:43):
can spit on the floor and spit back. Did you
get spit on by cab driver? And nice? Really obvious?
Such a rick and try to charge me twenty bucks
for like an eight block cab ride. I was like,
I'm not giving you that much, and he was like,
just you will further and I I just like blinked
and like put my hand on my face and sure
(31:03):
enough there was a spit and I just spit right
back in his pace. This is France. I thought he
was going to explode, not even in a narco state.
It was a nice Did you pay him? I paid him,
so I didn't pay him twenty bucks? What a jerk
spit on Josh, no doubt. Yeah, he's got a meeting
with me scheduled. Thanks buddy, I'm gonna go find this guy. Yeah,
let's go to Nice, all right? All right? Well, if
(31:24):
you have any stories about spitting on or being spit upon, um,
you can send in an email to Stuff Podcast at
how stuff works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot Com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
(31:45):
the house stuff works dot Com home page
Welcome to Stuff you should know from house Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Clark with me as always as Charles W. Zonkers Bryant's Yeah,
I'm always. I just sit here with wondering what you're
(00:21):
gonna call me. How's it going? Great, sir? You pretty good?
You look good. You're as good as you were ten
minutes ago when he recorded that other podcast, Shack. Have
you ever been to Mexico? I have been to Mexico.
Have you been to t J. I've been to t J.
You've been to Warez. No, just t J and like
the Baja area. Okay, Well, had you gone a little
(00:42):
further east along the border to Warez, you would have
been in a narco state. Yes. And you know what
I'm ashamed to say, Josh, that I did not know
what anarco state was. Really. I've heard of it, but
I didn't really know what it was. I can't remember
if I pitched this win or if Channel did, but
it's a well done. Thank you very much, thank you. Yeah. Um, well,
(01:05):
Chuck and I are talking about narco states. As you
probably were tipped off by the title of this podcast,
and for those of you who don't know what a
narco state it is, uh, Josh, I'm just gonna give
my own definition, which is, it is a country where
they sort of allow drug trafficking and in some cases
even participate in the drug trafficking. Yeah. And it's it's
(01:29):
very very rarely an entire country. Um. Most of the time.
It's like a region of country, very small area city.
Although there are cases where there have been narco states,
like fully functioning countries that are run by drugs, like
the their gross domestic product is almost fully funded by drugs.
(01:49):
The government's in on it, military is in on it. Um.
And right now, as far as I could tell, there's
only one functioning narco state in the world. Afghanistan. No,
it's close though, uh Guinea bissauth Oh yeah sure. In Africa, yeah,
West of Africa. I can't wait to tell that story.
It's a good one. So okay. So, narco state, as
(02:10):
Chuck said, is basically any area where the government is
either directly involved or turning a blind eye to drug trafficking. Yes,
in the Central Mexico, Central America. South America always known
as being rife with this kind of thing because chances
are if you're doing drugs in the US, chances are
it did not come from inside the United States. No,
(02:32):
unless it was meth or pot. Yeah, and even then,
chances are it probably didn't, although there was a lot
of domestic uh meth labs and and pot farms and
stuff like that. Yeah, but yeah, the chances are it
came through Mexico if not from Mexico. Mexico didn't used
to be nearly as violent, you know. Warez, which we
were talking about, Um had I think three hundred murders
(02:55):
in two thousand seven, and then all of a sudden
there was a drug war started. It's still going on now.
And in two thousand and eight they had murders. Yeah,
that's a heck of a stat Yeah. Yeah, Detroit had
like less than three hundred murders in two thousand seven.
To Detroit, safer than someplace. It's just safer than Warrez,
believe it or not. Well, thank god for that. I
(03:16):
didn't get the stats on Tempi though, so I can't say. Yeah. So, um.
One of the reasons why uh, And we'll see that
American intervention, one way or another, uh usually has an
impact on the formation of anarcho state. But one of
the reasons why Warez and some of the other border
towns along Mexico have turned into narco states, uh, is
(03:37):
because the Coast Guard in the d e A effectively
shut down the Caribbean in the nineties. That was the
main route from um South America to the US for coke.
And Americans love coke. A lot of the world does.
And one thing that I learned from reading this article
and just by living as a human in the world
(03:58):
is that drugs will find a way to get into
the country. They definitely will. Like for example, when the
crib Dow was shut down, they started moving in through
Central American came another run way or another. And the
reason why is um. Well, like I said, Americans love cocaine.
We consume of the global supply of it every year.
Europe does a lot of cocaine. Loves the junk too.
(04:20):
Oh No, Europe is the heroine. Yeah, they have eleven
percent of the global population in Europe, but they have
one third of the world's heroin addict big deal. Yeah,
it's weird how it's localized like that. It is, but
think about it. I think about how much closer Europe
is to the heroin producing countries of the South Asia,
and think about how close we are to the cocaine
(04:41):
producing countries of South America, which affects the price. Of
course it definitely does. Um, you want to give them
that stat josh, a kilogram of uncut cocaine, as you
hear on the cop shows, as it goes for dollars,
that same kilo fetches uh about a hundred and twenty
thousand dollars in Moscow. That's a big markup. It's a
(05:03):
huge markup. Is that street value as they call it.
And I'm sure those are way off. I'm sure you
could get a kilo for a lot less or pay
or whatever. But um, one of the things that FEDS
like to do is pump up their numbers so that
they can get more funding. But yeah, you can definitely
get a kilo of cocaine in America a lot cheaper
than you can, um in Russia. In Russia. Yeah yeah,
(05:26):
so chuck um, all of that, all of those kilos
add up pretty quickly. And the drug trade, the global
drug trade, UM makes an estimated three hundred billion dollars
a year. That's nuts. That is a lot of casts.
You could bail out two A I G S for that.
So Chuck, we talked about, um, the narco state being
(05:46):
a an area where government's either looking the other way,
or selling drugs directly or helping them out, maybe just
hating them. Um, there's a big problem with this, I
would say so, but well, I mean you just think
about it. You're like, oh, the government's not supposed to
do that. To stop and think why why that? Why
the government's not supposed to do that? Yeah, Well, because
they're supposed to protect their citizens. Yeah. There's something that
(06:08):
um Thomas Hobbs called the social contract, right, and basically
it said, like in exchange for certain freedoms, like we
can't just do anything we want to write that we
give to the government, We're going to give that power
to the government. One of those things is the state violence,
the state monopoly on violence, where like the government can
put you in jail, the government can um kill you,
(06:28):
execute you. But the government is supposed to be the
only one who does that. So if somebody, you know,
shoot your kid, you don't go shoot them in the head.
You get the government to go after this guy and
incarce rate or kill him. Right. Yeah, And in the
civilized world. The social contract is kind of how we
developed as nations of the world, and it works pretty
well for the most part. We'll say, I mean, that's
a whole other podcast right there. But in Narco States,
(06:51):
it's a little different because that's a little bit of
a sham. They kind of have that contract as long
as it doesn't interfere with the drug trade. Right, the
government's given it's uh, it's power to drug traffickers at
the expense of the people they're supposed to be protecting
and representing. So that's number one. Yeah, right, So how
does this happen? Right? Well, one reason why that might happen.
(07:14):
There's a bunch of different ways that could happen, but
one reason is if, um, let's say you're in Colombia
and all of a sudden, you've heard the term Columbian
necktie I have. Yeah, all of a sudden, your judges
in your council people, and your and your politicians are
getting knife and executed in back alleys by the dozens.
(07:34):
All of a sudden, the government might say, wait a minute,
we might want to not go after these drug traffickers, right,
because if the state is doesn't have a monopoly on
violence any longer. If you know paramilitary groups affiliated with
drug traffickers do yeah, then yeah. Apparently in Colombia they
came at the justice building with tanks. Yeah. This wasn't
the military, this was a rebel faction. Yeah. I think
(07:57):
it was FARK that did it, right, Josh FARK. That
is f a r C. That stands for the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Columbia translated into English. Uh. And they're
actually a communist guerrilla group, they are. And um, they
actually got into drug trafficking in the eighties, I think. Um.
(08:18):
So okay, So you have a huge armed guerrilla army
attacking your justice department in the country's capital. That's a
good way to get a narco state started, right. Sometimes
you're bribed into it. That's another one too. All of
a sudden, if your coffers are being filled, a lot
of politicians are willing to look the other way. Um.
(08:38):
And also, if your intelligence services become compromised by drug traffickers,
you're in big trouble. Those are corrupted, you're finished. Yeah,
Because the intelligence services are usually toward the top of
the military hierarchy, and if they're corrupted, they can turn
the entire military against you know, the government, which there
(08:59):
is a division. Um, and after that happens again, you're
in big trouble. In a narco state conform yeah, plus state.
They know a lot about smuggling, the intelligence community, and
if all of a sudden they're on your side, then
all of a sudden, you know a lot about smuggling, right, Yeah,
it's it's uh. You have to know how to get
people or arms or something in and out of countries
(09:20):
without being detected. So you know where all the airfields are,
you have access to planes and boats and stuff. You
just start throwing kila's a coke in there, and all
of a sudden, you're a drug smuggler. Yeah. Um. And
it's kind of tough for us to think about this
in the United States because we've had a pretty stable
government for the last couple of hundred years. But uh,
in in areas in countries where there's been high government
(09:43):
turnover and lots of internal conflict. Um, let's say, infrastructure
like roads, bridges, water, electricity, these things have been cut
throughout these civil wars and the government's too poor to
fix them. All of a sudden, the government's delegitimized. And
another like a rebel faction can step in and say, hey,
(10:05):
we're taken over. And by the way, we love drug traffic.
(10:39):
I got a couple of stats for you along those lines.
Guatemala endured a thirty six year long civil war, El
Salvador in a twelve year long civil war. In Nicaragua
had one that lasted nineteen years. And so what this
means is it's a very unstable region, easily swayed by
whoever has the power, drug traffickers or the government. And
(11:00):
it also means there's a lot of guns, yeah, and
a lot of former veterans that are out of work,
but you know how to use those guns and can
serve as a guerrilla army. Yeah. And a lot of
times these are poor countries too. So in fact, I
would say almost every time, it's a poor country, and
it's it's you don't have to be genius to figure
out you got guns, you got these former military guys,
(11:21):
you've got really poor people, and you have loads of drugs.
It's worth a lot of money. It's really not too
hard to devolve into a narco state. No, it's not. Uh,
And of course the root of all narco states is money. Either,
like Chuck said, bribes that kind of thing. Or Um,
the GDP Afghanistan. Um, Apparently their g d P is
(11:41):
like six billion annually, which what's the United States that
think has fourteen trillion GDP something like that. Um, So
it's kind of like, holy cow, how do you live
like that? They've been doing pretty good, but half of
that has been through Heroin So cars I how may
car I who was Um, I'm gonna make air quotes
(12:03):
elected president of Afghanistan twice and made air quotes again. Yeah,
re elected. Um. He has is well known for turning
a blind eye while saying we need to get rid
of these poppies. Um. And the US is like, okay,
well let us spray and he's like, no, no, we
have to do it all by hand. Um. And apparently
(12:23):
the American forces over there, um I have to well,
the d e as over there as well, but the
American commanders of the armed forces in Afghanistan don't let
the d e A in at all, and they're frustrated
pulling their hair out because they're not getting any support whatsoever.
And it's kind of one of those things like everybody
(12:46):
knows that Afghanistan produces poppies. As a matter of fact,
in two thousand and six they produced the highest poppy
harvest in recorded human history just a couple of years ago.
It was double what it had been the year before.
So clearly they're not pulling enough by hand. No, because cars,
I won't let them spray overhead. Yeah, which is I
(13:07):
should explain that that's a common method to uh, like
you crop dust fields to to put chemicals on them.
You do the same thing if you want to eradicate
and kill them, right, And it is very effective. It's
worked in Colombia. Columbia, Uh finally has a president. I
shouldn't say finally, but Columbia as a president is very
sympathetic and friendly to the US, and he's let the
d e A in there and they have eradicated a
(13:29):
lot of um cocoa fields using that that method. Yeah,
so it does work. But cards I was like no.
And apparently there's been more and more and more reports
of the people who are involved in the central government
are all drug lords or most of them are drug
lords too. So Afghanistan is teetering right on the edge
of being a narco state, if it's not already. So
(13:52):
contributing to half of your GDP. That's another reason for
a narco state to develop. Yeah. And well, since we're
on money, another thing that money brings is uh, bribes
and corruption like we were talking about. And I have
to mention this because you uncovered this great fact from Guatemala.
The federal judge that's just hard to believe. The federal
judge was accused of accepting thousands of dollars in bribes
(14:14):
to dismiss a drug trafficking case and at the end
of the seed dismissed the case. At the end of
this trial. Uh, this judge was seen driving the defendant
from court. Yeah, so it goes pretty deep. Yeah, and
Guatemala is UM is a de facto narco state right now.
UM and in Central America itself, which is, like we said,
since the UM, since the Caribbean has been shut down,
(14:37):
Central America started to play a really key role as
a as a supply line between South America and North America. UM.
And actually, because of all those conflicts that you mentioned earlier,
there's now a ratio of five to one illegal unregistered
guns to guns held by UM legitimate police and armed forces.
(14:59):
Not good. So let's keep an eye on in Central America.
That means trouble is coming. Okay, So Central America, UM, again,
we talked about how it's been destabilized by conflict. There's
tons of guns, there's terrible infrastructure, but there's plenty of
drugs and narco states and you know what else. Dide
in Guatemala, they have corrupt government officials there have drafted
(15:22):
legislation that prevents UM extradition. And as we know, extradition
is a really valuable tool for us when we're trying
to prosecute these drug lords. And they said, he can't
do it. No, So that kind of says, right there,
let us make our money. Yeah, us stay out of
her hair. Once you have the Congress, in the judiciary
in your pocket, that's even more valuable. In the military,
(15:45):
although the military is a really good first step. Yeah,
that's true. UM. Alright, So Chuck, one of the reasons
why you might notice that UM Central and South America
keep popping up. One of the reasons why is because
UM Central America specifically was a Cold War battleground where
the U S and the USSR fought one another in
(16:05):
proxy wars UM through throughout the Cold War. Basically both
countries just completely used nations in Central and South America
to fight, fight one another, try to bleed one another out.
And you know what that means. What that means that
these people that live there being trained by either Russian
or American military. They're being supplied with guns and ammunition
(16:29):
and all the things that you need. Once you stop
and say cold wars, over all those guns and trained
dudes are still there and they're like, well, what should
we do with all this stuff? Yeah, it's from throughout
and not only that, we are not getting funding from
the Soviets of the Americans anymore, but we still the
war didn't end for them. The conflict didn't end for them.
The power struggle didn't end for them just because the
(16:50):
Americans and the Soviets suddenly lost interest. It's still going
on and there they are funding it through drugs right
um and also uh the US backed right wing paramilitary
groups or right wing um dictatorships, and the Soviets of
course backed left wing groups like farc Um and farc
has a reputation for being extremely brutal. They used child soldiers,
(17:14):
they engaging kidnappings, bombings, um kill their own people. Sure
at one point, Um, they offered a thousand dollars to
anybody who killed the government official. So they were outsourcing
their terrorism and their communists, and they were supported by
the Soviets. So of course they're horrible. The US supported
equally brutal regimes and groups like lack of Frida. You
(17:36):
know about them, they're Guatemala. Yes, they were very much
supported by the US and they helped kill as many
as two hundred thousand of their own people during that
civil war. Josh, lacka Frida wasn't the only one, right,
Remember the nineteen eighties when President Reagan launched the War
on drugs. You know what was going on At the
same time, we were providing funding and weapons for the
(17:59):
same anti communist paramilitary groups that were producing and distributing
this cocaine. Yeah, right, at the same time. Yea, yet
we were fighting a war on drugs. Yeah, doesn't add up,
doesn't Not only that, you remember Manuel Noriega and we
went down to Panama in nine Delta Force was there,
Special Forces was there, um, and we captured him and
(18:21):
then put him in prison in Miami for a couple
of decades. Yeah, he was a CIA asset for eight years. Yeah,
he was operating a narco state under our supervision. Yeah,
you could say, yep uh. And then once news leaked
out to the general public that he was a drug dealer, um,
we went down and immroved him from power, right and
gave I believe he's still in prison, right, No, he
(18:42):
just got out really yeah, okay, like a year ago
or something like that. Good for him. And again, this
is the same thing that's going on right now in Afghanistan. Um.
We're well aware that cars I is totally cool with
the heroin production in that nation, which by the way
is far and away the the largest producer of heroin
or b um poppies um in the world. So it's
(19:03):
still going on. Although we we donated a lot of
are donated. I guess that's not the right word, but
we gave them close to eight hundred million dollars for
counter narcotics operations and measures. I'm sure every penny went
to that thing. Um. So it's still going on. But
we the reason why it's really disturbing that this is
still going on is because we haven't learned a very
(19:24):
clear lesson from this, and that's when we support groups
that engage in drug trafficking. It invariably comes back to
bite us in the ass um. Like I mentioned Laco
Frida in Guatemala. The two guys who are running that show,
running Guatemala as a narco state, we're both trained by
(19:45):
the United States at the School of the America's Fort Benning,
I think, kay, right here in Georgia. Yeah, that's where
they trained foreign people, no specifically South Latin America, Latin
Americans specifically to train them pretty controversial, Yeah, because they
trained them in assassination, in assembling guerilla armies and destabilizing
(20:06):
central governments, that kind of stuff. So we're training these
guys to go fight the serviews. But then again, after
the Cold Wars over, these guys are still going. They're
still around. Yea Um. The Mexican Gulf Cartel, which has
become hugely violent and kind of big um, is run
by a couple of guys who were also trained at
the School of the America's. So basically the world's biggest
(20:28):
drug dealers were trained by the United States and the
art of smuggling and all sorts of other stuff. They
were trained in their craft, and I think the Russians
used Escobar right, Yeah, to to help guard their poppy fields,
is that right. Yeah. Farc actually started out um guarding
Escobar's coco fields in Colombia for the Median cartel. Right,
(20:51):
and then apparently they're like, wow, this guy is making
a bunch of money. We're gonna go out on our own,
and they became rivals. And then again Delta Force goes
down there and over ever sees the assassination of um Escobar. Yeah.
So I don't mean to sound paranoid, like I really
researched this article and all this is fact. Yeah, everything
that is in fact. I've made like verbal air quotes
(21:13):
with like this is this is documented stuff and so
much money and legitimate publication. You know, it's all about
the green backs. Yes, so much money at stake. So
let's talk about Africa, man, that's the place to be
these days. Well, if you're in the narco state, Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Africa has really risen since the mid eighties. That was
the first sign of a drug presence in Africa and Zombia,
(21:36):
although it was marijuana in uh in Zombia at the time.
That's how it started out, at least the gateway drug.
Even when you're talking narco states. Sure, yeah, it's funny.
So Zambia goes um is exposes a narco state. Apparently
the government wasn't aware of this one, but a group
of prominent citizens were operating like a sub state. Yeah,
(21:56):
sub narco state, just under the noses of the functioning government.
And again very poor people, which is key. That's yeah.
If people don't have any money, and all of a
sudden people come and give them gobs of money. They'll
you know, you want to be a drug mule, We'll
give you this much money. Problem. Um. So Zambie was
(22:35):
the first to start in Africa and then the nineties. UM.
The reason why it picked up speed in the nineties
because it was the end of colonialism and just ended
within the last decade or so. UM. And this European
influence and influx of money and exploitation UM left a
vacuum economically, financially. Uh. And oftentimes with central governments there's
(22:58):
just a vacuum and nobody's doing any there's no way
to make any money or anything. So narco states are
setting up. Synegal was another one in the nineties that
believe heroin and cocaine really were on the rise, and
here's the stat that you you dug up. It was
pretty good. In two thousand and eight, the Telegraph newspaper
in England reported that the cost of a bribe to
look the other way at the airport when you're flying
(23:20):
in at into car with drugs nine grand per kilo
of cocaine. Right, and Chuck just mentioned a little funny
little word, and it was cocaine. You know, associate Africa
with cocaine normally, Well, yeah, that's true. You do now though, yeah,
big time. And one of the reasons why um, it's
popped up in Africa's because West Africa is a perfect
(23:41):
stop for cocaine en route to Europe. Or we talked
about Europe having a huge problem with heroin. One of
the reasons they didn't have a big problem with cocaine's
because the Colombians and other South Americans hadn't figured out
how to get it to them. Now, all of a sudden,
West Africa's devolving into narco states because they finally figured
out we need a port and West Africa's right, specifically
(24:04):
Guinea Bissaal. This is this is, like we said earlier,
the one true functioning narco state right now, Yeah, a
hundred and fifty million dollars worth of cocaine passes through
the borders of Guinea Bissau each month, and that was
in two thousand seven. And what is a hundred and
fifty million dollars times two to them? Uh, they're gross
domestic product. It's half of their gross domestic product. So
(24:27):
the entire nation, all of the goods and services produced
in Guinea Bissau and above the boards, equals three hundred
million dollars a year and they have half of that
coming through their country in cocaine cocaine a month. Yeah.
Tell the story of how this started there is so
interesting it is, Uh, what year was it, Chuck? Two thousands?
(24:51):
There are a group of Guinea Bissau and fishermen who
were out um in their boats and there was a
big old package floating or maybe several small our packages
is floating there. So they hauled them in with their
nets and they took them back to land. They opened
them up and there was this white powder inside that
they've never seen before. They didn't know what to do
with it, so they actually used it as fertilizer on
(25:12):
their crops, which they killed their crops very really yeah.
And then finally, one day, while they're still puzzling over
this stuff, god knows what else they did with it,
a man, a South American man, shows up and says, hey, um,
I believe you have something that belongs to us. Yeah,
and uh, that's cocaine. That's our cocaine. Will give you
a million dollars for it, which is one of the
(25:35):
entire gross domestic product, remember of Guinea Bissau. And so
they say okay, and by the way, can we do
this again? And that was the birth of the Guinea
Bissau and narcos. It completely happened by accident, it did,
I mean, can you imagine that? And Guinea Bissau is
a perfect narco state. The cops literally in this in
the capital Um Bissau, it's the capital city of the country.
(25:59):
The cops have five cop cars and they almost never
have gasoline to fuel them. And they have a hundred
and fifty million dollars worth of cocaine going through the
borders with five cop cars. Right. It was a former
Portuguese colony, the Portuguese left um And getting into how
there's not an airplane associated with that country, but they
have air fields out on like barrier islands that are
(26:20):
just totally unused, unpatrolled. UM. And what's more, the military
is completely in the pockets of the UM. I think
they're mostly Colombians that took the place. Over built stucco mansions.
They have UM direct TV antennas on their roofs. In
this incredibly poverty stricken country, they stick out like sore thumbs.
(26:41):
They don't care. One of the reasons why is, like
I said, the military is on their side. How did
how do we know that, Chuck Josh. In September of
two thousand six, Uh, cops, they are arrested to Colombian
guys in a house with seven hundred kilos of cocaine,
and the soldiers came. They showed up the police station,
surrounded it and said give me the cocaine and the
(27:04):
men and uh they did so, and they got in
their cars, loaded up the coke and drove away. The
cops watched the military load up the coke and just
leave with the guys, said thank you for your time. Yeah,
and that was it. That was UM. That was the
beginning of the end. The military engaged in an all
out war with the government and ended up assassinating the
(27:24):
president after laying siege to his mansion for several hours. Yeah,
just this year, right, March. Huh he was he was
assassinated in March. Yeah. So there's no central government in
Guinea Bissau. The Colombians are they're selling drugs, uh, using
it as Actually they're not selling it in Guinea Bissau
as far as I know. They're using Guinea Bissions as mules.
Who they're even more perfect because it was a Portuguese colony.
(27:47):
They don't have to have visas to get into Europe. Yeah.
I mean, it's like it's like Pablo Escobar went, God,
I need you to do me a favor. I got
some friends back there on Earth, and they need a
place in West Africa, need a perfect narco state that's
a perfect narco state. And God's like getting miss And
I think you said the average annual income there is
like five bucks a year for a civil servants job. Yeah,
(28:10):
so it's clear that if you start waving just small
amounts of money under their nose, that they're gonna be
at your beck and call. So getting Missau on your watch,
I mean, it's just insane right there. Sure, it's not
a safe place to be. No, Nope, so that's Narco States. Um,
I have a headache just from talking about it. How
about you, Chuck? I do kind of dance and it is.
It was a really good article though. Thanks man. If
(28:31):
you want to read the article that I wrote, um
and pour my blood, sweat and tears into you can
type Narco States. That's two words in the handy search
bar at how stuff Works dot com. And uh that
means it's time for listener mail. Yeah, you know it's funny?
Is this morning? Emily asked me while we were getting
(28:53):
ready for a day what we're gonna podcast on and
I said Narco State. She said, what's a Narco state? Not?
I don't know. And here, like eight hours later, my
mind is or at least enough to talk about it
for twenty five minutes? Has it only been twenty five minutes? Minute?
Cherries is thirty five? Josh, I'm gonna call this um
(29:14):
d NA database London Email. Hello, Josh and Chuck love
your show. I thought you may be interested in little
story in regards to the podcast about crime databases. I
am from Yakima, Washington, but I've lived in the UK
for the last decade. I'm a train driver engineer. Lisa
is thirty. She's an American train engineer living in England.
(29:35):
That interesting. So a friend of mine, who was also
a conductor, had a recent experience with the British Transport
Police in regards to this. He was spat on by
a member of the public who was abusive while carrying
out ticket duties, so the police were called on the day,
and for weeks after, my friend was pretty much harassed
by the police because they wanted a DNA sample from
(29:57):
him for quote exclusion purposes. He steadfastly declined each request,
to the point where he put it in writing to
the police that he would get a solicitor involved to
ensure he never had to submit a sample. The outcome
is basically that he the offender, went unpunished because the
police won't follow it up anymore because the guy who
was attacked and spit upon won't surrender his DNA for
(30:20):
exclusion purposes. So I just thought you may want to
know here in England even victims of crime are being
coerced into giving samples. Keep up the great work from
Lisa x x X from Lisa, Wow not an x
O buddy, triple X. That's from Lisa and Stoke, Hammond, Buckinghamshire.
And I guess that's a place. Yeah, you know, I've
(30:43):
can spit on the floor and spit back. Did you
get spit on by cab driver? And nice? Really obvious?
Such a rick and try to charge me twenty bucks
for like an eight block cab ride. I was like,
I'm not giving you that much, and he was like,
just you will further and I I just like blinked
and like put my hand on my face and sure
(31:03):
enough there was a spit and I just spit right
back in his pace. This is France. I thought he
was going to explode, not even in a narco state.
It was a nice Did you pay him? I paid him,
so I didn't pay him twenty bucks? What a jerk
spit on Josh, no doubt. Yeah, he's got a meeting
with me scheduled. Thanks buddy, I'm gonna go find this guy. Yeah,
let's go to Nice, all right? All right? Well, if
(31:24):
you have any stories about spitting on or being spit upon, um,
you can send in an email to Stuff Podcast at
how stuff works dot com for more on this and
thousands of other topics. Because it how stuff works dot Com.
Want more how stuff works, check out our blogs on
(31:45):
the house stuff works dot Com home page
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