AGENT CIVILIAN NEWS_REPORTER OFFICER OFFICER_ACEVEDO OFFICER_CHAPA OFFICER_CISNEROS OFFICER_DIERLAM OFFICER_EBERTOWSKI OFFICER_MARTINEZ OFFICER_MENDOZA OFFICER_PEREZ OFFICER_THOMAS OFFICER_WOODRUFF PA_ANNOUNCER SPECIAL_AGENT_CHRIS SPECIAL_AGENT_GABRIEL SUSPECT TRAVELER PA ANNOUNCER Fourteen. Fourteen at a time. Fourteen [inaudible] AGENT This necklace with this crucifix was intercepted by CBP here at Miami International Airport, from a passenger coming from Colombia. What brought the attention to the officer was the difference in the quality because of the finish. You can see striations and lines. It doesn't look professional in nature. SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS In the last three years, Miami International Airport has seen an uptick in the illicit gold trade. Much of it is from illegal mining operations down in Colombia. The gold is smuggled out of Colombia and brought here to the United States to sell the gold, to fund international criminal organizations. AGENT This bracelet and, and this necklace, their appraisal came back close to 30,000 dollars. Just for this. SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS Similar to a kilo of cocaine. In other instances, we've seen bulk shipments in bar form on the cargo side of the airport. This here, came back with a market value of about 930,000 dollars. SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS Just here in the last three years alone, Miami International Airport encountered probably more than a ton of gold that can be traced to illicit mining operations or illicit trade. SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS Gold trafficking often times will parallel that of the narcotics trade. Many of these criminal organizations smuggle various commodities and controlled items. The money and the proceeds that is obtained through the illicit gold industry can be more than narcotics smuggling. SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS Homeland Security Investigations have a presence in more than seventy countries around the world, so we are routinely collaborating with Colombia to target the illicit gold trade. Gabe. SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL [speaking Spanish] How are you? [speaking English] How are you? SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS [speaking Spanish] Good, good. How are you? SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL [speaking Spanish] Good. Good. SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS Obviously on our end we're seeing the gold flow through. SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS We're seeing it flow through Miami. We've continued to investigate it to-to the extent possible. You guys have anything operationally going on right now? Or something that, uh, may warrant coordination with us at this point? SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL Based on some information that, uh, you guys were able to send, our Colombian government, uh, working with our Colombian national police were able to identify a network in Colombia, who have been receiving and purchasing heavy machinery that's being utilized in these, in this illicit gold mining. The main target is here in Bogota, so we are planning to conduct an operation soon. SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS Okay. SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL So we have, right now, arrest warrants for them. SPECIAL AGENT CHRIS Very good. Keep us informed. Let us know what's going on. We're monitoring the imports from South Florida. And support the operation down there. SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL That's great. OFFICER WOODRUFF At the Hidalgo bridge, it's never the same thing. OFFICER [speaking Spanish] Documents, sir. OFFICER WOODRUFF We have H-One-B's which are people coming over to work and they, they're going everywhere from Washington to North Carolina. OFFICER [speaking Spanish] Okay, good. OFFICER [speaking Spanish] Thank you. Have a good one. OFFICER WOODRUFF You have tourists that are coming through, just traveling in and out. OFFICER CHAPA [speaking Spanish] How are you, sir? OFFICER CHAPA [speaking Spanish] Where are you going? TRAVELER [speaking Spanish] To the outlets in Mercedes. OFFICER CHAPA [speaking Spanish] Ah, the outlets. Okay. OFFICER WOODRUFF It's a lot of different people from a lot of different backgrounds. OFFICER CHAPA [speaking Spanish] Be careful. OFFICER WOODRUFF It's a, a whole melting pot. OFFICER MENDOZA Reynosa, Mexico is a city that borders Hidalgo, Texas. It's known for its cartel violence. OFFICER MENDOZA You control the border, you control the money. And if I can do anything to stop the influx of, you know, narcotics into this area, I'll do my very best. OFFICER This is a washing machine. We try to remove everything and check for hidden compartments. OFFICER Negative on the K9 inspection. OFFICER Come on this way, okay? OFFICER Oh, it's stuck. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI The individual came in from Mexico. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI She had been down there probably since2019, I believe she said. Said that she had some problems with the cartels. We're inspecting the vehicle since it's been outside the country for so long. Doing a thorough search to make sure we're not missing anything. Contraband-wise, weapons, uh, ammunition, money, anything like that. Looks like medications. Looks like she has hobbies. She's got a lot of stuff in here. What is this? This lady's got everything from the last three years living in her van. Looks like a toilet. Every crevice is filled with something. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI We're gonna need K9. K9 to secondary. K9 to secondary. OFFICER Here you can see clothing articles, you can see the zippers, the buttons. Those are clear. OFFICER Good boy, bubba. That's a good boy. OFFICER CISNEROS I've been working with CBP for almost 15 and a half years. Working here in the international mail facility, I'm going on my third year. What we do here is targeting parcels, trying to stop illegal drugs, illegal guns, to keep our country safe. OFFICER CISNEROS There are pretty nasty things that we have seen. OFFICER CISNEROS Okay, we have a sword here. We have seen human remains, skulls, bones. This ones can be Christmas trees, can be anything, I don't know. We have seen sexual toys that, that are different. Two weeks ago I have a colony of ants that were coming from Europe. Why do we need a, another colony of ants? I don't know. Next box. OFFICER CISNEROS Let's find out what we have here. Hmm. It looks like a pump, like, air pump. The cylinder of the pump should be clear, but it has some items inside that cylinder. So definitely this is something that needs to be inspected. Oh, well we have a pump for oil. For cars. Oh, okay. I recognize these parts. Pins and triggers for gun switches. They belong to a glock gun. The same gun that we use as a law enforcement. It will make this gun fully automatic. We don't even have a fully automatic gun. So we got one, two, three, four, five. It will be five glock switches times two thousand is fifty thousand dollars. So we're gonna put it back all together and we're gonna send it to our special agents for a controlled delivery. So most of the parcels that we have selected here for a double check is because we have an intel department that actually selects the parcels because these parcels have a red flag. Eighty to eighty-five percent of the package have some kind of contraband and that because they are specifically selected because the history of the package and the history of the sender. OFFICER All clear. OFFICER CISNEROS This one I don't think is anything though it's very light, but I don't know. Let's see. Nope, mistaken I am. We gotta open. Oh, wow. Look at this. Rifle, that's a rifle. OFFICER CISNEROS A suit machine gun. OFFICER CISNEROS You can, I can see by the mechanism that this isn't a toy. Has a magazine. It's an airsoft magazine. Shoots pellets. The problem that we have with this, it must have a orange tip that is attached to it that you cannot remove. This one doesn't have it. This is just painted. So that's a no-no for us. And plus, this is a very realistic looking gun. When this realistic gun is in the hands of a child, if a police officer comes by and sees somebody pointing this gun to kids, what do you think that this officer will do? Will actually meet the guy with the gun with deadly force. There is no need in our society to have realistic guns in the playground. There is no need for it. If we cannot confiscate it by the orange tips, I see "Made in Wisconsin, United States." If it was made in Wisconsin, United States, why is it coming from Europe? Also they have the trademark. So we have some grounds to actually confiscate this gun as an I.P.R, Intellectual Property Rights, violation or look for more information about, you know, how we can go around and trying to stop this gun from reaching our population. Let's see what else we have. So now we're gonna X-ray those, these big parcels. Okay, what do we have here? Hmm. This one seems that the middle part is very dense. The parcel's coming from Poland and it's going to L.A. And we have here puzzles. Whoa. Okay, this looks like something else. So what I'm gonna do now is gonna put on my mask, make sure that we take all the precautions. So I'm gonna just make a little cut. So let me just rip this. And bingo. I see pills here. And we have another one. More pills here. And here we go, that's the way. Same. So I'm gonna smash them and then test them to find out what substance we have here. Now we've got MDMA. OFFICER CISNEROS We're gonna wrap everything up, we're gonna set everything where it belongs, and we're gonna send it for controlled delivery. So the bad guy, when somebody's knocking at the door, might be a federal officer, where you're gonna spend a long-long time in the penitentiary. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI She makes for an easy target. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI And she had been in Mexico for approximately three to four years. A country that is known to have dangerous cartels and narcotics. OFFICER Where is it? Where is it? OFFICER All good? OFFICER Good, brother. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI We wanted to have a little conversation with you. So you came from Canada? TRAVELER Canada. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Okay. TRAVELER When Covid hit. We need the vaccine, I don't have the vaccine. I cannot go back. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Okay. TRAVELER It was a mess. And after that, the cartels steal inside my van. They. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI They robbed the inside of your van? TRAVELER Yes. They rob inside and they kidnap my two dogs. And, uh. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Well, how'd you get them out? How did you? TRAVELER Uh, we deal with the, with the police there. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Okay. TRAVELER We deal all night. They demanded 200,000 pesos and, uh. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Which is, uh, approximately how much? TRAVELER Ten thousand dollars in the U.S. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Oh, okay. TRAVELER It's amazing. I says, uh, "You're loco. It's, it's amazing." I says, "No". OFFICER EBERTOWSKI How long did it take for you to get the dogs back? TRAVELER Uh, it took three days. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Three days. TRAVELER Three days. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI How much did you ultimately end up paying? TRAVELER Uh, a lot of money. Yeah, uh. TRAVELER Almost 100,000 pesos. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI So 5,000. TRAVELER More than that because they put knife in my two tires. I need to replace the tires, anyways I have a lot of adventures. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Yeah. Absolutely. So any, uh, any, are you carrying any currency in the van or with your person in the excess of 10,000 dollars in U.S. currency? TRAVELER No. No. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Monetary expense? TRAVELER A thousand two hundred left in pesos. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI Oh, ok. Your inspections complete. You're good to go. TRAVELER Thank you. OFFICER EBERTOWSKI So after we cleared our inspection and we had a little bit of, more of a discussion of where she's going, she seems to be a pretty well-spirited lady, we released her and let her go on down the road. SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL We are headed to the Colombian national police Decar Carabineros headquarters here in Bogota, Colombia. They're planning to conduct arrests here in Bogota to try to dismantle these companies that have been selling and exporting gold that are illegitimate. The head of the company that they will be conducting arrest warrants for, he's been supplying heavy machinery to armed groups such as Clan del Golfo, E.L.N., people that go into national parks, conduct deforestation, and start conducting illegal mining. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Hello. Police. Police. NEWS REPORTER This is the front line of the war in the Amazon, when guns and gold collide. Where the collateral damage begins and the forest being pillaged by a lust for gold. SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL There is thousands of acres of land in southern Columbia, Brazil, and Peru where it's being devastated illegally. They set up these makeshift barges on the rivers and illegal mercury is being utilized to conduct these illegal gold mines. And it's contaminating the rivers. Indigenous people here in Colombia, their livelihood is on the river, especially when you're talking about the Amazon. And we don't know what are the effects of the mercury for those that are consuming the mercury in the water, in the river, in the fish. A lot of times we don't emotionalize over a lot of our cases that we work, but this is where we live. So by arresting the, uh, subject, our end result is to dismantle these networks, to enforce the safety of our neighbors and our family. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Good afternoon to you all. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Today we work jointly with HSI Colombia. AGENT [speaking Spanish] This is the principal target. AGENT [speaking Spanish] The head of the criminal organization. AGENT [speaking Spanish] And we will raid his home with the objective of capturing him. AGENT [speaking Spanish] The target is located in the Danubio Azul neighborhood. AGENT [speaking Spanish] We know there is an organization who has control of this sector. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Dedicated to local drug trafficking. AGENT [speaking Spanish] They could have firearms and explosives. AGENT [speaking Spanish] So it would be ideal to do this quickly. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO The Colombian national police actually execute the arrest and search warrants. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO So what we're gonna do now is we're gonna provide support to the Colombian police. AGENT [speaking Spanish] We have 15 commandos assigned to this operation� AGENT [speaking Spanish] With urban and rural combat training. AGENT [speaking Spanish] In case we are confronted with a situation, they will have long machine guns. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO We know this organization uses explosives on their operations, so we have to be careful not only finding people and weapons, but now today we have to worry about finding explosives as well. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO We're driving to, uh, south of Bogota, where the Colombian national police has identified the lead organizer of this illegal gold mining operation. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO At this location that we're going is where the target lives, as well as has a business location in the same building. So the goal of today is to capture this person and conduct a search of the business location. This is the most dangerous part of, uh, Bogota. It's a lot of good hard-working people in this area, but the street crime in this area is really bad. Really, really bad. So this is gonna be a challenge. OFFICER Oh, nothing. Hey, here we go. No luck this time. OFFICER DIERLAM The various cartels, they switch it up all the time. I mean, right when you think you got it figured out they'll switch the game on you. So you can't really go based on, on your previous load, you know? It, it may have been the, the front bumper one time. It ain't gonna be the front bumper the next time. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] Where are you coming from, ma'am? TRAVELER [speaking Spanish] From Reynosa. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] What did you do in Reynosa? TRAVELER [speaking Spanish] I went to visit a friend. OFFICER THOMAS This vehicle is linked to a cartel. And there was a hit for it. Uh, there's no record on the driver, so I'm gonna go see if I can get some information from her. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] How long were you in Mexico? TRAVELER [speaking Spanish] Around five hours. TRAVELER [speaking Spanish] I crossed around 1100 or 1200. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] The SUV is yours? TRAVELER [speaking Spanish] No, I'm paying it off. OFFICER THOMAS Okay. Okay. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] How long have you had the SUV? TRAVELER [speaking Spanish] Uh, I've had it around two years. OFFICER THOMAS Okay. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] Please step out with any valuable possessions. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] Over there, please. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] Thank you. [speaking English] We'll check any type of liquid they may have in the vehicle, especially like antifreeze or something. Because it could be liquid meth. If it doesn't crystallize when it hits the air right away then, you know, it's regular liquid. Yeah. Looks good. I don't see anything out of the ordinary. The inspection was good. The vehicle had no tampering. She's had it for about two years. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] Come with me, please. She could have bought it and the person before was probably linked to the the cartel. OFFICER THOMAS [speaking Spanish] Thank you very much. That's it. TRAVELER [speaking Spanish] Thank you. OFFICER THOMAS That's for today. TRAVELER I have to go. OFFICER THOMAS Uh-hmm. So we were good with the inspection, we're gonna let her go. OFFICER CISNEROS This one has something inside the parcel. It's very thick. I'm not able to read it. In the past, we have a lot of success finding drugs in this kind of parcel. Oh. Okay, we got a box. A box with confetti and you can see white residue here. Powdery substance. And you gotta ask why there's gonna be powder inside of this partitions. When I say partitions, these are like walls of a box. So we ask ourselves a question, does this make sense to you? Why somebody from Germany is spending 60, 70, 80 dollars to send partitions? Why partitions here in the United States? It doesn't make sense. We're gonna see if my gut feeling is right. Now see, I have a white powdery substance in my blade. We are going to test what kind of substance do we have over here. And bang. We have ketamine. So we're gonna cut this in the middle and we're gonna take all the substance out. I got an evidence bag, now we're gonna go slow, all the way in. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. So I'm gonna weigh to see what the final weight's in terms of drugs. So this is gonna be in pounds . It's a pound. A pound times five. OFFICER CISNEROS These drugs, what they do is harm our population, harm our kids, destroy families. And when we get something like that out of the street, we are actually keeping our country safe. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO The complications of this operation is that there's only one entry point and one exit point into the building. Normally, we like to see if we can secure and maybe go in different ways, but this is gonna be a challenge. The police is trying to make entry into the building. It's protected by a metal door. This is a very common tactic that, that criminals use here in Colombia. Gaining entry, it becomes very difficult. AGENT Okay, we're clear. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Police. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Police! Put your hands up! AGENT [speaking Spanish] Don't move! AGENT Hands up! AGENT [speaking Spanish] I am reading your rights for the articles being attributed to you. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Generating grave damage through contamination. AGENT [speaking Spanish] With mercury and cyanide. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Causing grave destruction to natural resources. AGENT [speaking Spanish] And the environment. SUSPECT [speaking Spanish] Sir, I don't understand it, because I have never worked for. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Sir, I am reading you your rights. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Listen to them. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Please. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Do you understand me? CIVILIAN [speaking Spanish] They don't let us come down. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Sir. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Sir. AGENT [speaking Spanish] People are arriving. AGENT [speaking Spanish] And they want to enter. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO We're having a lot of family members showing up at the location. So the police is trying to secure the residence and also control all the people that are gathering outside. AGENT [speaking Spanish] You can't interrupt our procedures. AGENT [speaking Spanish] You can't interrupt our procedures. AGENT [speaking Spanish] Our procedures come from the National Police. AGENT Yeah, it's getting too dangerous. AGENT So we're out? AGENT Yeah. AGENT All right, so we're outta here. AGENT It's a little rowdy. SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL People are starting to come outside the apartment, coming outside their houses. SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL There may be some, some unrest at the location, so it's best for security purposes that we head back to the office. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO All right, let's go. Let's take off. OFFICER PEREZ Hello. Anything to declare today? TRAVELER No. OFFICER PEREZ A single male driver approached my lane. There was something off about this driver. He was overtly friendly, so I sent him in for enforcement. Go ahead and park it at number one, please. I decided to have the vehicle inspected by K9. OFFICER MARTINEZ Okay, over here. Where is it? Where is it? Alert. Good boy. OFFICER MARTINEZ That was a sign of the alert. As soon as I came around the vehicle where he hit by the door panel and the rocker panel. So let us go ahead and confirm it with an X-ray. OFFICER See all the anomalies here in the rear? And in the driver's side rear door also. OFFICER Driver's side too. OFFICER ACEVEDO We have confirmed anomalies. We're gonna go to the seizure processing area. OFFICER ACEVEDO We'll dismantle the load and, uh, reveal the anomalies. OFFICER Yeah, I can see sneakers and clothing in that box. OFFICER CISNEROS We're gonna X-ray this box. It's coming from Europe. And this box is different from the other boxes because it's very bulgy. This have different odd shapes. It seems to be a sculpture. Three figurines coming from one of the European countries. But it has something inside it, has different bulges inside, different density. I have to open the box. Oh, look at that. A porcupine. We can see on the bottom that this has been broken and plastered again. It makes me believe that our little friend here is hiding something. Let's find out what he's hiding. OFFICER CISNEROS It seems that somebody has tampered from the bottom of this figurine, so we will try and see if we can take the bottom out. OFFICER CISNEROS Wow. I see a plastic bag right now, so I'm almost a hundred percent sure that this is something illicit. Successful surgery. And voila. Our first bag. So right now what we do is we're gonna try to test this. So we're gonna insert a little substance here and see what we got. And we have ketamine. So we still have some bags inside here. This is a really clever way of hiding drugs. There you go. And look, our friend keeps smiling. Attaboy. Okay. We have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. So we've got eight pieces and three figurines. Now we're gonna see how much is the weight. How much weight do we have here. Wow. It's 3.15 pounds in each figurine. And we've got three figurines. OFFICER CISNEROS I never imagined to be an officer when I was growing up. I'm a psychology major. I used to treat people on the clinical side. I used to manage a detox and rehab unit and now I see myself on the other side stopping the drugs from actually reaching these people. It's fulfilling because it's the passion that you have by doing what you believe is right to do and by what you believe can save the country and help people to move on in their life. OFFICER ACEVEDO It does look like a significant amount of, uh, narcotics. OFFICER ACEVEDO Right here we have a trap door that goes to the, uh, bumper access. So you probably pull this green rope here and it should all come out there. That's gotta be coke. OFFICER ACEVEDO You can kind of tell what kind of substance you're gonna get based on the, uh, packages. So if I have perfect squares that are symmetrical, the likelihood of it being cocaine is very high. Because they use a cocaine press to compress the narcotic. OFFICER ACEVEDO I'm impressed. OFFICER All that in the doors? OFFICER In one door. OFFICER ACEVEDO In our line of work we call this a suicide load, just because on the door panels, it's just very obvious to an officer. There's a lot of indicators for a, a door load. When an officer opens a door and it's extra heavy. If there's a loose package in there and you shake the door and you hear that rattle. It's just very obvious for the type of smuggling method used. It looks like we're gonna have forty-four, or so, packages of, uh, cocaine. And it looks like five packages of methamphetamine. We're gonna field test the narcotic, get an official weight, know exactly what narcotic we're dealing with. This is gonna be a very valuable load. OFFICER ACEVEDO It says, "Donald Trump." With a star and, uh, Trump's face. OFFICER ACEVEDO Drug trafficking organizations might stamp their insignia on the, the cocaine, just to mark where the cocaine came from. I've seen different insignias, but that's the first time I've seen the, uh, Donald Trump stamp. OFFICER What I'm about to do is I'm gonna test this package for narcotics. And it's positive for cocaine. Now I'm about to test these bags. This bag tested positive for methamphetamine. OFFICER ACEVEDO The method of smuggling within the doors is usually not one consistent for a hard narcotic, such as cocaine. Come to find out that they used it for cocaine and meth. It ended up being a great seizure for the port. OFFICER ACEVEDO The final weight of the cocaine, 46.54 kilograms . OFFICER Now we're gonna weigh the crystal meth. OFFICER ACEVEDO We have five bags of meth. OFFICER ACEVEDO Totalling five kilograms . As per policy, once we have a narcotic seizure, all those subjects are turned over to HSI. The narcotics will be stored in our vault, later to be destroyed. The vehicle will be impounded, later to be auctioned. And we'll await, um, the court process for the subject. OFFICER ACEVEDO It's hard work. Definitely a lot of manual labor when we're tearing apart cars, we're tearing apart compartments. But it's definitely well worth it. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO We're headed to the Colombian national police station where the main target of the operation is gonna be, uh, booked. It's very significant for us to be able to capture high-level people that had been identified. That goes a long way in helping to dismantle the organization, making it harder for them to continue with the illegal gold mining. And the other people that are in the organization can start worrying if they're next or who's gonna be next getting arrested. AGENT [speaking Spanish] We captured the target. AGENT [speaking Spanish] The head of the organization. AGENT [speaking Spanish] While we were there, a lot of people started showing up. AGENT [speaking Spanish] The person's family members, who were looking for a way to free him. AGENT [speaking Spanish] They wanted to harm us, steal the commandos' long rifles. AGENT [speaking Spanish] They started hurling objects, like rocks and sticks. AGENT [speaking Spanish] To injure us and hinder the operation. AGENT [speaking Spanish] However, we were able to get through. AGENT [speaking Spanish] And we were able to extract the target. AGENT [speaking Spanish] And today we are placing him under the prosecutor's authority. SPECIAL AGENT GABRIEL The organization has identified they were conducting and operating here in Bogota and in Tumaco-Barbacoas. They were supplying most of the illegal gold mining networks with all the heavy machinery equipment. And it's very difficult to remove a lot of the equipment from these areas, so it's easier for the Colombian national police to, to actually destroy the items so they're not being utilized in any other time. So they were able to have these items destroyed. The individual that was arrested in Bogota, he is currently facing approximately twenty to twenty-three years in Colombian jail for money laundering, environmental crimes, for illegal mining. We try to further these investigations by going after bank accounts, financial schemes, uh, assets they may have here in the region. So that we can prosecute these individuals. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO We're very fortunate that the Colombian police. DEP. ATTACHE JULIO Were able to capture the target today. This sends a strong message to everybody in Colombia that the Colombian government is serious about combatting these types of crimes and that they're gonna go after all the criminals that are conducting these types of operations. This also helps us. We're able to use information that is obtained here to identify all the people in the United States that are receiving, uh, illegal gold from Colombia.