Welcome to FDL Movie Night. As usual please stay on topic, forgive my typing and let’s talk about cocaine smuggling with Santiago Stelley form Vice TV! Wlcome Santiago and thanks for joining us!

Santiago, how did you learn about these narcosub? And how did you get such great access to the Colombian law enforcement and to Montoya, the drug dealer?

Wow, do they deliver reasonably priced antibiotics or diabetic drugs too? /s

I have an acquaintance in need of diabetic meds now.

Welcome Santiago.

Montoya seems like a real character–what is his backstory? And have you read his novel about a drug smuggler doctor? What is he up to now?

hello.

I first learned about the narcosubs during a trip down to Colombia 2 years ago

Some friends in Bogota told me that the Bogota police had just found a warehouse in the suburbs where some someone had been building a copy of a russian subarine.

Montoya is a real character. He’s now back to practicing medicine but was nervous about revealing too much of his personal life.We had originally agreed to shoot at his home, but after he thought about it decided it would be best to shoot in a nearby hotel

Whoa…do you think the cartels will move up to actual subs form semi-sumersibles, or are real subs a little too complicated to steer/drive?

Any idea how many narcosubs sink/are lost form faulty construction? It’s really dangerous job sailing those rickety boats And the body waste–ugh.

Both Montoya and the Mario (Colombia Navy Captain) told me that they were sure the cartels have evolved the technology by now.

Montoya himself had developed the torpedos you see in the second half of the doc, and believes that they’re now using remote control torpedos.

On top of that he spoke to us about labs and entire r&d departments run by the different cartels which are dedicated to creating new and improved smuggling methods. I remember one project he told us about that involved aerosol cocaine.

How did you meet Montoya? ANd on a side note–I am blown away by Vice Tv (vbs.tv) and the amazing people you find to interview and the situations in which your teams embed themselves. YOu guys are stunning and brilliant and bad ass!

I’m not sure how many of them are lost to faulty construction, but the conditions they travel in are absolutely awful.

Because they usually only use each sub for one trip they put very little effort into making them comfortable.

Each voyage is extremely profitable, so I’m guessing that even if they loose a boat or two, or a dozen, they make up for it very quickly.

I met Montoya through a Mexican journalist who had interviewed him for a newspaper from Mntoya’s home town. Montoya is originally Mexican.

Is Montoya living in Mexico, a free man, a citizen? After writing the book, I would think he is in hiding.

Hey Eureka.

Ha. I’m guessing antibiotics aren’t profitable enough, but I have no doubt that f these subs are being used to smuggle cocaine, they’re also out smuggling other goods, guns, etc.

Do you think law enforcement wil catch up with the ever-evolving technology of the cartels? It seems like the cartels have such unlimited funds it’s pretty hard for govt agencies to keep up….they can be outspent in the blink of an eye

Montoya is in hiding. He’s Mexican but has lived in Colombia for many years now. He moves around all the time from what I can tell, but is a free man.

As you can imagine the Cali Cartel and other Colombian and Mexican Cartels aren’t too happy about him writing this book, but as he also mentioned they’re always one step ahead, and by now have moved on to more sophisticated technology.

Is his book available in US?

Each one of those subs makes a net profit of USD 150 million for each trip.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s hundreds of them out there working at any given time.

The Cartels can outspend anyone.

The book is not yet available in the US, but can be ordered from the publisher (Editorial Oveja Negra) in Bogota.

Editorial Oveja Negra
Carrera 14 #79 17
Bogota Colombia

T. 571 530 9678

I guess the only way to stop cocaine smuggling is to stop making it profitable–and what would do that–legalize it? hardly…

Santiago, were you ever nervous during any time that you were making this doc?

Did you get to interview any US Coast Guard Commanders to compare notes from the Columbian CG activities? I saw you used US CG video.

Yes. Exactly. Never going to happen.

The Navy Captain kept describing it as an endless game of chess.

Does this mean we’re losing the war on drugs, or winning?

I wasn’t really ever nervous during this shoot. Montoya and I had been in contact for a long time before finally meeting and the rest was all shot on a Navy base, so all in all it was pretty straight forward once we had gained the necessary access. I’ve been shooting in Colombia for many years now and this was really one of the lighter shoots I’ve ever done there. Perhaps the scariest part of all was the two night we spent in Buenaventura, Colombia, near the navy Base. Buenaventura is the Pacific drug smuggling hub of Colombia, and full of sketchy carachters driving pimped out cars and US DEA agents looking to see who’s driving the latest model.

We never got to interview the US Coats Guard but we did get some footage from them. Their website has tons of good footage they shoot on all there operations.

Can you tell a little bit about Vice TV and its philosphpy and what you all have in the works–both you personaly and the company–you have SO many effing awesome docs! It;s total mind candy, yet intellectually nutritious!

Where there is a will there is a way.

Both Montoya and the Colombian Navy told us this was just and endless cat and mouse chase.

The war is lost.

We have tons of great stuff coming up on VBS.TV in the next couple months. Shane Smith and Andy Capper just got back from Liberia where they hung out with 3 of the most ruthless generals who survived the civil war there, including General Butt Naked and his infamous Tupac Army. We are shooting a doc with the only two people left living in the Alaskan Arctic National Wild Life Refuge, and I’m heading to Haiti in a week to find some real life zombies. And so much more.

The philosophy at Vice and VBS.TV is hard to describe. We’re interested in all subjects but what is most important is how we tell our stories. We always strive to be as first hand as possible. If we can’t go there and see things for ourselves we think it will be very difficult to make enganguing content.

OMG-zombies! I remember reading Serpent and the Rainbow years ago..oooh keep us in mind for duscussions on all of those!

Yes. Going to DC to meet up with Wade Davis (Serpent and the Rainbow author) in a couple days. Really looking forward to that.

I was so stunned by the finances involved:
One sub, costs about $1 million,
the load of coke it’s carrying is worth $175 million

And those poor bastards sailing it make under $50 K total per trip.

Granted the $175 million has built in price to cover lost loads..but jsus, how much money do these crtel guys need..they must be making out rageous $, even wiht paying secuirty guards, workers, the vig to FARC, paramilitary and polticians.

Like how much money do people need for themselves? It’d be nice if they like started an orphanage or gave some money to cancer research…

And the damage to the rainforest that coke growing causes…shudder.

At the close of the documentary, the chilling thoughts, were the facts that the drug cartels were working on remote controlled, satellite communications, drug subs for the US and Europe. Your thoughts.

Voodoo is real, it works..all magic does, just to varying degrees, depending on the pratcitioner–IMO/experience.

The zombie thing is interesting because it is a drug-induced state, but the idea of zombies works as a an astounding control–I am really stoked about that doc!

Out of the 1 million spent on building the boat, most of it goes to paying for people’s silence. The materials to make the boat cost close to nothing.

And the problem is that some of these cartels do spend a lot of money on building orphanages, schools, etc. Not as much as they should, but unfortunately sometimes more than the local government, which s why so many people allow this to continue. In many parts of Mexico drug traffikers are celebrated with narco-corrido songs, even churches dedicated to them.

The people working on these boats, or as mules, or even the growers all come from bvery poor areas of Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, etc. Cocaine is the best oprion they have to keep food on the table.

But yes, some people certainly profit more than others.

I was born and raised in Madrid, Spain, but my father is from the north of Spain. Spain is the main port of entry for cocaine in Europe. Years ago, when you’d go to the coast around Galicia you would see all these beautiful quaint little fisshing villages where, for some reason, everyone had a high speed cigarette boat. Miami Vice style. Nowadays no one has those boats anymore, but there is more cocaine and cheaper cocaine than ever before in Spain. I think the remote torpedos have been working for years at this point. Only one torpedo has ever been caught and it was caught because one cartel stole it form the other before figuring out that they didn’t know how to operate it. They abandoned at a port somwhere, where it was then found.

Thank you for that eloquent and personal answer. I am disturbed that law enforcement is so far behind the curve.

That’s understandable–in a countries where there is so little economic growth, drugs are a huge industry. It sucks that peopel get murdered over them..I wonder if acros the board legalization would shut down some of the negative aspects of the business ? Of course there’s still the environmental concerns.

As wiht any unregulated industry that makes soooo much money, drug cartels can kinda wirte their own ticket.

Do we have the satellite technology to track subs etc? Or is it not cost feasible for us?

Drugs can destroy such a large portion of society, evne if legalized…it’s a gnarly condundrum. The US war on drugs didnt really help…

Teh American Military Industrial Complex receives billions of our tax money to fight the war on drugs. If it wins, it puts itself out of work.

Bureaucracy exists to maintain itself.

The subs can actually be seen from the sky but of course oceans are big. The torpedos are too small to be seen and travel to far below the surface of the water.

As far as the environment goes, the cocaine business is in fact terrible. We’ve been meaning to shoot a doc on cocaine fro our environmnetal series, Toxic. One of the most intersting aspects is the fact that coca growing, cocaine manufacturing, cocaine smuggling an cocaine erradication are all extremly hazardous to the environment. The birth defect rate on the border of Colombia and Ecuador where they fumigate coca crops all the time is one of the highst in all latin America.

Santiago, I want to thank you and Vice for existing, serioulsy. ViceTV does ana amazing astounding job of finding stories and reporting them in a way that is sexy, fun, stimulating and makes peopel learn stuff–I recommend you to all my friends wiht teenage kids as a way for them to get excited about current events and the world outside suburbia!

Drugs should be legal for all adults. Much of the allure would wear off if drugs were legal. We should begin with Maryjane. That’s for sure.

PLEASE SHOOT THAT!! ANd also one about how pot growing in US effs up the forrests..all that fertilizer…hydroponics are one thing, but wild outdoor farming is nasty..and who knows what smoking Miraclle-grow can do to a perosn.

PLEASE let people who think they are al gren and good know what their drug use does to mother nature!

And thank you for Narcosubs. I learned a heck of a lot and was really blown away by the depth and range you got in a 30+ minutes. YOu are a great filmmaker and I look forward ot your next pieces–and having more Vice Tv here .

VBS,tv for all of you who havent yet visited this treasure trove of pop culture information

Pups, santiago, thanks for joining us tonight. And thanks for making Narcosubs. Please come back wiht zombies and much more!

why do Americans like drugs so much? who are these supposedly ubiquitous users? I confess to never having used an illegal controlled substance beyond underage drinking… and, frankly, very few people I know have either. It is very possible to get through life without such filth, and most people do. Sorry if this sounds uptight or prudish, but I don’t support legalization of anything now banned and I also don’t support the mass-imprisonment of users, when such imprisonment seems to do not a thing to reduce the actual incidence of abuse. I just want peope to grow up and stop trying to burn out their brain cells.

We will shoot Toxic Cocaine at some point this year.

Cocaine has been terrible to Colombia in every way, aside from the direct environmental impact it has had on that country, it has financed the civil war there for 40 some years now and the environmetal impact of the war on that country is probably even greater than the growing and erradicating impact.

We’ll keep you updated.

Thanks guys. This was fun. We’ll keep you posted on Zombies, Toxics and all else.

Cheers.

People have been altering their brain chemistry for millenia… hard to say why.. Criminalizing drugs isnt the best method..maybe improving life so people wont need to self medicate?

I think that perhaps there should be separate facilities to hold nonviolent users. Instead of sticking them in prison, perhaps we should put them into dedicated mandatory treatment centers that actually force them to de-toxify and provide the services they need to get and stay clean. This can’t be more expensive than jailing them for $50,000+ a year.

That’s a stunning thing to consider. Constant invasion by an adversary who can afford to lose most, if not all of these after one trip and still make a rather large profit. Amazing.

Think of the damage terrorists could do with that kind of system. It wouldn’t take McVeigh and Nichols and their like-minded friends much time to really terrorize America if they had such resources.

Speaking of those two, someone should interview Nichols before he’s suicided. He might have something interesting to say to the new Dem administration.

But, also think what Al Qaeda or other militant jihadists might be able to do if they had access to that resource. Of course, the drug dealers may not have an interest in such a deal. It would put them at an even higher priority for the gov’t to destroy. But, the danger to us would be immense if they said, “Just one time.”

the way we provide health care it would probably be about 5 times more expensive, and thats not the only issue. the drug war, so called, is to horrifically destructive to people and communities and corrosive to democracy and the rule of law. it has also been a trillion dollar failure. the failure of the drug war is so epic and massive, the only sane the to do would be to call it off, world wide, NOW. treatment and education are the only methods known to reduce drug use.period.