Thrash,
stash,
dash, and cash.
This is how you smuggle hash.
In 2020, European authorities
made over 90,000 seizures of hashish,
the concentrated resin made from marijuana plants.
That number may seem high,
but in this world, it's a drop in the ocean.
The business of hash smuggling, once a sleepy pastime,
has gone full throttle.
It's a black market generating billions of dollars each year,
and one that is increasingly concentrated
in the hands of just a few organized crime families.
I want to know how they corner the market
and scale smuggling to new heights.
And for that, I'm looking for a barón,
a king of the hash trade.
It's right here, it's right here!
Portugal.
This is where I was born and raised,
and where, even after all these years away,
I still feel most at home.
My hometown of Cascais is just outside of Lisbon.
But in my teenage years, it was a world apart from the city.
And as sheltered as it was,
it was here that I got my very first taste of contraband.
I remember coming here ever since we were super young,
but people would come here to smoke, a lot.
Yeah, a lot.
There were a lot of people here.
This is my best friend, Barbara, and my little cousin, Teresa.
Like many Europeans,
the first drug any of us tried was hashish.
I remember not loving the taste, but I did have fun.
Hash was my first connection to the underground
and the start of questions that weren't easily answered.
Who makes this stuff?
And what journey did it take
to reach my small corner of the world?
Last time I tried was, uh...
25 years ago, I think?
Exactly like I remember it.
Today there's no crime attached to smoking hash.
It was decriminalized in Portugal in 2001.
Double this would maybe be a gram, five euros.
Double this would be five euros?
So this is like two and a half euros only?
Which is more or less two and a half dollars.
So this cost like less than a dollar to make?
Yeah.
I mean, actually the cigarette
that you use for the tobacco... Is more expensive.
...costs more than the actual drug that's inside.
Probably.
With that low price point,
smuggling hash and marijuana has become a volume business.
Profits are realized by organized crime groups
importing product into Europe by the ton.
But how are they pulling that off?
And how do I even begin to look for the barones,
the all-powerful barons at the top of this trade?
So I have different kinds of hash, different intensities.
I have Pacho.
Pacho, that's the name of this one?
Yeah, that's the character from Narcos.
These are really, really good.
Black banana.
Yeah.
My search begins in Lisbon,
where Chico, a local dealer, has agreed to talk.
Original Paki. Yeah.
This is a little softer.
Yeah, that's softer. It's really incredible.
The smell is so strong.
Hash is created using the same plant as marijuana.
But while marijuana is the flower,
hash is the concentrate made from the trichomes,
the resin glands,
which are extracted from the surface of the plant
and pressed into blocks.
This, like, if I sell it,
I sell it for 900 euros, I bought it for 600.
You mean the whole thing?
Yeah, this whole thing. Yeah.
But this one, I bought it for 200 each plate,
and I'm selling it maybe for 350 maximum.
And it's still the number one drug, right?
The most popular drug in Portugal?
In Portugal, yeah, for sure.
We have a big tradition of smoking hash.
And we are super close to Morocco,
and it's easier to get here and it's cheap to get here.
Although smoking hash is decriminalized,
smuggling it into the country remains highly illegal.
All of the hash that makes it here, it's all from Morocco?
For sure. All of it, yeah.
Back in my time, I had friends,
I knew people who would go to Morocco, would buy hash
and bring it back to Portugal.
The border is completely different now.
And I think only bigger groups are managing to do it,
and they do it with boats, they do it with trucks.
So, and do you have any connections in Morocco?
Uh... yes.
It's one of the oldest families.
And where are they, in northern Morocco?
Uh, yeah, in the mountains,
in the Chefchaouen direction. Yeah.
And do you think they would let us film with them?
Um...
Let me see.
When it comes to hashish,
all roads lead to one place.
The Kingdom of Morocco.
Located at the northwestern corner of Africa,
only 10 miles from Spain, Morocco is a Muslim country
which has long served as a crossroads to Europe.
By law, hashish cultivation is illegal for recreational use,
but in practice, most of the world's supply originates here,
controlled by a handful of powerful families.
It's a little bit of an off-road.
Wow.
Can you see this?
There's another of these fields coming up.
A source has promised to grant us access
to one of those families.
But while we wait, we decide to venture
up to where the bulk of marijuana is grown.
So, we're driving through the Rif Mountains
where the center of the production of cannabis happens,
right there.
There's one field here,
and we've been driving by all these fields of marijuana.
You know, it's supposedly illegal, but it's also,
once you arrive in these mountains,
you start seeing cannabis everywhere.
We also have to be careful with filming, you know,
people watching us around here.
We've been told that farmers are wary of outsiders
and can be openly hostile to journalists.
So we're on our way to meet a local contact,
who can help make introductions.
Let me drive a little bit, because there's a guy here.
While cannabis has been growing in Morocco
for at least 500 years,
hashish was only introduced here between the 1950s and '70s.
It was brought by travelers from America and Europe,
on what became known as the hippie trail,
a passage through Central Asia and India
that often included a stop here, in Northern Africa.
We were here for weeks,
before we... and drove into Marrakech.
When farmers in this region,
one of the poorest in Morocco,
saw the potential to supply the European market,
the hash industry took root.
Centered in this town, called Ketama.
The guy we're meeting, he says he knows a lot of people here,
he can make some introductions.
He told us he would be waiting right outside the butcher shop.
Oh, you can see all the meats hanging here, actually.
There's a bunch of butcher shops.
Oh, I think that's him.
Welcome. How are you? Mariana.
How are you, Mariana? Good, and you?
Welcome to Issaguen.
Thank you so much. I'm very good.
Okay. Nice.
Straight ahead? Yes.
Great.
The trip to our destination is not for the faint of heart.
This is Ketama. Yeah.
It's a narrow road up a mountain that's blanketed in fog.
Sometimes it's smuggled in donkeys like this?
How are you? Nice to meet you.
A lot of cannabis here, huh?
Yeah.
This is your, uh, yours?
Yeah.
This farmer, who we'll call Youssef,
is part of a family
that's been farming marijuana for generations.
Kirikita.
The "kirikita" he refers to is an imported marijuana strain
known in the West as "critical,"
which features sky-high levels of THC,
the compound that gets you high.
In the 1980s, hash produced here from local marijuana
had an average THC content of 8%.
Today imported strains have levels that can surpass 60%.
Can you hear this noise? I think... the beating?
I think it's the actual production of hash.
Sit right here?
Wow.
So this is the dried plant? The dried marijuana?
Yeah.
Why is it beating? Why do you need to beat it?
So you're hitting it. Yeah.
Drugs come on the bottom. The trichomes.
Unlike the marijuana smoked in the West,
which is actually just the flower of the plant,
hashish is the result of a labor-intensive process.
It begins with plants that have been dried
and covered with plastic sheeting.
And then the drumming begins.
The goal is to rattle the plant enough
to release its trichomes,
glands resembling tiny hairs which contain THC.
How long does the process take?
How much do you sell this for?
The hash, the actual hash?
And where does it go to? Where does the hashish go to?
Europa? It all goes to Europe?
If there was no cannabis here,
what would people do?
So after 45 minutes, that's it? It's it? Done?
Now we're gonna see what's, uh...
Wow. Look at that.
Oh, hashish powder.
So from all the huge amounts of plants and flower,
this is the end product.
So this gets pressed into these molds
and makes basically the bars.
This is what makes it all the way all across Europe
and the rest of the world.
I have no reason to doubt these farmers are telling me the truth
and that the real money is being made
much further up the food chain.
I've been given permission to accompany one of these farmers
to a remote location on the mountain,
where the next step of the process will play out:
transporting the hash to the coast.
This is pretty remote.
We've been driving up this mountain
for about 25 minutes now.
We saw you yesterday. You were making the drugs.
Are you here to give it so they transport it,
or do you actually transport the drugs, too?
And then when you get there,
do you give it to the boat people?
Do you give it to people who transport in the boats?
Oh, so, then it goes in the Zodiac...
Okay. And can I see the drugs? Yeah?
Oh, in this car?
Packed as if it's a suitcase?
Wow. It's heavy.
Very heavy, huh? How much is this?
How much money do you make from driving drugs?
$3,000 each? Yeah.
It's no different from cocaine
and other drugs I've covered.
The farmer has produced a kilo of hash for $1,000
at relatively low risk.
Now, as the product changes hands,
the risk increases, and so does the price.
So, you're driving? You're driving the drugs up.
Okay. Are you scared? Dangerous?
Really, mafia?
Like other people trying to steal the drugs from you?
The smugglers won't allow me
to follow these bales to the sea,
and they won't connect us with the operatives
higher in their organization.
I was counting on a different contact for that access.
But as usual, with my job,
nothing comes easy.
So, we've been in Morocco now for four days.
Essentially just waiting around.
Every day we get a call that we should move to a different city.
Our local producer has been trying to call
this, this person, as well, and possibly has some news,
so we're just waiting for that call.
But so far, you know, another day, another Moroccan hotel.
Hello?
Hi, Mariana. How are you?
How are you? Good. Any news?
So, we've been, we've been calling and texting and nothing.
Did you get any luck on your end?
Yeah, I was, I was trying, I call him many times.
I texted him and nothing.
Yeah. He answered at first,
and then he stopped answering a couple of days ago
and I haven't heard.
We're gonna try and see
if we can get access some other way,
but if you hear anything, please let us know.
Okay, Mariana.
Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
So, nothing, basically.
She, he was responsive at the beginning
and then he stopped, she says for two days now
she hasn't heard from him, and neither have we.
I'm frustrated, but I'm also done waiting.
If we can't find a hash kingpin in Morocco,
we'll follow the product through the Strait of Gibraltar
and look for one on the other side of the sea,
where fortunes are made when the drugs enter Europe.
But I won't be the only one looking,
because when hash crosses these waters,
it's pursued with a vengeance.
The Spanish port of Algeciras
is one of the busiest transshipment hubs in the world,
moving goods back and forth across the Strait of Gibraltar,
a 10-mile stretch between Morocco and Spain.
But not all of those goods are arriving on cargo ships.
This is a graveyard of confiscated boats,
collected for evidence and awaiting demolition.
To understand how the hash barons operate,
I've sought out an official who pursues them.
Miguel Gil Hare is the head
of the Customs Surveillance Operational Unit in Algeciras,
targeting smugglers
in a high-seas game of cat and mouse.
In Spain, building these boats is illegal,
so the hash barons are taking their business next door,
to my homeland, Portugal.
In 2022, Portuguese police raided this warehouse,
part of an operation
that seized 20 go-fast boats under construction,
all being built to smuggle bales of hash
from North Africa to Europe.
Wow.
Those smugglers sometimes live on these boats
for days in international waters,
just waiting for the all-clear sign.
And when it comes, engines throttle up
that can rocket them to speeds of nearly 60 miles per hour.
A lot can happen in those 20 minutes for smugglers.
It can mean success, arrest, or all hell breaking loose.
Tonight, this elite team is in charge of policing these waters.
And they plan on hitting the smugglers hard.
So we're just getting ready to leave.
The helicopter's actually up right now,
so they're getting information
on what suspect boats they're seeing out there.
The hunt for contraband begins in the skies,
with a dedicated flight team scanning the shoreline
with night vision cameras,
searching for incoming boats from Morocco.
Okay.
Vamos.
Yeah. Hold on to something.
Hold on to something.
This highly trained crew
mans a small fleet of patrol boats
equipped with engines powerful enough
to pursue incoming go-fast boats.
Oh, you see the helicopter?
We've been warned that hash smugglers
have become increasingly brazen in recent years,
leading authorities on chases that can quickly turn deadly.
Think we just saw a boat,
we're gonna start chasing after them.
The boat is in Spanish waters
going full throttle towards the coast.
It's not responding to hails from police;
a telltale sign of smuggling activity.
We can't see the boat, but the helicopter surveillance
shows it's headed directly towards us.
Sí.
There's a boat that's in,
sort of in a river entrance over there.
So he's basically purposefully going around in circles
making waves,
so then when the suspect boat
comes out of the river onto the sea,
onto this part of the water, it'll be harder for them.
It's coming, it's coming.
Oh, yeah, I can see it under the light.
Okay, it's right there.
On this side? No, it's on that side.
Right there. You see it?
It's right here, it's right here.
He has a helicopter over it, too.
To minimize accidental deaths,
Marcos' team isn't allowed to ram suspect boats
or shoot at their engines.
This is (bleep) crazy!
For the smugglers we're pursuing,
getting caught could mean five to seven years in jail.
And that creates an incredibly high tolerance for risk.
Are they going, they're going under the pier.
They're going under the pier.
Yeah, so they basically hid under the dock here.
You're so close, and yet just out of reach.
Ah, he's done.
Hold on, hold on!
Hold on tight, we see them again.
Oh, my god, look!
Hold on!
Holy (bleep).
In this pursuit,
one wrong move, and people can easily die.
Right in front of us now!
Woo, they're right here!
But even in the best of circumstances,
with the best of equipment,
this can feel like a very dangerous exercise in futility.
And that's it. They escaped, basically.
They went to a part that's too shallow
and this boat can't go in.
You can see just how impossible of a task it is,
how difficult it is.
So far, in Spain, I'm no closer to finding a hash baron
than I was in Morocco.
But it seems logical they'd be close by,
with so much product on the move.
On some days, up to ten go-fast boats are deployed at once,
each loaded with literally tons of hash,
and pointed at Spanish beaches sometimes in broad daylight.
It's the boldest, in-your-face drug trafficking I've ever seen.
Mama mia. Mama mia.
And that boldness doesn't stop
once the boats have unloaded.
The Spanish news media lit up in 2018 when Samuel Crespo,
an alleged lieutenant in a local smuggling gang,
was injured during an arrest
and brought by police to a hospital
in the Spanish port town of La Línea.
Soon, his associates began to arrive.
One after another after another.
More than a dozen men in total
who roughed up two police officers
guarding the suspect
and spirited him away into a waiting car,
leaving no doubt as to the balance of power here.
The beach towns of southern Spain
have the highest unemployment rates in Europe.
But social media paints a picture
of a job market that exists off the books.
Up above, lookouts on the Rock of Gibraltar
will collect $1,400 for alerting boats
when the coast is clear to land.
At sea, captains will collect $27,000 for a successful run.
And on shore, in open view of witnesses and cell phones,
paid muscle gets to work.
Up to $3,200 for a gig unloading hash bales,
one that usually takes just a few minutes.
Finally, on the road, $6,500 will go to each driver
for a breakneck trip down back alleys
to deliver the goods to hidden warehouses,
usually just one or two blocks off the beach.
If these wages seem impressive,
think of the profits realized by the hash barons who pay them.
That 30-kilo package of hash I saw in Morocco
was worth $30,000.
But by the time it reaches northern Europe,
its value will soar to a quarter million dollars.
Wow, look at those houses.
We're in Marbella, southern Spain.
One of the ritziest, fanciest spots in all of Europe.
Marbella is on the Costa del Sol.
In the 1960s, under the Spanish dictator Franco,
it was developed as a destination
for blue-collar workers on vacation.
Today it's host to a different crowd.
It's the Costa del Sol and Marbella,
millionaires' playground of southern Spain.
Earning it a nickname
you won't see on tourist posters,
"The Costa Del Crime" or "The Coast Of Crime."
A lot, a lot of drugs come through here, particularly hash,
because we're very close to Morocco.
For those at the top of the chain,
this is where they like to spend their money.
Beneath the sort of glitz and glamour,
there's also a lot of violence.
This is a city of combustion, where street scenes viewed
through the prism of social media
offer strong hints that the hash barons
have made themselves at home.
But perhaps the strongest indicator here
is the abundance of top-shelf criminal defense lawyers.
Hola, Ricardo. RICARDO ALVAREZ-OSSORIO: Hola.
Nice to see you again.
Nice to you, too. Daniela?
This is Daniela.
¿Cómo estás? Mariana.
In Spanish media,
Ricardo Alvarez-Ossorio has been called the devil's advocate.
An apt nickname for a lawyer
who specializes in defending accused drug traffickers.
So, we're talking about the Italian mob,
Albanians, Russians.
Yes.
Colombians, Mexicans, and on and on and on.
Yes, yes, yes.
He's not exaggerating.
On the Costa Del Sol, Spanish Intelligence
has documented at least 113 criminal groups
representing 59 different nationalities.
All the hash from the clients that you represent,
it all comes from Morocco.
Yes. All of it? 100%?
110%.
And who is the owner? Who's the owner of the...
They're all Moroccans? Yes.
They call them "barones."
The barones. Barones.
The barons.
You know, we're here to look for people
who are in the hash business that will talk to us.
Do you think you could help us find people
who would be willing to talk to us?
They, you can...
I know.
Mm-hmm.
Uh-huh. The adrenaline.
While Ricky talks to his connections,
I'm working on a different angle.
When reporting on MDMA last year,
I've learned that Dutch and Moroccan smugglers
often have close ties.
So I arranged to meet with a smuggler from Holland,
who's straight out of central casting.
♪ La donna è mobile ♪
♪ Qual piuma al vento ♪
♪ muta d’accento ♪
♪ e di pensiero ♪
♪ La donna è mobile ♪
♪ Qual piuma al vento ♪
♪ muta d'accento ♪
♪ e di pensiero ♪
Ho-yay!
Wow, that was incredible!
You have a wonderful voice.
This is a cause of clapping, aye?
So tell me, how did you end up in Marbella?
In Amsterdam. Yeah.
Evert Smallegange was a smuggler
who migrated to southern Spain in pursuit of the good life.
Spend the money? Yeah.
You didn't know how to save it.
No.
What did you spend it on?
Oh, anything.
How much money were you making at the peak?
Ohhh...
Wow. A week. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah.
So, when you were at the peak,
what was your job exactly?
And that was all for distribution in Europe?
And you just recently came out of prison?
Yeah.
For trafficking drugs?
How much do you think the business has changed
since you were in it?
So, it's just a few groups now
that are controlling it in Morocco?
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
The production and the...
The prices, just, they,
the consumers now want top-notch material.
How organized are they? Or dangerous?
Of course they're very...
And in terms of getting contacts,
getting people to talk to us?
Um, I would... low key.
No.
Yeah.
You think that we will find people to talk to?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just give me a bit of time,
I'll, yeah, I'll organize it for you.
It turns out, I won't have to wait.
I've been putting out dozens of feelers
for the past few months,
looking for a hash baron in Morocco or Spain.
Oh, wow, look at this house.
And right on the heels of my meeting with Evert,
a different contact reaches out with an introduction,
which brings me here.
Apparently this is one of the nicest neighborhoods
in Marbella.
You can tell because of all the big mansions all around us.
And this is also where we've been told there's a person
that's in the hash business here,
who's agreed to speak to us.
I think it's here.
Yeah, this is the house.
I've come for a face-to-face meeting with a barón,
a hash kingpin.
But there's a twist.
I think it's this gate.
It's not a hash king.
It's a hash...
queen.
I'm sitting with a woman known as El Cisne,
"The Swan," who heads a hash distribution network
that stretches from Morocco
to the far reaches of northern Europe.
These bricks of hashish are merely samples.
Buyers interested in the product will likely be ordering
not by the kilo, but by the ton.
¿Sí? Sí.
Wow.
Sí.
No. Sí.
60 tons is a staggering amount.
In northern Europe,
the value would equal nearly half a billion dollars.
If what she says is true,
and the hash barons have found a way
to securely move shipping containers of product
into Europe,
there's no end to the profits they can make.
It's no wonder they've been able to push the small players out
and corner the market,
and hardly a surprise that they're now willing to kill
to preserve it.
Sí.
Captioned by Side Door Media Services