Narco Warriors: Secrets From The Global Drug War

Narco Warriors is taking a summer break, but Season 2 is coming in the autumn, and it's bigger than ever. Lindsay Charlton previews what's ahead: the scale of today's drug trade, what modern law enforcement is actually doing (and whether it's working), and a special episode diving deep into legalisation, with voices on both sides of the argument. If you're new to the show, all 21 episodes of Seaso...

You probably walk past it every day without knowing... Every drug empire produces one thing above all else: cash. Mountains of it. The International Monetary Fund estimates that between two and five trillion dollars is laundered around the world every year - and at least half a trillion comes from the drug trade alone. But how do you clean dirty money? From the black market ‘peso exchange’ to purp...

This is what it means for British drug liaison officers who live with the beast. By the mid-1990s, a small and largely unknown cadre of British customs officers were living and working at the heart of the global cocaine trade. Not in surveillance vans in south London, but in Colombia, sending their children to school in armored cars, carrying sidearms for protection, and running informants in a co...

In April 2026, Europol announced the interception of eight vessels in the Atlantic. Eleven tonnes of cocaine were seized, and 54 people were arrested. They called it a cocaine highway - a sophisticated network moving drugs from Latin America to Europe, deliberately circumventing major ports to avoid detection. It sounded new and unprecedented. But it wasn't. 25 years earlier, a team of British and...

He spent 10 years living as someone else.  He infiltrated heroin gangs, cocaine cartels and cannabis networks. Now, thanks to a hit Netflix drama, the world is finally getting to know one of Britain's most extraordinary undercover officers.  “Guy” talks to Narco Warriors about the art of the “legend”, the golden rules of undercover work, and the operations that took him from the streets of West Lo...

For 25 years Luis Navia was one of the most wanted cocaine traffickers in the world, and almost nobody knew his name. Cuban-American, Georgetown-educated, he moved as much as 300 tonnes of cocaine from the Colombian cartels to the streets of Europe, working alongside Pablo Escobar and surviving everything the Medellín cartel, the Cali cartel, and a 12-nation operation could throw at him. This is h...

They joined the same institution, in the same era, in a world that was almost entirely male. But Aimee Lisle and Natalie Reynolds took very different paths.  Lisle became one of Britain's top surveillance officers, tailing drug couriers, planting listening devices, and spending months secretly building a corruption case against a colleague she passed in the corridor every day. The target was Gatwi...

They were train robbers, bank raiders and drug lords. And they'd found the perfect hideout. A sun-drenched strip of southern Spain, where Britain's most wanted went to disappear.  No extradition, no questions asked.  The Costa del Sol was a sanctuary for some of the biggest villains. And this week we're going inside it.  Former UK Customs drug liaison officer "Colin" reveals a world tourists never...

They locked him up, seized his millions, and dismantled his empire piece by piece. But every single time, Mickey Green walked free.  One of Britain's most wanted criminals for 30 years, Green ran cocaine and cannabis networks from Morocco to Miami. But he was always one step ahead. The investigators who spent their careers chasing him tell the incredible story. Meanwhile, why Europe is facing a co...

Before cocaine, before cartels and before borders as we know them, there was smuggling. Former UK Customs officer and de facto drug war historian Mike Gough Cooper takes us deep into the fascinating history of what he calls the world’s second oldest profession. From Roman Britain and Viking protection rackets to Robin Hood, and brutal smuggling gangs, this is the story of how smuggling shaped Brit...

The inside scoop on the man who helped create Britain’s heroin market, and the secret war to stop him. Gigi Bakir was a ruthless Turkish Cypriot kingpin who built the UK’s first industrial-scale heroin operation in the 1970s. From knife fights in North London nightclubs to secret smuggling tricks, Bakir controlled the supply lines that fed Britain’s growing heroin market, moving drugs from the Gol...

An officer kidnapped in Afghanistan, the drug Mule carrying three kilograms of cocaine in his stomach, staying alive in Africa - and taking on the Turkish Connection.  They were invited to an arms fair. They ended up in chains. Deep inside hostile territory on the Afghan border, three western Drug Liaison Officers find themselves kidnapped by Mujahideen fighters. Any rescue attempt risked turning...

A major UK drug trafficking investigation exposes Colombian cocaine cartels operating in London and a heroin smuggling route running through Southall. In this episode of Narco Warriors, former UK Customs and Excise investigators reveal how a small money bureau in Peckham became the key to uncovering one of the largest cocaine networks ever discovered in Britain. The operation led to hundreds of ar...

Most people meet Fidel Castro in history books. Alan Pamplin met him because of a drifting ship packed with cocaine. Cuba is facing one of its worst crises in decades. Blackouts, fuel shortages, and growing unrest. And the pressure has intensified since the U.S. cut vital oil supplies from Venezuela. But the legacy of revolutionary president Fidel Castro looms as large as ever. In the mid-1990s, a...

From a secret partnership in Tehran, to the high-society smuggling scandals that rocked the British establishment, these are the extraordinary stories of the UK’s overseas drug enforcement officers. Phil Matthews walks a diplomatic tightrope with Iranian police, Jim Jarvie’s young sons dive for cover as bullets fly at their school, and Mike Gough Cooper confronts a drug smuggler who turns out to b...

Cocaine isn't just smuggled by speedboats and drug mules. For decades the cartels have built something much bigger...  In the late 1990s, the cartels changed the game, constructing a floating supply chain that crisscrossed the ocean with tonnes of cocaine. Then came the tip-off no one believed. A young Drugs Liaison Officer uncovered intelligence so explosive his bosses thought he’d been reading t...

Frankie the Strangler was one of the most feared Mafia assassins. A ruthless enforcer with alleged links to powerful crime families. But British Customs and Excise found him hiding in plain sight in a quiet English village. This episode reveals how UK Customs unknowingly arrested a Mafia godfather who slipped into Britain under the radar. What started as a routine operation became one of the most...

You thought your first week at work was bad? How about turning up unarmed to a gunfight… It was meant to be a routine bust on a Caribbean beach. It ended with machine-gun fire and a dead body. This is Barbados in the 1980s. A tropical paradise on the surface, but part of a vast drug smuggling network.  Former UK Customs officer Graham Honey takes us inside two of the most dangerous postings of the...

An embassy. A vengeful informant. A loaded pistol . And is it ever a good idea to send your family undercover? In the early 1990s, Thailand was the crossroads of the global drug trade. It was where power, corruption, and survival intersected.  Northern Thailand included what became known as the Golden Triangle, the lawless borderland where Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos meet. This region was one of t...

A dead body in a water tank. Rogue informants. Narco submarines. Ever wonder who the government sends to the other side of the world to fight the drug trade? Meet the Drug Liaison Officers. The secret weapon in international narcotics enforcement. From embassy etiquette, to flipping reluctant mules into informants, this is the inside story of law enforcement’s most unusual diplomats. These are the...

The investigator becomes the target, the airport that became a temple of crime and how NOT to sample a cocaine stash. Law enforcement veterans Philip Matthews and Graham Honey trace their unlikely beginnings in 1970s Britain, as UK Customs & Excise investigators quietly transformed from suitcase checks into a global drug-fighting force. From ripping drug parcels, to dismantling corruption at m...

Missile strikes. Narco terrorism. A president taken in the night. In the first episode of Narco Warriors , Lindsay Charlton sets the scene for a global conflict that has entered a dangerous new phase. As the United States declares drug traffickers “narco terrorists” and launches missile strikes on suspected smuggling boats in the Caribbean, our insiders ask a fundamental question:  Has the war on...

This is the true story of how the narcotics trade went global and how a secret war, fought for more than 50 years, still shapes our world - told by the international investigators who lived it. Episodes drop Mondays 6am GMT