Gary was a crop duster. He was just a natural born pilot. Invisible Pilot I, wife, Sky Documentaries 2022
Gary had eleven plane crashes in his life and walked away from every one of them. ibid.
I don’t think Gary Betzner had a clue of what he was tripping into. One of the biggest political scandals of his lifetime. ibid. dude
19th September 1977: He committed suicide by jumping off this bridge overlooking the white river. ibid. television news
I didn’t jump. I didn’t even think about jumping. That’s how the story was told. But that never happened. ibid. Gary
I woke up about 5 a.m. and saw him being busted in Florida. ibid. wife
Go to prison for years and years and years or go make a new life. ibid. Gary plans to fake suicide
I became the biggest baddest drug smuggler of all time. ibid. Gary
They had to be illegal became they were liberating to the minds and hearts of man. The Invisible Pilot II
I met Pablo Escobar down in Colombia. ibid.
I saw the people standing around when I pulled up the plane – the agents, the cops – and they never looked at me or said a word. ibid.
Gary Wayne Betzner, a former Hazen resident who supposedly jumped from the White River Bridge in Des Arc in 1977, was arrested by federal drug enforcement officials at Gainesville, Florida, Tuesday afternoon, November 20th. The Invisible Pilot III, newspaper article
I rather enjoyed the cocaine smuggling. But for me hauling guns is not something I like to do … But it was government work. ibid.
They let me go to prison and fry and they shouldn’t have done that. Bastards. ibid.
The United States government was protecting drugs flights. Period … He [Gary] did not get a good deal. ibid. lawyer
It was perhaps the most lucrative criminal racket in history. Between 1979 and 1984 the Sicilian Mafia smuggled nearly two billion dollars’ worth of heroin into the US. It made mobsters on both sides of the Atlantic rich. It also led to war. In Sicily rival bosses fought for control of the heroin-trafficking empire. The terror this war unleashed drove one godfather to break Omerta, the Mafia’s sacred code of silence. His act of betrayal would lead to a transatlantic assault on the Mafia and make the first serious dent in their worldwide power. Heroin was flooding into the United States in the late 1970s. Smuggled inside Italian food products and distributed through Pizzarias owned by the Sicilian Mafia. It was known as the Pizza Connection. The US faced an epidemic of heroin addiction. But for American gangstas heroin meant money. And lots of it. Inside the Mafia: The Great Betrayal, National Geographic 2005
Since the 1960s the port city of Montreal has been one of the largest points of coke and heroin in the world. Bad Blood s1e1: Scar Tissue, Netflix 2017
During the 1970s cities across the US and Canada were awash with cocaine smuggled in through the port of Montreal by the Irish/Canadian criminal organisation the West End Gang. The Irish Mob s1e4
The story of Brian O’Dea begins in St John’s, the largest city on the island of Newfoundland in east Canada … In the early 1970s cocaine traffickers in South America were starting to put together the pieces of what would soon be a multi-billion-dollar empire, and Brian O’Dea was part of it from the very start. He started making regular trips to Bogota. The Irish Mob s1e5, Netflix 2008
Throughout the 1970s Brian O’Dea continued to bring regular shipments of cocaine into the US from both South America and Jamaica. ibid.
In the mid-70s O’Dea began to put together a major marijuana smuggling operation. ibid.
It took nearly a year to set up the second load. And this one would be twice as large: fifty tons of marijuana, with a street value of $200 million. ibid.
O’Dea was sentenced to ten years in prison but was released on parole after serving five. He returned to Canada. ibid.
A seemingly laid back idyll. Vancouver’s port and docks mean it’s perfectly positioned as headquarters for an illegal drug industry. And where there are drugs there are gangs. Middle Class Gangsters
Police say there are more than 130 organised crime groups in British Columbia. ibid.
The Vancouver area is perfect for the export of marijuana, and the import of guns and cocaine. ibid.
Customs officers say they have seized over half a ton of cocaine in a shipment of coconuts from Guyana. The six men were arrested in the operation in London last night. The drugs have a street value of a hundred million pounds. BBC News 9th December 2004
For years Colombian drugs traffickers have used fast boat and human mules to smuggle cocaine north. But now a new weapon has appeared in the waters south of the US: the drugs submarine. Cocaine Submarines, National Geographic 2012
It’s estimated that seventy were built in 2009 alone. ibid.
Cocaine HCL – or Cocaine hydrochloride – is another name for powdered cocaine. ibid.
‘Mercury is one of the top ten chemicals that pose a major threat to public health.’ Mercury: Chasing the Quicksilver, WHO, Vice TV 2021
Mercury is crucial to small-scale gold mining in South America. But increasing scrutiny of its health and environmental impacts in the Amazon is leading to its prohibition throughout the continent. ibid.
The underworld of mercury following its path from Guyana to neighbouring Surinam. ibid.
Twenty thousand kilos of mercury are legally imported into the Guyanese capital of Georgetown every year from the US, Russia, the UK and other countries. ibid.
Large quantities are also being imported by Chinese businessmen on the black market. ibid.
Mercury binds with flecks of gold to form an amalgam that’s easier to collect. ibid.
Mercury is often trafficked with gold and drugs over the same networks by the same smugglers. ibid.
Five years ago almost no-one had heard of it. Today it’s a household name: Fentanyl. Trafficked s1e1: World’s Deadliest Painkiller, National Geographic 2020
Fentanyl is the most dangerous drug in America. And much of it comes from right here in Sinaloa in Mexico. ibid.
Fentanyl was first created in Belgium in 1960. It was designed for use in surgery and to treat the most severe forms of pain. ibid.
If you did cocaine in America in the ’80s, it almost certainly passed through Miami. Millions of dollars’ worth were smuggled in … Rival gangs battled for their share of the drugs profits making Miami the murder capital of America. Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller s1e2: Cocaine
We enter a lawless region that produces roughly one-fifth of the world’s cocaine: Vraem, Peru: Valley of the apurimac, Ene and Mantaro rivers. ibid.
These labs are the economic engines for the local communities. Without them, there would be little demand for coca leaves. ibid.
My job is to deliver suitcases with counterfeit bills, fake dollars. They being me the suitcase already packed, they call me up. Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller s1e3: Counterfeiters
Lima, Peru: Every city has its secrets. Lima is no different. Over the last decade a new criminal enterprise has taken root, and a new breed of gangsta craftsman has emerged. ibid.
Incredibly, it’s estimated that 60% of all fake US bills are produced in Peru. ibid.
‘Who’s the best person to scam? Your average, middle class, unsophisticated losers.’ Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller s1e4: Scams
Jamaica, Israel: two capitals of a multi-billion-dollar industry. Meet the voice on the other end of that unrecognised number that won’t stop calling you. ibid.
It all starts here: in call centres. Call centres were set up on the island to take advantage of the fact that Jamaicans speak English. And receive lower wages. But a few local entrepreneurs saw another opportunity. ibid.
A movement that believes performance enhancing drugs like steroids can turn everyday people into superhumans. But are the authorities closing in? Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller s1e5: Steroids
A black market for these kinds of drugs, and demand is high. ibid.
First comes the seduction. Then comes the reality. This is a story about primps. How they work, how they think, and what they’ll do to grab their share of the billion-dollar market for illicit sex in America. Trafficked wuth Mariana van Zeller s1e6: Pimps: Underworld Sex, National Geographic 2020