The Story of Drug Trafficking

Drug trafficking was invented by one state: the United Kingdom. In the 19th century, the British Crown flooded China with opium to replenish its coffers. From the outset, opium, heroin and cocaine became political instruments in the hands of states. Great powers, pharmaceutical industries, banks, secret services: all played a role in the spread of drugs and the emergence of the world's biggest criminal organizations. From the opium wars to the birth of the French Connection, from the hippy years to the rise of the great drug barons, from Escobar to El Chapo, from the mountains of Afghanistan to Wall Street, a political history of drugs takes shape. A historical and global investigation in three episodes.

Episode 1 – The Age of Empires

Drug trafficking was not invented by a mafia, but by European colonial powers in the 19th century. While they were spreading opium throughout Asia, the pharmaceutical industry was discovering miraculous products: morphine, cocaine and heroin. Addiction became a worldwide scourge. When prohibition took hold at the beginning of the 20th century, the first networks sprang up in Mexico, France and China... These networks experienced unprecedented growth during the Cold War: in the hands of the secret services, drugs became a geopolitical tool. The United States paid the price: in 1970, a third of American soldiers in Vietnam were addicted to heroin. A year later, in a historic speech, President Richard Nixon launched the war on drugs.

Episode 2 – The Age of Barons

The world's leading power is waging war on drugs: the United States is hitting hard. But drug trafficking never dies. It shifts, changes and adapts. As the war on drugs progressed around the world, a new generation of drug traffickers emerged in the late 1970s, more powerful than ever. These criminals were not only greedy for money, but also for power. If Pablo Escobar is the most emblematic of them all, Toto Riina in Sicily, Khun Sa in the Golden Triangle, Félix Gallardo in Mexico, have shaken up the destiny of their countries and caused drug trafficking to explode on a global scale. They defied governments and threatened the powers that be. It would take almost 20 years for governments to organize and develop strategies to bring down the drug barons.

Episode 3 - Lost territories

Trafficking has become fragmented and atomized under the blows dealt by the police. Today's traffickers have mutated. Invisibility is their weapon. Trafficking is taking root in out-of-control zones: war zones such as Afghanistan and Colombia. In Mexico, the cartels have plunged the entire country into an unspeakable spiral of violence, and everywhere, the toll of the war on drugs is a macabre tally. Synthetic drugs, easy to manufacture and conceal, herald the fourth generation to come: white-coated drug dealers.