Presenting: Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller

Today we share a new episode of Season 2 of Trafficked, hosted by National Geographic Channel’s Mariana van Zeller. The series pulls back the curtain on the people operating trafficking rings and shadow economies. This week's episode: "Fast Times At Coronado High: The Coronado Company Story" Just off the coast of San Diego, a group of high school surfers and their former Spanish teacher get involved in an unusual extracurricular activity: international weed smuggling. They called themselves the Coronado Company and Lee Strimpel was one of their leaders. For years, Lee’s team of “pot marines'' circumvented the U.S.-Mexico sea border. What started with a bunch of high school students swimming bundles of marijuana on their surfboards, grew to become a multimillion dollar smuggling empire. Their hauls got bigger and bigger, and so did their means of transport. But by the time they tried to expand their business across the Atlantic, the DEA caught wind. Lee’s plans all came down with a crash in a cinematic takedown on a freezing winter night in Maine. Look for Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller in your podcast app. The Trafficked TV series is available now on the National Geographic channel and Hulu. If you like what you hear and want to support more content like this, please consider a National Geographic subscription. Go to natgeo.com/explore to subscribe today.