Making Cocaine in the Amazon
Bruce Parry - BBC
YouTube Video

BMM

[Water splashing]

Parry:  This is the rustic beginnings of what is a multibillion, billion-dollar industry.  It doesn't look like it here.  

Death, wars, governments being overthrown, corruption, ecstasy, hatred, you name it: it all begins here.  

This is the first step of the process, and these bags here are chlorine.  You can smell it already.  It's quite pungent.  I think we're going to see a few chemicals being used today.  

[Loud rustling of many leaves]

Suddenly, the smell of chlorine is being replaced by that pungent odor that I'm getting so used to here of the coca leaf.  Bizarrely, it's kind of becoming an acquired smell.  

A toxic cocktail of chemicals is used to extract the cocaine from the leaves: bleach, kerosene, and sulfuric acid.  

[Water splashing]

Cocaine has all sorts of reputations around the world, but one of them is sort of a glamour drug.  

[00:01:23]

[Water splashing]

This and all the chemicals and the smell and what's going on it-- it certainly isn't that.  

[Water splashing]

What are you putting in now?  

Male:   Kerosene.  

Parry:  Kerosene?  

[Sounds of chewing/spitting]

Rather him than me.  

The kerosene containing the coca alkaloid is skimmed off and the rest of the chemicals poured away.  

[Loud splashing]

Bleach and paraffin, and that's going to go straight into the river systems.  

[Rushing water]

The sad fact of all of this is that there is still a market for cocaine patently because it's booming here.  There is a war against it, and the production of it is illegal, but it sad truth of that is that because it's illegal it's happening behind closed doors.  

[00:02:43]

Because it's happening behind closed doors without a license, this sort of pollution is rife, and these people are the ones who are most affected.  They're not making any money from it, yet they're polluting their own back yard.  That's the reality of this valley.  

[♫ Music ♫.]  

Suddenly, there's trouble.  We hear the beat of a helicopter overhead.  It's the authorities out looking for coca labs.  We all run for cover.  

What we don't want at an illegal coca plant is military popping in to say "hello."  

[Roar of helicopter blades]

There it is.  Fuck.  Right over head.  

These guys are understandably shaky.  3-4 years, and they know it.  

Is it worth all this hiding, all this stuff that you know is against the law?  Is it worth it for the amount of money you get?  

Male [speaking in foreign language]:  Yes, we do this despite the risks.  

[00:04:06]

Parry:  This toxic brew is then strained and the residue heated.  

[Gentle boiling of water]

His outlay in this has been about 900 US dollars.  That's with all the tarps and the barrels and the karo and the ammonia, the acid, and of course, 250 kilograms of coca leaf.  From that, he says he'll make a profit of about 80 US dollars once it's been sold, and that's after 4 days of work.  

There you have it, the second stage of the multi, multi billion-dollar industry that is the cocaine industry.  

Really surprising.  I was expecting white fluff, but from here, that will go to a laboratory where it becomes cocaine as we know it.  

[End of video]