Border Wars

Drugs, guns, cars and money are just some of the items confiscated on a typical day by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). But what happens to this contraband after it is seized? In a special episode, Border Wars reveals what happens to all the loot. Everything that CBP confiscates at the border must be handled with care: stored, accounted for and transported with the utmost security, and disposed of in a safe and legally mandated manner.

Border Wars follows the agents that protect the 2,000 mile long U.S./Mexico border against smuggling, terrorism, and illegal immigration.

In Nogales, AZ , U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents dismantle a smuggler checkpoint in the remote desert section of Ajo ,seize a vehicle carrying weapons and nearly $800,000 into Mexico and implement new strategies to keep up with a new, almost foolproof method of smuggling drugs.

Cartels and illegal immigrants have found weak spots along the U.S.-Mexico border. Four feet beneath Nogales, Ariz., agents crawl through a claustrophobic drug-smuggling tunnel, knowing they could come face to face with heavily armed criminals. Trains, with a myriad of hiding places, are also becoming a favorite place for cartels to stash drugs. If the officers aren't careful, they could easily miss a load.

In a remote corner of Arizona desert, Border Patrol agents use night vision technology to track a group of illegal immigrants. Employing a Blackhawk helicopter and ATVs, agents arrest a suspected smuggler backpacking drugs into the U.S. Meanwhile, officers at a port of entry stop an unlikely but increasingly common drug smuggler -- an elderly woman.

Border Wars follows a journalist and cameraman reporting in Mexico for a unique view of one of the world's most dangerous cities - Ciudad Juarez . Meanwhile, agents in El Paso track down two illegal immigrants hiding in a school parking lot, discover a gas tank filled with 45 pounds of marijuana, and catch two Guatemalan brothers crossing the border with the aid of cell phones.

Along the southern Arizona border, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents defend a national park overrun by smugglers, seize half a million dollars worth of drugs on a train coming from Mexico, and travel into the heart of cartel territory to persuade illegal migrants from crossing.

Border Patrol agents fight a constant battle to prevent the drug wars in Ciudad Juarez from spilling into neighboring El Paso--one of the safest cities in the United States. National Geographic follows agents as they uncover marijuana ingeniously hidden in the tires of a flatbed truck, and detain a young woman, laden with cocaine, who reacts in a bizarre way to her arrest.

Tight security at urban border crossings pushes would-be illegal immigrants and smugglers to extremes, so they traverse the remote and rugged canyons of the Peloncillo Mountains in the hopes of avoiding detection. An agent on board a helicopter helps ground agents scour the vast landscape for footprints and signs of these crossers. But any footprints they find appear and disappear, frustrating the agents' search.

CBP Agents face the difficult challenge of defending a border drawn by the narrow, meandering course of the Rio Grande River: agents chase smugglers who risk their lives to escape high speed pursuit, track a party of migrants who claim torture at the hands of Mexican police, and thwart an unorthodox attempt to smuggle moonshine- making equipment into Mexico.

At the southernmost tip of Texas is the Rio Grande Valley - a vast and sparsely populated region. As Mexican drug cartels expand their reach north of the border, the US Department of Homeland Security must rely on every available resource to find and apprehend smugglers and illegal immigrants. Border Patrol agents - tipped off by electronic sensors or covert surveillance - chase illegal immigrants through the dense brush of the river valley in vehicles or on foot. At the Falfurrias Station, smugglers bury drugs deep inside the toxic chemical cargo of tanker trucks, requiring highly trained Hazmat teams to uncover them. And at the seaport in Brownsville, shipping vessels from across the globe are scrutinized for threats ranging from bomb-making materials to deadly insects which could decimate US agriculture.

In this episode of Border Wars, we travel to the Rio Grande Valley in the southernmost tip of Texas. Along a sixty-mile stretch from McAllen to Brownsville, drug smugglers and illegal immigrants risk their lives to cross the floodwaters of the Rio Grande and make illegal entry to the United States. National Geographic will follow the men and women of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection as they protect this hot zone of illegal drugs and human trafficking. Agents pursue a pickup truck loaded with drugs ferried from Mexico, uncover a huge stash of heroin during a routine vehicle inspection, and attempt to rescue illegal immigrants caught in the floodwaters of the Rio Grande.

The Rio Grande Valley is a main battlefront in the war against illegal trafficking. Here, agents and officers of the Department of Homeland Security are on a mission to protect the communities that lie along one of the United States prime trafficking corridors. In this episode of Border Wars, a search team races to rescue a mother and her son, abandoned by smugglers in the brush. Down by the river, agents investigate a family after a van full of marijuana is discovered outside their home. Meantime, a special task force targets a suspected crack cocaine dealer and manufacturer in a sting operation.