Richard Baker

Aren't Australian police meant to be on the same side?

So why have you got the most senior officers in one force actively trying to sabotage an operation that is stopping or had stopped 2.4 tonnes of cocaine coming to Australia, which is like half of our consumption at that time?

Thanks, Chris.

This time, having a look at Australia's relationship with cocaine.

And using a really, really interesting police sting as the kind of spine of the story.

And it involved state police, West Australian police, the Australian Federal Police and the US Drug Enforcement Administration, the infamous DEA.

So I follow that story and then we jump out from that to take a bit of a 360 look at all the different facets from users to health experts to people living under the shadow of, you know, Mexican cartels.

I think that cocaine and other drugs, but particularly cocaine, has for a long time had that image of the high flyer, the elite drug, and I think now it's permeated other areas

parts of society or gone through, you know, and it has a, in some segments of society, a fairly universal acceptance.

And the other thing I thought was I wonder how many users, even semi-regular, ever think about all the little stories that go behind one white line, like so from where the cocaine's produced from to how it's transported from there to the ports in Ecuador where a lot of the shipping is and talking to people or hearing about

how the amount of money that's involved in the trafficking and the selling of that drug affects people's lives all the way along the food chain or the supply chain.

Where are they coming from?

Why are they risking...

long time in jail for relatively little reward.

And so we were able to follow them in their journey as well.

Well, the DEA is one of the world's, I guess, best resourced and connected to specialist police force that operates in, I think, over 60 countries.

And what's interesting about the DEA here in Australia is it causes a lot of tension behind the scenes.

They have access to the best intelligence on drug trafficking and

criminal enterprises and really powerful legislation that allows them to reach criminals and bring them back into the American justice system from just about anywhere.

So criminals are shit scared of the DEA.