22: It Could Be Your High Street: How Cartels Wash Their Dirty Billions

You probably walk past it every day without knowing...Every drug empire produces one thing above all else: cash. Mountains of it. The International Monetary Fund estimates that between two and five trillion dollars is laundered around the world every year - and at least half a trillion comes from the drug trade alone. But how do you clean dirty money?From the black market ‘peso exchange’ to purpose-built deposit windows at high street banks, offshore shell companies, and cryptocurrency: the methods have evolved, but the goal never changes. In this episode, we follow the money with three men who spent careers tracking it: Terry Burke, former head of security at the Bank of England; Martin Dubbey, former UK customs drug liaison officer; and Phil Matthews, who worked the money trail from Washington alongside the DEA, FBI and CIA.And the answer to where the money hides might surprise you. It could be the nail bar on the corner. The barber shop you walk past every day. It could be your high street.But the cartels didn’t always have it their own way. Here’s the real sting from the investigstors on the front lines. These are the Narco Warriors.New episodes every Monday.