Narcos on the front line: How cartels sabotage each other as Australian drug war continues

The criminal underworld has been turned on its head as drug cartels sabotage each other to get control over the lucrative cocaine and ice market in Australia. See how in our docuseries.

Exclusive: Drug cartels are dobbing each other into police to sabotage shipments in the “dog eat dog” world of organised crime.

New details have emerged about the betrayals in the underworld as part of Narcos on the front line, an international investigation into the global drug trade.

Tonnes of ice and cocaine are sent around the world with the help of middlemen, who act in a similar way to mortgage brokers when people apply for home loans.

But while these brokers are arranging deliveries, they are also sabotaging rivals’ shipments, an undercover Australian Federal Police officer said.

“Quite often we get some of these brokers that are trying to push other people out of the market,” the officer said.

“From time to time we get tip offs against other people like the tequila shipment.

“It’s quite likely people provide tip offs to the AFP and to other agencies so they can put the resources onto those other organisations and cut out some of the competition.”

Watch episode 4 of the Narcos on the front line series above.

Boxes of liquid meth concealed in bottles of tequila, seized at the port of Manzanillo. Picture: SECRETARÍA DE MARINA/SEMAR

A photo released by the Mexican Navy shows boxes of liquid meth concealed in bottles of tequila, seized at the port of Manzanillo. Picture: SECRETARÍA DE MARINA/SEMAR

The “tequila” shipment was four tonnes of ice, worth up to $1 billion, bound for Australia which was intercepted by the Mexican navy at the port of Manzanillo on April 18.

That shipment alone was enough to supply Australia’s total ice market for six months.

Sabotaging that shipment reduced supply here, which keeps up the prices on our streets, increasing profits for drug lords.

“It’s a dog eat dog world with them because of the money that they make and the profit they make in Australia is astronomical from cocaine and meth trafficking,” the officer said.

Latin American police pay money for information, with some criminals becoming specialist snitches.

“It’s like any business. Every business has different sections. And one part of the Narco trafficking business, you have people we call professional informants whose pure role is to sell information to law enforcement and to allow law enforcement to prosecute and disrupt these groups,” a source with deep knowledge of the drug trade in Latin America said.

Mexico's Navy in the streets of Lazaro Cardenas where known Narcos gangs operate. Picture: Jason Edwards

“It’s a very dangerous profession. But like the cocaine market itself, every role in that business is dangerous.

“So these people decide that the profit margins involved in selling information to law enforcement agencies is worth the risk.”

Mexican cartels are ruthless, with small slights earning them a death sentence, let alone informing on their activities.

Police found 45 bags with dismembered human remains in the Jalisco state, a stronghold of the CJNG cartels, in late May.

The victims were call centre workers who tried to quit their jobs running a real estate scam for the cartel.

Originally published as Narcos on the front line: How cartels sabotage each other as Australian drug war continues