El Cartel

By the end of the 20th century, the drug cartels had entered their heyday. Corruption, kidnappings and murders were adding to their strength. Bombs exploded in the streets, the evening silence was broken by the rapid series of emptying magazines - masked sicarios carried out the sentences. In the Colombian jungle grew a system of cocaine laboratories - the lifeblood of the cartels and the backbone of the narco-business. With thousands of tons of cocaine worth $25 billion smuggled into the U.S. every year, the market was beginning to saturate. To sustain the cartels' alarmingly dynamic growth, the drug barons began a race for a new trophy....

In a stuffy room in Medelin crowded with DEA agents, one wall is occupied by a large screen displaying images from Arlington, nearly 3,700km away. In the room, an athletic silhouette of a man sitting in a neatly pressed suit can be seen at the end of a table, with the Agency's logo in the background. He has been discussing current affairs for quite some time, until he finally turns toward you.

- Finally, I would like to welcome the Special Branch that was recently established to fight narco-business on the border with Panama. The case is urgent. Last night, a highly regarded American chemist - Thomas Smith - was kidnapped at the main market in Cali. To the best of our informants' knowledge, he was taken to one of the laboratories in the jungle near the Colombian border, where advanced work on a new drug is underway. A battle against time is underway, the government must seize the formula and prevent the first transport of the drug into its territory. Gather round, the rest of the information will be obtained on the spot....