Just off the coast of San Diego, a group of high school surfers and their former Spanish teacher get involved in an unusual extracurricular activity: international weed smuggling. They called themselves the Coronado Company and Lee Strimpel was one of their leaders. For years, Lee’s team of “pot marines'' circumvented the U.S.-Mexico sea border. What started with a bunch of high school students swimming bundles of marijuana on their surfboards, grew to become a multimillion dollar smuggling empire. Their hauls got bigger and bigger, and so did their means of transport. But by the time they tried to expand their business across the Atlantic, the DEA caught wind. Lee’s plans all came down with a crash in a cinematic takedown on a freezing winter night in Maine.

Join Mariana deeper into the underground, and don’t miss the TV series Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller Wednesday on National Geographic and streaming on Hulu.

Recording assistance provided by Alexis Peery.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices