The Modern Drug War: Cartels, the Dark Web & Hidden Stories with Retired DEA Agent Brian Townsend

Is Venezuela really America’s new “narco boogeyman” or just the latest political talking point in the war on drugs? In this episode of Zero Signal, host David Green and co-host Jay sit down with retired DEA Supervisory Special Agent Brian Townsend whose work has been featured by Fox News, CNN, Forbes, and on popular shows like Bill O’Reilly’s No Spin News for a raw, inside look at the modern drug war.

Brian pulls back the curtain on how fentanyl and synthetic opioids actually move from China and cartel labs to American neighborhoods, why the opioid epidemic exploded, and what most people get wrong about the fentanyl crisis. We dive into Venezuela vs Mexico, transnational cartels, and how geopolitics shapes the “official story.”

Then we go deep into dark web drug markets, cryptocurrency laundering, and the ways traffickers exp ...