It's the leading cause of death among 18-45-year-olds in the United States. Fentanyl, or rather, M30, is a blue pill that is 20 to 40 times more potent than heroin. It's a drug that kills – and earns its producers billions of dollars.

For two years, Bertrand Monnet plunged deep into the heart of Mexico's most powerful cartel: the Sinaloa Cartel. With his camera in hand, the French EDHEC business school professor and specialist in criminal economics, documented, for the first time, every stage of the narcos' business model, from the manufacture of fentanyl in Culiacan garages to the laundering of dirty money in Dubai's skyscrapers.

Monnet's footage and interviews, filmed for Le Monde, provide a better understanding of how these ultra-efficient, violent international criminal operations function. He also discovered that they are now targeting a new market: France.

Inside the labs from hell

In this first episode, we take you deep into the clandestine fentanyl laboratories of Culiacan, the stronghold of the Sinaloa Cartel in northwestern Mexico. This is where the cocineros, or "cooks" in "narco" jargon, manufacture M30 pills, mixing fentanyl with heroin. It's a technique as simple as it is dangerous – and totally illegal – and generates extraordinary profit.

Watch the first episode now:

Episode 2: "The Death Squad," out November 17.

Episode 3: "Dubai Connections: How to launder a million dollars," out December 1.

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