The Pioneer of Ecstasy in the US | Narco Wars: The Mob

The first time I took ecstasy was in Manchester. Thinking, "What is this? This is pretty boring." And all of a sudden, my knees just completely buckled, and time just started to stand still. The whole room is just throbbing, and everybody's dancing, and the music just pulsing into my head. All these beeps and weird noises, like signals from outer space that I didn't understand, are now completely making sense. I never wanted the party to end. After that night, raving became my religion.

I'm Shaun Atwood, known as one of the biggest exes traffickers in the U.S. rave scene. My local nickname was English Sean. I was up against one of the Kosa Nostra's most notorious killers. As a young person, I set a goal to be a millionaire by age 30. "Greed is good" was my mantra. I flew out to Arizona because it had dazzled me as a teenager.

[Music] The plane comes in, and you're looking out the window, and you're seeing all these swimming pools in people's backyards. The sun's always shining; it's almost 50 degrees in the summer. As soon as they hear the English accent, they roll out the red carpet. But the rave scene was barely starting—they didn't even know where ecstasy was. So, there was this huge gap in the market.

[Music] When I threw my first rave, locking down all the ravers just going off with the strobe lights pulsing, I knew that this was my calling in life. As an experiment, I decided to order a thousand pills out of LA.

[Music] All this stuff goes in one weekend; I've made thousands of dollars just like that—partying my ass off. And that was when I decided to go full-time trafficking.

[Music] You