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Lethal business model
Farm boys from a tiny county that once depended on sugar
cane have perfected an ingenious business model for selling a
semi-processed form of Mexican heroin known as black tar. (LA Times)
MORE:
Black tar moves in, and death follows
Good life in Xalisco can mean death in the US
Enforcement head gunned down
TEGUCIGALPA -- The head of the Honduran drug enforcement agency was
killed by two gunmen who opened fire on him from a motorcycle in
Tegucigalpa, police said. (LAHT)
Costa Rica drug hub
SAN JOSE
– Costa Rica has gone from being a bridge for drug trafficking between
South and North America to becoming established as a warehouse and
trading center for drug cartels, from which the authorities have seized
92.7 tons of cocaine and $17M in the last 3½ years. (LAHT)
Venezuela 'supplies half of Britain's cocaine'
CARACAS - President
Hugo Chavez’s
Venezuela has become the key trafficking route for most of the cocaine
sold on Britain's streets, anti-drugs officials believe. (Telegraph UK)
US deports 'minister for cocaine'
MIAMI
-
Luis Arce-Gomez,
interior minister in the Andean nation's 1980-81 dictatorship, made an
infamous warning to foes to "walk around with their wills under their
arms". The United States has deported the 71-year-old to face justice
in Bolivia after he spent almost 20 years in a Florida prison for drug
trafficking. (Guardian UK)
PREVIOUS:
Bolivia halts US anti-drugs work
Evo Morales
Morales bars
'spying' DEA agents
North Van man faces drug charges
VANCOUVER - Pavel
Kulisek, 43, was arrested March 11 in Los Barilles and held in a
detention centre in Mexico City. The friend, who called himself Carlos
Harrera, is actually Gustavo Rivera Martinez - one of the US Marshals
Service and FBI's most
wanted men
and kingpin of the Tijuana cartel. When police swooped in on him having
dinner in March, Kulisek was there and was also arrested. (North Shore
News)
Smuggling ring
MONTREAL - The RCMP
says it has arrested four men who allegedly smuggled massive amounts of
cocaine into Canada in the last decade. Three men were picked up in
morning raids Tuesday in the Montreal area while the fourth is already
in jail on other charges, RCMP said. (CTV)
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Role nets prison
WINNIPEG -
David Sokalski, 39, admits he was a key player in a
cross-border conspiracy that saw barrels of raw ephedrine smuggled into
the US to methamphetamine labs run by the Mexican Mafia. (Winnipeg Free
Press)
Body count reaches 39
RIO DE JANEIRO
- Six additional people were found dead on Friday, bringing to 39 the
death toll from week-long clashes involving Brazilian police and the
drug-dealing gangs who control many of Rio de Janeiro’s teeming slums.
(LAHT) PREVIOUS: Violence
mars reputation
Gangs shoot down copter
Gangs go to war Traffickers
shoot down police helicopter
Olympic Games 2016
Drug sub
The crews of the
Seattle-based Coast Guard cutter Midgett and a Navy maritime patrol
plane teamed up to catch a drug-running submarine carrying 7 tons of
cocaine worth about $196 million. (Seattle PI) MORE:
US military
nets second sub in a week
Witness warned
MONTREAL - Colombia's
witness-protection agency has warned a former paramilitary turned state
witness that two assassins posing as tourists plan to travel to his new
home in Canada to kill him. (National Post)
Black market sales
MEXICO
CITY - Zhenli
Ye Gon's
lawyers, who are fighting efforts to extradite him to Mexico from the
US, vehemently deny their client admitted anything illegal and call the
report misinformation intended to sway public opinion against him.
(AP)
PREVIOUS:
Mexico to spend 'drugs
cash haul' Alleged drug trafficker
nabbed in US
Mexican
police find $206M in drug raid
Cali cartel leaders
plead guilty
MIAMI - Two Colombian brothers who helped found the
infamous Cali cartel pleaded guilty Tuesday to drug
trafficking, forfeited billions in tainted assets, and
received what could amount to a life sentence.
Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, ages 67 and 63,
each were sentenced to 30 years in prison. (AP)
PREVIOUS:
Cali cartel
Gilberto
& Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela
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Motive in 'dead presidents' killing
SAN
BERNARDINO - Deputy District Attorney Cheryl Kersey said
gang leader Johnny Agudo and his subordinates were
ambushed on July 9, 2000, because Agudo had "ratted" on
Salvador Orozco Hernandez, identified in 2006 as a
drug-trade controller in U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration documents. (Press Enterprise) |
How Canucks blew a deal on blow
It
looked to James Frost like a big payday was coming.
The plan was simple. Buy cocaine from Colombian drug
lords. Smuggle it into Canada on a yacht. And it could
all be directed, with the help of partners, from the GTA.
But almost from the start the plan hit snags, and 78
RCMP wiretaps, entered in court, tell the tale.
(Toronto Star) |
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Arrests in slaying
SAN SALVADOR - Ten reputed members of the Mara 18 gang
were arrested in connection with the September murder of
Franco-Spanish photojournalist Christian Poveda. The
54-year-old journalist directed the documentary “La
Vida Loca”
(Crazy Life), depicting the daily lives of a group of
gang members in the Salvadoran town of Soyapango.
(LAHT) |
Rising bloodshed
SAN SALVADOR
- In the
first three months of 2009, by official government count, an average of
nearly 12 people a day were slain. The homicide rate is roughly five
times that of Mexico and 10 times that of the US. (LA Times)
El Salvador 2008 crime
El Salvador
Bodies dumped
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Violent
Hispanic gang sets up in city
VANCOUVER
- A violent California-based Hispanic gang is
setting up drug houses in Vancouver, using newly arrived
refugees to do the gang's dirty work. (The Province)
The
most dangerous gang in America
Central
America’s gang crisis
Al
Qaeda seeks tie to local gangs
Feds
nab 375 gang members
Massive
international sting nets 660
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Exporting
a problem
Two
decades ago, gangs were rare in Central America. But in
the mid-1990s, the United States stepped up deportations
of criminals; many of them gang members from the 18th
street, or Mara 18, and its chief rival, Mara Salvatrucha 13.
Today,
gangs are Central America's No. 1 crime problem.
(Sign On)
Nine
held over Honduras massacre
Gang
linked to Honduras attack
The
deportee problem |
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