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WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama has added Belize and El Salvador to a blacklist of countries considered major producers or transit routes for illegal drugs. (BBC) PREVIOUS: US war on drugs
MEXICO CITY – Mexico lived through its most violent year of the past four in 2010, but the 18.4 homicides per 100,000 people registered last year ranked behind seven other countries, the majority of them in Latin America, the Public Safety Secretariat said in a report. (LAHT) MORE: Countries by homicide rate
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
TEGUS - A total of 176 Honduran police officers have been arrested in a purge against corruption and organized crime, the authorities there say. (BBC) PREVIOUS: Troops deployed to fight crime Honduras security briefing Enforcement head gunned down
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)
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) |
MONTERREY - Mexican authorities arrested the former finance secretary of the northern state of Coahuila, Javier Villarreal, for allegedly falsifying documents to contract loans totaling more than 3B pesos ($230M). In August, the federal Finance Secretariat had filed a criminal complaint against those responsible for loans that raised Coahuila’s public debt to more than 32B pesos ($2.5B). (LAHT)
PANAMA CITY - Panamanian authorities announced the arrest of 80 members of a gang that smuggled Colombian cocaine bound for Mexico and the US. (EFE) MORE: Drug network
SAN PEDRO SULA - Honduran police have blamed street gangs linked to Mexican drug cartels for the killing of at least 18 people in a shoe factory. The massacre in the city of San Pedro Sula was connected to a dispute over territory between groups of drug traffickers, officials said. (BBC) MORE: 17 died in factory shooting Shoe factory attack Shoe factory shooting
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)
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
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)
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 |
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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 US Drug Enforcement 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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CORDOBA - Raul Lucio Hernandez Lechuga, considered one of the “37 most dangerous criminals” in Mexico, was arrested in the city of Cordoba. (LAHT) |
Key strategist in drug war killed 2nd Interior Minister dies in air crash |
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Education is the latest casualty |
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429 bodies found in mass graves Bodies of 19 decapitated men dumped US accused of protecting cartel |
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Mexico’s drug-related violence 'Assassin of assassins' captured |
Familia Michoacana nearing extinction Journalist killed Miguel Angel Former Mexican governor indicted Ex-mayor investigated for murder |
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War penetrates everyday language Mexico's drug seizures total $11B The draft report .pdf |
Gun smuggling program backfires Cartels recruitment of US citizens Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen |
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Drug lord Guzman on Forbes list Francisco Javier Arellano Felix |
The world's most dangerous place? Lethal connections: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 |
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BOGOTA - Colombian military forces have killed the top leader of the country's main leftist rebel group. Alfonso Cano, the top commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was killed during a military raid in the SW Cauca region. (VOA) |
Drug-trafficking groups replaced rebels Interpol's report on FARC computers |
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Edgar Guillermo Vallejo Guarin Colombia extradites militia head Police 'kill Colombian drug lord' |
Chavez role in cocaine trail to Europe Colombia's new urban drugs war Colombia seizes $54M drugs cash Where the drug lords are kings Madrid clashes over Latin gangs Mexican cartels settling into Peru Peru to bomb Amazon cocaine labs Alberto Santofimio Pablo Escobar
Cocaine in frozen mango
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TEGUCIGALPA - Another 4.5 tons of cocaine were recovered from a small submarine scuttled this month by drug smugglers off Honduras’ Caribbean coast, bringing the total amount of the seizure to 7.3 tons. (LAHT) |
US military nets second sub in a week Resurgence of paramilitary politics Crackdown appears to be working Druglords launder euros via Miami Gun battles in Rio leave 19 dead Brazil breaks up 'killing firm' Brazil arrests 75 Rio cops for organized crime ties Brazilian Crime Group Defies Police |
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GUATEMALA CITY - As candidates square-off in Guatemala’s presidential election, a broader political battle is transpiring away from the campaign signs and populist rhetoric: the old oligarchy is fighting to maintain its privileged position against an increasingly powerful "narco elite". (Jazeera) MORE: |
Guatemala moves against cartels |
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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) |
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Indictment details gang's workings LOS ANGELES - When a stray bullet from a gang member's gun struck 3-week-old Luis Angel Garcia in the heart and killed him in 2007, police, politicians and ordinary Angelenos expressed outrage over the infant's death. But they weren't the only ones. Members of the Mexican Mafia demanded that those responsible be killed. (Los Angeles Times) |
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Mexican authorities announced they had thwarted a plan to smuggle Saadi Gadhafi, a son of late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and his family into Mexico using false documents. (PostMedia) |
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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 |
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 |
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