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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)
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)
GUATEMALA CITY - Four members of the ultraviolent Mara Salvatrucha gang were beaten and burned alive by a mob in the NW Guatemalan province of Huehuetenango. (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)
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)
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) |
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
GUATEMALA CITY - Guatemalan security forces seized some 1,690 kilos (3,722 lbs) of cocaine from a container that came into the country from Honduras. The drug, valued at some 169 million quetzals ($20.4M), was hidden in the container’s double bottom. (LAHT)
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
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)
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
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) |
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CHIMALTENANGO, Guatemala - Gang members have stopped tattooing themselves, resorting to low-profile ways of identifying themselves. Today, gang members with tattooed faces, are either dead, in prison or hiding. (AP) |
VANCOUVER - A Salvadoran member of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha-13 gang is living in BC despite fears by immigration officials that the gang has a "single brutal purpose" of carrying out criminal activity by any means. (Vancouver Sun) |
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PORTO ALEGRE - Hundreds of protesters from Brazil's landless movement have invaded a farm owned by an alleged Colombian drug lord hours before it was to be auctioned. Police say 300 families took over the property owned by Juan Carlos Ramirez-Abadia in Rio Grande do Sul state. (BBC) |
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 |
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HALTON - Police are probing Colombian links in connection with the surprise discovery of uncut cocaine inside a transport truck worth a potential $20 million if sold in diluted street form, they said. (Toronto Star) MORE: Alert pair key to huge bust |
SAN BRUNO, Calif. - A convicted cocaine trafficker directed family members to blood-soaked assassination videos on YouTube in a threatening bid to keep them from providing prosecutors with potentially damaging information about him, investigators allege. (Smoking Gun) |
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MEXICO CITY - Teodoro Garcia Simental, blamed for a years-long campaign of massacres, beheadings and kidnappings that chased away tourists and caused social upheaval in northern Baja California, was arrested by Mexican federal police without the suspect firing a shot, and immediately flown to Mexico City. (LA Times) Mexico snares brutal drug trafficker Tijuana reels amid a surge of violence Crime reporters face deadly perils In drug battle, the public is missing in action Tijuana's new weapon in gang war |
Massacre response fails to convince 8 found dead in burned-out truck Witness in protection program killed One border city is quiet, maybe too quiet |
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Reprisal for killing drug lord Cartel chief is dead, but now what? |
Shootout shuts US-Mexico crossing |
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Cartels hire US teenage killers Police officers held in killings Cartel 'Taliban' declares war on Mexican state |
Cash in shipment now at $22.4M Police capture top deputy in Arellano cartel Army replaces customs officers Cartels go from drugs to full-scale mafias Fugitive politician tied to gang Mexico rules out 'peace' deal with cartels Drug offensive stirs 'wasp nest' |
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Lethal connections: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Drug violence spilling into Guatemala |
Detention of local officials marks shift Stakes rise as drug war threatens to cross border Traffickers, assassins arrested |
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Drug lord Guzman #701(tied) on Forbes list Son arrested Ismael Zambada Garcia US raids target Mexican cartels |
Blood flows in streets of Reynosa Calderon seeks to dispel talk of 'failing state' Mexican collapse: 'what if?' scenario Mexican cartels 'top US threat' Mexico's drug-fuelled violence |
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Indiscriminate killings sow terror Drug cartels infiltrating Guatemala |
Gang wars turn Caracas into a murder capital Drug wars spill across the border Gunman dressed as police kill 11 Mexico acknowledges drug gang infiltration Death industry thrives on drug war |
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Top federal police chief quits Traffickers turn to kidnappings Police killed in grenade attack |
Governor calls for tougher crackdown |
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Smugglers' cargo: Cop-killing guns Wave of organised crime kills 21 in Mexico Federation cartel Juarez cartel |
Who is killing Mexico's musicians? Arellano Felix Organization unmasked |
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BOGOTA - All that glitters may not be gold, but for Colombia's narco-molls the most important thing is that it glitters. (CNN) Hitmen reveal horror of the kill Edgar Guillermo Vallejo Guarin Colombia extradites militia head Police 'kill Colombian drug lord' |
'Top guns' of Tumaco keep crops in check Leader accepts responsibility for massacre Interpol's forensic report on FARC computers 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
puree
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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) |
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) |
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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) |
Mexican mafia members arrested |
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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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