Category Archives: Drugs trade

Dead drops, PR stunts and punishment beatings: the rapid rise of Russia’s powerful darknet drug industry

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Tech-savvy organised crime groups profiting from billion-dollar enterprise that is spreading beyond Russian borders

At any one moment in towns and cities across Russia, thousands of drug packages lie buried in the ground, attached by magnets to lamp-posts or taped underneath window sills, waiting to be picked up by their intended customers.

From the streets of Moscow to remote towns in Siberia, hand-to-hand buying of illegal drugs – as is the norm in most of the world – is on the wane. Instead, retail-size bags of drugs are secreted using spycraft by an army of young kladmen (stash men) who upload dead-drop locations, which are unlocked when customers make an online purchase.

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Duterte tells Philippines ‘war on drugs’ inquiry he kept a death squad

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Ex-president says he kept criminals to kill other criminals while mayor and offers no apologies at hearing investigating crackdowns

The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has told a senate inquiry into drug killings under his leadership that he kept a “death squad” of criminals to kill other criminals while serving as a mayor.

The 79-year-old, making his first public appearance on Monday since his term ended in 2022, said he offered “no apologies, no excuses” for his presidency, during which as many as 30,000 people were killed in a “war on drugs”.

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Mexico navy seizes more than eight tonnes of illicit cargo in record drugs bust

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Six boats among impounded assets worth at least $100m off country’s south-west coast, navy says, after arresting 23 people

Mexico’s navy has said it arrested 23 people in its largest-ever drugs bust, seizing over eight tonnes of illicit cargo in an operation off the country’s south-western Pacific coast.

“Navy personnel seized 8,361 kilograms of illicit cargo, which represents the largest amount of drugs seized in a maritime operation, unprecedented in history,” a statement from the ministry of the navy said on Friday.

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US supreme court will rule on $10bn suit Mexico filed against US gun makers

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Mexico argues negligence from makers such as Colt and Glock has led to gun trafficking to drug cartels and criminals

The US supreme court said on Friday it will decide whether to block a $10bn lawsuit Mexico filed against US gun manufacturers and distributors that argues that their negligent and illegal commercial practices have unleashed bloodshed in the country.

The lawsuit, filed in Boston in August, names Smith & Wesson, Barrett Firearms, Beretta, Colt and Glock, as well as Boston-area wholesaler Interstate Arms.

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Over 40kg of cocaine found in banana deliveries to French supermarkets

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Police seek to identify intended recipient after drugs found under pallets at four Grand Frais stores

Dozens of kilograms of cocaine have been found in banana deliveries to four of a French supermarket chain’s stores, with police unsure who the intended recipient was.

Staff at Grand Frais branches in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France were astonished to find between 40kg (88lb) and 50kg of drugs hidden under pallets of bananas and were anxious to reassure customers that the cocaine had not come into contact with the fruit.

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Meth worth nearly $6m found in fake watermelons at US-Mexico border

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Imitation fruits and vegetables are the latest ‘sophisticated’ tactic for Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs into the US

Everyday fruit and vegetables are some of the latest methods Mexican cartels are using to smuggle drugs into the US, recent seizures of methamphetamine suggest.

Around 2 tonnes of the powerful stimulant known colloquially as crystal meth was discovered recently in packages designed to look like bright green watermelons at the San Diego, California, port of Otay Mesa, according to US Customs and Border Patrol Protection officials.

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Colombian congress debates banning souvenirs of drug lord Pablo Escobar

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Vendors selling to tourists criticize proposal, but those wanting to shed the country’s mafia boss image praise it

Souvenirs depicting the late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar could be banned in Colombia if legislators approve a bill introduced this week in the nation’s congress. The proposal is criticized by vendors who sell his merchandise to tourists from around the world, but backed by those who believe the country should shed its image of mafia bosses.

The bill proposes fines of up to $170 for vendors who sell merchandise that depicts Escobar and other convicted criminals, and would also enable police to fine those who wear T-shirts, hats and other garments that “exalt” the infamous drug lord.

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Son of El Chapo pleads not guilty in Chicago as mystery cloaks cartel arrests

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Officials have mixed accounts around arrest of Sinaloa co-founder El Mayo after Guzmán López turned himself in

Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of Sinaloa cartel co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, has pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in federal court in Chicago, days after his arrest in a dramatic operation in which he may have delivered his father’s former business partner to US authorities.

Guzmán López, 38, was detained on Thursday alongside Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, the other co-founder of one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups, after touching down in a small plane in El Paso, Texas.

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Mexico president asks cartels not to fight each other after arrest of drug lords

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Andrés Manuel López Obrador makes unusual public appeal after arrest of top leaders of Sinaloa cartel

Mexico’s president has taken the unusual step of issuing a public appeal to drug cartels not to fight each other following last week’s detention of the top Mexican drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said at his daily press briefing that he trusted that drug traffickers knew they would only suffer if they stepped up the internal wars that already plague the Sinaloa cartel.

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Drug smugglers targeting Oslo as gateway into Europe

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Mayor of Norwegian capital, Anne Lindboe, says drugs worth up to £570m have entered through the port

The mayor of Oslo has warned that drug smugglers are increasingly targeting the Norwegian capital as a gateway to Europe as authorities tighten controls on major ports such as Antwerp.

Oslo’s mayor, Anne Lindboe, said drugs worth up to £570m have been smuggled through Norway’s largest port, which receives 50-70 ships and 243,000 containers every week.

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Mexico president calls for ‘transparency’ amid secrecy over Sinaloa cartel arrests

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US announces arrest of two leaders of organised crime group as Mexican authorities say they were in the dark

The Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has called for “transparency” after the sudden and secretive arrests by US authorities of two top leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful organised crime groups.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada García, 76, founded the Sinaloa cartel with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, and has been a top target of US law enforcement for decades, with a $15m bounty on his head.

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Top leaders of powerful Sinaloa drug cartel arrested in Texas

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Biden praises law enforcement for fentanyl charges against members of ‘one of the deadliest enterprises in the world’

The US justice department has arrested two leaders of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including the cartel’s co-founder, for leading deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the charges against cartel leaders Ismael Zambada García, known as “El Mayo”, one of the group’s co-founders, and Joaquin Guzmán. Both men face several charges in the United States for allegedly leading the cartel’s criminal operations.

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Rio’s ‘narco-pentecostal’ gangsters accused of ordering Catholic churches to close

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Bible-bashing drug boss accused of targeting Afro-Brazilian religions and Catholic congregations

Reports that a powerful Rio drug lord known for his extremist religious beliefs ordered Catholic churches near his stronghold to close have spooked worshipers and security experts and exposed the advent of a “narco-pentecostal” movement made up of heavily armed evangelical drug traffickers.

Claims emerged in the Brazilian press over the weekend that Álvaro Malaquias Santa Rosa – a notorious gang boss known as Peixão (Big Fish) – had determined that three places of worship should shut down in and around the agglomeration of favelas that he controls in northern Rio.

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Ex-president of Honduras sentenced to 45 years in US prison for drug trafficking

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Juan Orlando Hernández said all Honduran political parties accepted drug money, but denied taking bribes himself

Juan Orlando Hernández, the disgraced former president of Honduras, has been sentenced to 45 years in prison for enabling drug traffickers to use his military and national police force to help ship tons of cocaine into the United States.

US federal judge P Kevin Castel sentenced Hernández to 45 years in a US prison and fined him $8m. A jury convicted him in March in a Manhattan federal court after a two-week trial, which was closely followed in his home country.

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US accuses Chinese ‘underground bankers’ of laundering $50m in cartel drug money

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Justice department charges 24 defendants and says long investigation reveals links between Mexico’s Sinaloa gang and China

The US justice department has accused Chinese “underground bankers” of helping Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel launder more than $50m in drug-trafficking proceeds.

An indictment unsealed in California charged 24 defendants with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine and money-laundering offenses.

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Europol smashes Balkan cartel shipping drugs from South America

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Eight tonnes of cocaine seized and 40 people arrested after four-year investigation led by Spain’s Guardia Civil

• How big is Europe’s cocaine problem – and what is the human cost?

Forty people have been arrested and eight tonnes of cocaine have been seized as a result of a four-year international police operation targeting a criminal network that trafficked large quantities of the drug from South America to Europe via west Africa and the Canary Islands.

The long-running investigation – which was led by Spain’s Guardia Civil force and coordinated by Europol’s operational taskforce – discovered that a Balkan cartel was using logistical hubs in west Africa and the Canaries to smuggle cocaine from Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador into EU countries.

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Rare birds at risk as narco-gangs move into forests to evade capture – report

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Cocaine traffickers have put two-thirds of Central America’s key habitats for threatened birds under threat, study finds

Cocaine consumption is threatening rare tropical birds as narco-traffickers move into some of the planet’s most remote forests to evade drug crackdowns, a study has warned.

Two-thirds of key forest habitats for birds in Central America are at risk of being destroyed by “narco-driven” deforestation, according to the paper, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature Sustainability.

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Revealed: drug cartels force migrant children to work as foot soldiers in Europe’s booming cocaine trade

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Exclusive: Guardian investigation shows white powder trail linking hundreds of vulnerable African minors with ruthless gangs

Hundreds of unaccompanied child migrants across Europe are being forced to work as soldiers for increasingly powerful drug cartels to meet the continent’s soaring appetite for cocaine, a Guardian investigation has found.

EU police forces have warned of industrial-scale exploitation of African children by cocaine networks operating in western Europe in cities including Paris and Brussels as they seek to expand Europe’s £10bn cocaine market.

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Cocaine worth about $450,000 washes up on Alabama shore

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Police investigating after packages worth nearly 55lb (25kg) discovered on Dauphin Island, south of Mobile

Nearly 55lb (25kg) of what appears to be cocaine recently washed up on the shores of Alabama, local police said.

The police department in the community of Dauphin Island made the discovery, saying the recovered amount was worth about $450,000. Officers then contacted the Mobile county sheriff’s office, which also has jurisdiction in the area and is investigating the situation.

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US seizes $63m worth of cocaine after dramatic shootout on high seas

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Patrol boat off Venezuelan coast shoots and sinks vessel suspected of carrying drugs as three people go overboard

A high-seas shootout pitting drug runners against the law ended with the smugglers’ boat at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea and the US Coast Guard seizing $63m worth of cocaine, authorities in Florida said on Friday.

The dramatic encounter took place on Tuesday about 25 miles (40km) north of Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, when the coast guard cutter Resolute – patrolling with the Dutch navy ship Groningen – identified a vessel in international waters suspected of carrying narcotics, according to a press release from the USCG south-east region.

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