Category Archives: Drugs trade

Clashes between armed groups in Colombia kill at least 52

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Rival groups are vying for territorial control of strategic cocaine production and trafficking region

At least 52 guerrilla fighters have been killed in clashes between two rival armed groups vying for territorial control of a strategic cocaine production and trafficking region in south-east Colombia, a faction of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) involved in the fighting has said.

The clashes, the most violent in recent months, took place in the jungles of the department of Guaviare, near the village of Barranco Colorado.

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One person killed in latest US military strike on alleged drug boat in Pacific

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Nearly 200 people killed in Trump administration’s deadly campaign as strikes draw widespread condemnation

The US military launched another strike Tuesday on a vessel suspected of transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing one man and leaving two survivors.

Video posted on social media by US Southern Command shows a boat speeding through water before exploding into flames. Southern Command said it “immediately notified the US Coast Guard to activate the Search and Rescue system for the survivors”.

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Pressure on Mexico after two ex-officials surrender to US over alleged cartel ties

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Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum denies any links between her Morena party and organized crime

Pressure is mounting on Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, after two former top officials from the country’s Sinaloa state – both members of her Morena party – gave themselves up to US authorities over alleged ties to the Sinaloa cartel.

The state’s former security minister Gerardo Mérida Sánchez crossed the border into Arizona last week and was taken into custody by US marshals, Mexico’s security ministry said. Sinaloa’s former finance minister, Enrique Díaz Vega, was taken into custody in New York.

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Drug gang attacks ‘force hundreds of Indigenous families to flee’ in Mexico

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Violence in Guerrero state has driven as many as 1,000 households from their homes, rights group says

Hundreds of Indigenous families have been forced to flee their homes in the mountains of central Mexico by intense attacks from a local criminal group, including drone bombings, an Indigenous rights organisation said on Monday.

A gang known as Los Ardillos has been carrying out attacks in Guerrero state for years, but they started to intensify last week. Villages were subjected to eight hours of bombings on Saturday, the National Indigenous Congress said, forcing between 800 to 1,000 families to flee to other towns.

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Australia’s use of methamphetamine has doubled in a decade, wastewater monitoring reveals

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Consumption is at a record high along with that of cocaine, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission figures show

Methamphetamine use in Australia has almost doubled in the past decade and stimulants are being taken at record highs, new wastewater monitoring reveals.

On Wednesday evening the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (Acic) released its latest annual report after testing wastewater samples from 64 treatment plants across the country between August 2024 and 2025.

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US military kills two more people in strike on alleged drug boat in Pacific

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Small boat destroyed in video posted on social media as US campaign has killed at least 178 people since September

The US military announced on Friday that it killed two people in an attack on a boat in the eastern Pacific, part of a series of deadly strikes on vessels in recent months which it claims are targeting “narco-trafficking” operations.

The US Southern Command declared in a social media post on X that Gen Francis L Donovan directed Joint Task Force Southern Spear, the counter-narcotics unit that operates in the region, to carry out a lethal strike. The US military posted a video, which it labeled unclassified, showing a small boat being destroyed in an explosion.

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Dozens of Mexican mafia members arrested in California crackdown

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Prosecutors say 43 people indicted on charges including murder, kidnapping, extortion and drug trafficking

More than two dozen members and associates of the Mexican mafia were arrested during an early morning crackdown in southern California, federal authorities said on Thursday.

The FBI and other federal and local agencies executed search and arrest warrants at locations mostly in Orange county, south of Los Angeles, according to the US attorney’s office.

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US and Mexican officials assigned to cartel case killed in car accident

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Director of state investigation agency among those killed in Chihuahua in operation to destroy clandestine drug labs

Two United States officials and another two Mexican officials assigned to combat drug cartel operations died in a car accident in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua on Sunday, a US embassy spokesperson said.

The Mexican officials were the director of the state’s investigation agency and an officer, state authorities said, adding that they were on an operation to destroy clandestine laboratories in the municipality of Morelos.

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Dismay as Hegseth urges Latin American allies to join ‘offense’ against cartels

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Critics sceptical Pentagon chief’s plan for increased military force – amid rising US intervention – will stop drug gangs

Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, has urged Latin American countries to adopt a more aggressive approach against drug cartels, warning that the Trump administration may otherwise act unilaterally in the region.

Hegseth’s remarks come in a context of escalating US intervention in the region, both militarily and in elections, which culminated in the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro – the first US ground military attack on a South American country.

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Who was El Mencho, the former police officer who co-founded an ultraviolent cartel in Mexico?

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Drug lord who was killed by Mexican special forces on Sunday led a cartel known for aggression and military-style arsenal

The drug lord “El Mencho”, who was killed on Sunday by Mexican special forces, was the co-founder and leader of a gang that in recent years had become the country’s most powerful criminal organisation: the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

While less internationally famous than the Sinaloa cartel of the now imprisoned Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the CJNG is a household name in Mexico, where it is known for its displays of ultraviolence and its big, military-style arsenal.

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US military strike kills three in second alleged drug boat attack this week

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Move brings total number of people killed in US strikes on suspected boats since September to at least 148

The US military launched a strike on an alleged drug smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific on Friday, killing three men in its second strike this week.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” US Southern Command, which oversees operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, said on Twitter/X.

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Trump threatens strikes on any country he claims makes drugs for US

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Trump signals imminent land strikes in Venezuela, blaming a navy admiral for a deadly September attack

Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that any country he believes is making drugs destined illegally for the US is vulnerable to a military attack.

The US president’s comments came during a question-and-answer session at the White House at which he also said military strikes on land targets inside Venezuela, which he has accused of narco-terrorism, would “start very soon”.

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US justice department memo about boat strikes diverges from Trump narrative

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Exclusive: Officials frame strikes as self-defense against violence, without naming aggressor, while Trump claims they’re to stop US overdose deaths

The Trump administration is framing its boat strikes against drug cartels in the Caribbean in part as a collective self-defense effort on behalf of US allies in the region, according to three people directly familiar with the administration’s internal legal argument.

The legal analysis rests on a premise – for which there is no immediate public evidence – that the cartels are waging armed violence against the security forces of allies like Mexico, and that the violence is financed by cocaine shipments.

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US charges ex-Olympic snowboarder turned drug kingpin with murder of witness

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Unsealed indictment says Ryan Wedding tracked down witness who was then murdered before he could testify

US authorities have charged a fugitive former Canadian Olympic snowboarder turned drug kingpin with the murder of a witness who was prepared to testify against him.

The attorney general, Pam Bondi, said on Wednesday that Ryan Wedding was accused in a newly unsealed indictment of tracking down a witness in Colombia who was then murdered before he could give evidence.

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Sheinbaum again dismisses Trump’s threat of sending troops to Mexico: ‘We do not want intervention’

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Mexico’s president responds to Trump’s latest warning that he could authorize strikes against drug cartels in country

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has again dismissed Donald Trump’s threat of military action against drug cartels inside her country, telling reporters: “It’s not going to happen.”

Sheinbaum made the comments on Tuesday morning in response to the US president’s latest warning that he could authorise strikes in Mexico.

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US attacks another alleged drug boat in Pacific, killing three, as Trump signals possible talks with Maduro

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Strike comes as navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier arrives in Caribbean Sea and president says US may open talks with Venezuelan leader

The United States conducted another attack on an alleged drug trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific on Saturday, killing three people aboard, the Pentagon said on Sunday.

“Intelligence confirmed that the vessel was involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics,” the US Southern Command announced in a post on social media.

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Hegseth announces another deadly US strike on alleged drug boat

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Pentagon secretary says two people killed in attack on boat in eastern Pacific, bringing total killed to 66 in 16 strikes

Defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced yet another deadly strike on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, coming the same day an aircraft carrier began heading to the region in a new expansion of military firepower.

The attack Tuesday killed two people aboard the vessel, Hegseth said, bringing the death toll from the Trump administration’s campaign in South American waters up to at least 66 people in at least 16 strikes.

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Sheinbaum denies reports US will send troops to Mexico: ‘It’s not going to happen’

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President says she’s repeatedly rejected such offers from Trump for US to confront Mexico’s powerful drug cartels

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has flatly denied reports that the United States is planning to send troops into Mexico to confront the country’s powerful cartels, noting that she had repeatedly rejected such offers from Donald Trump.

“It’s not going to happen,” Sheinbaum said during her daily morning news conference on Tuesday. “We do not agree with any process of interference or interventionism.”

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British woman on death row in Bali for drug smuggling to be repatriated

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Lindsay Sandiford, 68, has been on death row in Indonesia since 2012, after authorities found 3.8kg of cocaine in her suitcase

A British woman will avoid execution for drug smuggling in Indonesia under an agreement between the two nations to repatriate her and another Briton serving a life sentence.

Lindsay Sandiford, 68, has been imprisoned in Bali since 2012. She was arrested at the resort island’s airport after authorities found 3.8kg of cocaine worth $2.5m hidden in the lining of her suitcase. During the trial, she said she was forced to carry the drugs by a gang that threatened her children.

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Bolivia to vote in presidential runoff that will turn it to the right

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End of almost two decades of leftist rule could revive ‘war on drugs’ in change of approach to coca cultivation

Bolivians go to the polls on Sunday in an election that, whatever the result, will mark a complete shift to the right after nearly 20 years under the rule of the leftist Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).

The country’s first-ever presidential runoff pits the centre-right senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira, 58, who won the first round in August, against the rightwing former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, 65, who in recent weeks has overtaken Paz Pereira in the polls.

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