Category Archives: Drugs trade

Mexico uncovers 3,000 secret graves hiding bodies of drug war victims

Posted on by
  • New data reveals nearly 5,000 bodies found across the country
  • Disappearances common amid extreme drug-related violence

More than 3,000 secret graves containing victims of Mexico’s raging drug wars have been found across the country, according to the first ever official tally of the phenomenon.

A total of 4,874 bodies were found at 3,025 sites, and many of the victims have yet to be identified, said Karla Quintana, the head of the National Search Committee, which was set up last year to help desperate families find relatives who have gone missing.

Continue reading...

Now El Chapo’s back in jail, hunt is on for the Mexican drug baron’s money

Posted on by
$12,666,181,704 … that’s the Sinaloa cartel boss’s sales in the US. Now he’s in jail, prosecutors want to seize his vast riches

It’s a favourite current joke in Mexico: “No más túneles!” – no more tunnels. There’s little chance of drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera repeating his famous escapes from Mexican prisons in the US jail where he was sent after being given a life sentence last week by a court in Brooklyn.

So now that El Chapo is removed from the scene, what next? The pillar of the US “Kingpin” strategy against narco-traffic is that the trade is weakened when its leaders are caught and jailed.

Continue reading...

El Chapo: Mexican drug lord sentenced to life in prison

Posted on by

US district judge imposed life sentence plus 30 years at hearing in federal Brooklyn court

Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, the Mexican drug lord found guilty of running a murderous criminal enterprise that smuggled tons of drugs into the United States, was sentenced by a US judge on Wednesday to spend the rest of his life in prison.

US District Judge Brian Cogan imposed the sentence of life plus 30 years, which was mandatory under the law, at a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn.

Continue reading...

‘Drug of the moment’: 5% of year 10 students have tried MDMA, expert says

Posted on by

Drug educator Paul Dillon says it’s ‘ludicrous’ to think pill testing will stop drug deaths, but Australia does need to try something

One in 20 year 10 students have tried ecstasy, an Australian drug educator has told an inquest into NSW music festival deaths.

“It just baffles me,” Paul Dillon said in Sydney on Tuesday. “Certainly amongst young people, MDMA is the drug of the moment.”

Continue reading...

Synthetic opioid use booms worldwide amid Africa ‘crisis’, UN says

Posted on by

Death in US are still rising due to fentanyl addiction, but report highlights alarming take-up of painkiller tramadol in Africa

Synthetic opioid use is booming around the world, acccording to a United Nations report that showed deaths in the United States from overdoses are still rising and a “crisis” of tramadol use is emerging in parts of Africa.

The estimated number of people using opioids – an umbrella term for drugs ranging from opium and derivatives such as heroin to synthetics like fentanyl and tramadol – in 2017 was 56% higher than in 2016, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in the report published on Wednesday.

Continue reading...

Pacific nations are ‘victims’ of Australian and New Zealand appetite for drugs, experts say

Posted on by

Australia urged to take action to stop cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking from Latin America through Pacific region

Australia and New Zealand have been urged to do more to fight the drug trade across the Pacific and take responsibility for the fact that the demand for drugs in cities such as Sydney and Auckland was having devastating effects on small Pacific nations.

Drug traffickers transport cocaine and methamphetamines through Pacific nations from the US and Latin America to Australia and New Zealand, where drug users pay the highest price per gram (about A$300 or £180) for cocaine and have the highest cocaine use per capita in the world.

Continue reading...

The new drug highway: Pacific islands at centre of cocaine trafficking boom

Posted on by

Explosion in number of boats carrying cocaine and meth from Latin America to Australia is causing havoc for islands on the way

• Cocaine used as washing powder: police struggle with Pacific drug influx

It is the drug route you’ve never heard of: a multibillion-dollar operation involving cocaine and methamphetamines being packed into the hulls of sailing boats in the US and Latin America and transported to Australia via South Pacific islands more often thought of as holiday destinations than narcotics hubs.

In the past five years there has been an explosion in the number of boats, sometimes carrying more than a tonne of cocaine, making the journey across the Pacific Ocean to feed Australia’s growing and very lucrative drug habit.

Continue reading...

Cocaine used as washing powder: police struggle with Pacific drug influx

Posted on by

Under-resourced but undeterred, Fiji’s officers battle surge in trafficking – with just one boat

• The new drug highway: Pacific islands at centre of cocaine trafficking boom

Sitiveni Qiliho, Fiji’s police commissioner, says he doesn’t watch films any more because, since taking on Fiji police’s top job two years ago, his life has enough drama.

Over the past few months he has found himself scuba diving in search of multimillion-dollar stashes of cocaine stored in huge underwater nets, arresting drug traffickers on the high seas and informing remote islands communities that the mysterious packages washing up on their beaches are full of cocaine and shouldn’t be baked into cakes or put in tea.

Continue reading...

Rodrigo Duterte hopes to gain control of Senate in Philippines mid-terms

Posted on by

Election seen as referendum on president’s policies, with critics of the government fearing president’s grip on power will tighten

Filipinos have started voting in midterm polls that are being seen as a crucial referendum on Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal crackdown on illegal drugs, unorthodox style and contentious embrace of China.

The poll is expected to strengthen the controversial president’s grip on power, paving the way for him to deliver on pledges to restore the death penalty and rewrite the constitution.

Continue reading...

German police shut down one of world’s biggest dark web sites

Posted on by

Arrests in Germany, Brazil and US relate to sale of drugs, stolen data and malicious software

German police have shut down one of the world’s largest illegal online markets in the so-called dark web and arrested the three men allegedly running it, prosecutors said on Friday.

The “Wall Street Market” (WSM) site enabled trade in cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamines as well as stolen data, fake documents and malicious software.

Continue reading...

‘Air Cocaine’ smugglers given long sentences by French court

Posted on by

Seven jailed for role in attempt to smuggle 680kg of drug from Dominican Republic

A French court has sentenced seven people implicated in a drug-smuggling operation to up to 18 years in prison each, with two former air force pilots getting six-year terms.

Pascal Fauret and Bruno Odos had fled the Dominican Republic after a raid on the private jet they were to fly to Saint-Tropez, southern France, but were re-arrested in France in November 2015.

Continue reading...

Philippines court orders release of police files on thousands of drug-war deaths

Posted on by

Court dismisses solicitor general’s claim that national security could be undermined

The Philippine supreme court on Tuesday ordered the release of police documents on the killing of thousands of suspects during the president’s drug crackdown, in a ruling that could shed light on allegations of extrajudicial punishment.

Supreme court spokesman Brian Keith Hosaka said the court ordered the solicitor general to hand the police reports to two rights groups which had sought them. The 15-member court, whose justices are meeting in northern Baguio city, has yet to rule on a separate petition to declare President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign unconstitutional.

Continue reading...

British child raised in Pakistan jail returned to UK without mother

Posted on by

Khadija Shah gave birth to daughter Malaika, now 6, while serving a life sentence for smuggling heroin

A six-year-old girl who has spent her entire life inside a Pakistani prison after her British mother was convicted of drug trafficking has been released and returned to the UK.

Khadija Shah, 32, gave birth to her daughter Malaika while serving a life sentence inside the notorious Adiala prison in Rawalpindi, in the Punjab province.

Continue reading...

Global war on drugs could harm efforts to abolish death sentences – study

Posted on by

Iran reforms drive 90% fall in death penalty worldwide, but report warns hardline approach to minor cases violates human rights

Global efforts to abolish the death penalty are in danger of being undermined by anti-drug governments that use capital punishment to enforce a zero-tolerance approach, experts have warned.

The caution comes even though the number of people sentenced to death for drug offences around the world has actually fallen by nearly 90% over the past four years, according to a study by Harm Reduction International, with 91 known deaths last year compared with 755 in 2015.

Continue reading...

Home Office gives green light to first drug testing clinic

Posted on by
‘Life-saving’ scheme, licensed by the government, launched amid rising concern over potentially toxic substances

The first drug-checking service licensed by the Home Office will allow users to have their illicit substances tested without fear of being arrested in a move that could be rolled out nationally if it is shown to save lives.

The year-long pilot project, which had a soft launch in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, last Friday but begins in earnest this week, will allow anyone over the age of 18 to take their drugs to the clinic, run by the charity Addaction. Testing the content will take about 10 minutes, during which time the user will complete a short questionnaire to allow harm reduction advice to be tailored to them.

Continue reading...

El Chapo’s lawyers request new trial after report of juror misconduct

Posted on by

Allegations emerged this week that jury members followed media coverage of high profile trial, despite orders not to

Lawyers for convicted drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán intend to petition for a new trial after a news report indicated that multiple jurors followed media coverage of the trial against the instructions of the judge in the case.

Allegations of juror misconduct came to light earlier this week in an article published by Vice News. In the piece, an anonymous juror said jurors had routinely violated the judge’s instructions to “stay away from media coverage, not doing any research on the internet or otherwise and [to not] communicate anything about the case to anyone”.

Continue reading...

Cancún shooting: five people gunned down in Mexico’s tourist hotspot

Posted on by

Bar attacked near hotel zone amid rising drug-related violence in the Caribbean resort city

Five people have been shot dead and five more wounded in Cancún after gunmen burst into a bar in the Mexican resort city and opened fire.

Quintana Roo state prosecutors said the attack on Saturday took place in a club called La Kuka, on a main avenue in central Cancún about 6km (4 miles) away from the Caribbean resort city’s seaside tourist hotel zone, situated on the Yucatán Peninsula.

Continue reading...

Sri Lanka advertises for two hangmen as country resumes capital punishment

Posted on by

Death penalties to resume as part of Philippines-inspired campaign to be tough on drug crime

Sri Lankan prison authorities are recruiting two hangmen after the president pledged to end a 43-year moratorium on capital punishment and execute condemned drug traffickers amid alarm over drug-related crime.

Interviews of the candidates will be conducted next month and two will be hired, prison department spokesman Thushara Upuldeniya said Wednesday.

Continue reading...

Will El Chapo’s conviction change anything in the drug trade?

Posted on by

The nearly half a century old ‘war on drugs’ shows no sign of ending, and neither does the illegal drug trade

Standing on the steps of the Brooklyn courthouse amid flurries of sleet and snow, US attorney Richard Donoghue hailed the conviction of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán as a famous victory in America’s longest conflict.

“There are those who say the war on drugs is not worth fighting. Those people are wrong,” he said.

Continue reading...

Door slams on guilty El Chapo after old mob pals line up to squeal

Posted on by

Guzman’s dramatic trial showed how the cartels that traffick most of the world’s drugs today do not honour the mafia code of omertà

When Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán is sentenced on 25 June, he will most likely be sent to US maximum-security prison from which there will be no more tunnels and no more escapes.

Guzmán was convicted on all 10 charges after years of painstaking behind-the-scenes work by US Department of Justice prosecutors who cut deals with captive drug traffickers to get their man.

Continue reading...