Mexico's government released dramatic video footage of the moment its forces briefly captured a son of kingpin Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzmán before they were ordered to release the suspected trafficker to avoid any potential bloodshed. A compound holding Ovidio Guzmán was raided by the military. Guzmán's supporters responded with gun battles, prompting him to phone them to call off the attack. Mexico's government later called off the operation after a show of strength from the cartel.
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‘Call it off, please’: video shows how operation against El Chapo’s son fell apart
Government report on failed operation shows soldiers pushing Ovidio Guzmán López to tell brothers to call off rescue attempt
Mexican soldiers who detained a son of the jailed drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán forced him to telephone his brothers in a desperate effort to call off a rescue attempt by cartel gunmen.
Instead, the call triggered a fresh onslaught in the northern city of Culiacán as the Sinaloa cartel mounted a terrifying show of strength that eventually prompted the outnumbered soldiers to free the capo’s son in exchange for their lives.
Continue reading...Mexico: 27 drugs suspects released a week after El Chapo’s son freed after gun battle
Suspects had been arrested after drugs, money and rocket launchers seized in Mexico City
Twenty-seven of 31 suspected drugs cartel members arrested this week in a Mexico City raid have been freed by a judge, marking the government’s second high-profile blow on policing the drugs war in as many weeks.
The suspects were nabbed by security forces in a central district of the capital on Tuesday after authorities seized two laboratories used to produce synthetic drugs, 50 kg (110 pounds) of chemical precursors, more than two tonnes of marijuana and 20 kg of cocaine, as well as an unspecified amount of money, rocket launchers and grenades.
Continue reading...Obrador and Trump speak in aftermath of shootout over El Chapo’s son
- Minister: leaders agree to restrict flow of weapons to Mexico
- Mexico president defends release of El Chapo’s son
Mexico’s foreign minister said on Saturday that the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and Donald Trump had agreed to take swift action to stem the flow of illegal weapons from the US into Mexico.
Related: 'We do not want war': Mexico president defends release of El Chapo’s son
Continue reading...Violent clashes erupt between cartel gunmen and police in Mexico – video report
Intense fighting has erupted in the Mexican city of Culiacán, where masked gunmen threw up burning barricades and traded gunfire with security forces after authorities arrested one of the sons of the jailed former leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán. The chaotic scenes in Culiacán, a long-time stronghold for the Guzmáns' cartel, have increased pressure on President López Obrador, who took office in December promising to pacify a country weary after more than a decade of drug-war fighting.
- 'We do not want war': Mexico president defends release of El Chapo’s son
- El Chapo: Mexican police capture then release drug boss's son after battle with cartel
‘We do not want war’: Mexico president defends release of El Chapo’s son
Andrés Manuel López Obrador said security forces saved lives by releasing jailed kingpin’s son after his brief capture in Culiacán
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has insisted that his government was right to release one of the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, a day after his brief capture by the army sparked a wave of attacks by cartel gunmen who took soldiers hostage and paralyzed the northern city of Culiacán.
“This decision was taken to protect citizens. You cannot fight fire with fire,” López Obrador said in his daily press conference on Friday morning. “We do not want deaths. We do not want war.”
Continue reading...El Chapo: gun battles erupt in Mexican city amid reports of son’s arrest
In Culiacán, masked men exchange gunfire with security forces and erect burning barricades as armed trucks patrol
Intense fighting has erupted in the Mexican city of Culiacán, where masked gunmen threw up burning barricades and traded gunfire with security forces amid rumours that one of the sons of the jailed former leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán had been arrested.
Images shared on social media showed trucks with mounted heavy machine guns patrolling the city streets; another clip showed a gunman with an assault rifle shooting at an unknown target against a soundtrack of continuous gunfire.
Continue reading...Argentina police arrest gang accused of smuggling cocaine in plastic penises
Police say they seized the cocaine-loaded penises at the home of a couple who managed a Peruvian restaurant
Police in Argentina have arrested members of a gang of drug dealers accused of smuggling cocaine hidden inside plastic penises.
The cocaine-loaded members, of the kind found as costume adornments at party shops, were sold by dealers operating in the red light district of the city of La Plata, about 36 miles south of Argentina’s capital city of Buenos Aires.
Continue reading...‘We live in a narco-state’: murder of Dutch lawyer prompts fear and fury
Lawyers in gangland cases given emergency protection after unprecedented killing
Lawyers and prosecutors in major gangland drugs cases in the Netherlands have been given emergency protection after the unprecedented murder of a top defence lawyer prompted police and the media to claim that government naivety was turning the country into a narco-state.
Derk Wiersum was gunned down in the street as he left his home in the Amsterdam suburb of Buitenveldert on Wednesday morning. Police are searching for a 16- to 20-year old man in a black hooded top who fled the scene on foot.
Continue reading...Mexico uncovers 3,000 secret graves hiding bodies of drug war victims
- 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
$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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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