Category Archives: Drugs trade

Son of El Chapo pleads guilty in US drug trafficking case

Posted on by

Prosecutors allege Ovidio Guzmán López and his brother, Joaquin Guzmán López, ran a faction of the Sinaloa cartel

A son of notorious Mexican drug kingpin “El Chapo” pleaded guilty on Friday to US drug-trafficking charges, becoming the first of the drug lord’s sons to enter a plea deal.

Prosecutors allege Ovidio Guzmán López and his brother, Joaquín Guzmán López, ran a faction of the Sinaloa cartel. They became known locally as the “Chapitos”, or “little Chapos”, and federal authorities in 2023 described the operation as a major effort to send “staggering” quantities of fentanyl into the US.

Continue reading...

Boxer Julio César Chávez Jr was a cartel henchman, Mexican prosecutors claim

Posted on by

Prosecutors say Chávez treated gang rivals ‘like a punchbag’ after Ice arrested the former world champion in California

The Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr was a henchman for the Sinaloa drugs cartel and used his skills to pummel rival gang members “like a punchbag” before his recent arrest in the US, prosecutors in Mexico have alleged.

Chávez, 39, son of legendary world boxing champion Julio César Chávez Sr and himself a former middleweight titleholder, was arrested in California on Tuesday by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents, who cited cartel affiliations, multiple criminal convictions and an active arrest warrant in Mexico for weapons trafficking and organized crime.

Continue reading...

Twenty bodies discovered in Sinaloa as Mexican cartel violence surges

Posted on by

Grisly finding comes at end of worst month in war between Sinaloa factions as government tries to stop killings

Mexican authorities have found 20 bodies in the state of Sinaloa, a region gripped by a war between factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel that is reaching new heights of violence.

The state prosecutor’s office said on Monday that four of the victims had been decapitated and their bodies had been found hanging from a bridge on a main road near Culiacán, the state capital.

Continue reading...

Sinaloa cartel hacked security cameras to track and kill FBI informants, US says

Posted on by

Hacker working for cartel run by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán was also able to access phone records of an FBI legal attaché at the US embassy in Mexico City

A hacker working for the Sinaloa drug cartel was able to obtain an FBI official’s phone records and use Mexico City’s surveillance cameras to help track and kill the agency’s informants in 2018, according to a new US justice department report.

The incident was disclosed in a justice department inspector general’s audit of the FBI’s efforts to mitigate the effects of “ubiquitous technical surveillance”, a term used to describe the global proliferation of cameras and the thriving trade in vast stores of communications, travel, and location data.

Continue reading...

Former Venezuelan intelligence chief pleads guilty to US drug charges

Posted on by

Hugo Carvajal faces narco-terrorism and weapon charges amid accusations he helped lead a drug-trafficking group

A former top Venezuelan military intelligence chief has pleaded guilty in a Manhattan federal court to narco-terrorism conspiracy, drug-trafficking and weapons charges, piling further US pressure on the government of Nicolás Maduro.

Hugo Armando Carvajal Barrios, AKA “El Pollo” or “The Chicken”, was the director of Venezuela’s military intelligence under presidents Hugo Chávez and Maduro. On Wednesday, days before his trial was set to begin, he pleaded guilty to four federal counts, related to accusations that he helped lead a drug-trafficking group within the Venezuelan government.

Continue reading...

‘I had 30 Lamborghinis’: Pablo Escobar’s top cocaine pilot gives first interview

Posted on by

Tirso ‘TJ’ Dominguez says Escobar paid him $20m monthly to fly planeloads of coke

A man who eventually became Pablo Escobar’s go-to cocaine pilot has revealed that he first turned down an employment offer from the notorious Colombian drug lord because he was content with the $4m a month he was earning while flying for a competitor.

But, in a new podcast containing what is believed to be his first interview since authorities arrested him at his Florida mansion in 1988, Tirso “TJ” Dominguez recounted how he changed his mind about working for Escobar when the so-called Patrón – or boss – offered him a salary that was five times higher: $20m monthly.

Continue reading...

Leader in Kinahan drug gang extradited to Ireland from UAE

Posted on by

Sean McGovern, wanted on charges of murder and directing organised crime, flown to Ireland in military aircraft

A leader of the notorious Kinahan organised crime group has been flown from the United Arab Emirates to Ireland in the first extradition of its kind.

An Irish military aircraft carrying Sean McGovern – who is wanted on charges of murder and directing organised crime – was due to land in Dublin amid heavy security on Thursday afternoon.

Continue reading...

Synthetic opioids linked to spate of overdose deaths found in wastewater across Australia

Posted on by

Detection of powerful nitazenes in samples from 60 sites a ‘red flag’ amid surging use to lace street drugs

Synthetic opioids a thousand times stronger than morphine and an animal sedative used to lace street drugs have been detected in Australia’s wastewater.

The discovery has been described as a “red flag” and comes as the deadly class of synthetic opioids – nitazines – claims dozens of lives in Australia.

Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter

Continue reading...

French prisons hit by wave of attacks after clampdown on drug traffickers

Posted on by

Terrorism office launches investigation into assaults including gunmen opening fire on entrance to Toulon jail

France’s national terrorism office has launched an investigation into a wave of apparently coordinated attacks at multiple prisons across the country believed to be linked to a government clampdown on drug traffickers.

Gunmen with automatic weapons opened fire on the entrance to Toulon prison in southern France in the early hours of Tuesday, while in recent days cars have been set alight outside four other jails, and in Marseille a residential building housing prison guards was attacked.

Continue reading...

Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest could be telling blow in the Philippines’ dynastic feud

Posted on by

Former president was surrendered to The Hague amid a row between his family and that of the current president

Few expected things to move so quickly. Supporters of the Philippines’ former president Rodrigo Duterte barely had time to protest before he was jetted off to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity in relation to his country’s so-called “war on drugs”. According to activists, this bloody crackdown has seen as many as 30,000 people killed since 2016.

The charges brought against the former leader are the culmination of years of work by activists, lawyers and victims, who documented abuses committed under his government, often at great personal risk. But Duterte arguably would not have been surrendered to The Hague if it weren’t for his family’s dramatic feud with that of Ferdinand Marcos Jr, the current president.

Continue reading...

Sierra Leone’s immigration chief fired after footage showed him with fugitive drug lord

Posted on by

President sacks Alusine Kanneh after video of him with Johannes Leijdekkers, one of Europe’s most wanted

Sierra Leone’s president has fired the head of the immigration service days after footage was published showing him receiving a birthday gift from a fugitive Dutch drug kingpin.

The footage of Alusine Kanneh being handed a present by Johannes Leijdekkers – which has not been independently verified by the Guardian – was published by the investigative outlet Follow the Money and the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad on Friday.

Continue reading...

Trump policies could fuel illicit drug trade despite vow to curb fentanyl

Posted on by

‘Coercive’ tariffs and federal funding cuts could worsen flow of illicit drugs into US, ex-government officials warn

Donald Trump’s policies could leave the US more vulnerable to dangerous synthetic drug trafficking from abroad, even as the administration has vowed to stop fentanyl from entering the country, former government officials say.

This week, Trump imposed tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, ostensibly as a tactic to stem the flow of illicit drugs into the US.

Continue reading...

FBI offers $10m reward for ex-Olympic snowboarder turned drug kingpin

Posted on by

Ryan Wedding, 43, wanted for role in billion-dollar cross-border drug trafficking operation and several homicides

Authorities in the United States have offered a $10m reward for information that leads to the arrest of a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder-turned-international drug kingpin.

Police in Los Angeles said on Thursday that Ryan Wedding – also known as “El Jefe”, “Giant” and “Public Enemy” – is wanted for his role in a billion-dollar cross-border drug trafficking operation and for several homicides linked to his drug sprawling network.

Continue reading...

The São Paulo connection: a Brazilian gang is spreading its cocaine business into Australia

Posted on by

The PCC – First Capital Command – formed in a Sāo Paulo prison but is now spreading its tentacles around the world

In September 2020, the Australian Border Force intercepted 552kg of cocaine concealed in 2,000 boxes of frozen banana pulp that had arrived at the port of Sydney on a ship from Brazil.

Two years later, a diver was found floating dead next to 52kg of cocaine near the port of Newcastle, in New South Wales, Australia. Police later discovered that he was a Brazilian national who had been attempting to retrieve drugs from a cargo ship’s hull.

Continue reading...

US adds Mexican cartels to list of foreign terrorist organisations

Posted on by

Six cartels added to list as part of Trump’s plan to ‘wage war’ on drug trafficking groups to address fentanyl crisis in US

The US has added six Mexican cartels to its list of foreign terrorist organisations (FTOs), as it calls for the “total elimination” of the criminal groups trafficking drugs to the US.

Mexico’s two biggest organised crime groups, the Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, were among those added, as were Tren de Aragua and Mara Salvatrucha, groups with ties to Venezuela and El Salvador.

Continue reading...

Mexican president blasts US for harboring drug cartels

Posted on by

Claudia Sheinbaum gives riposte to Trump’s accusation of ‘intolerable alliance’ between Mexican government and gangs

Mexico’s president has accused the US of harboring drug cartels and American citizens of working with organized crime groups in Mexico, in a riposte to Donald Trump’s allegation of an “intolerable alliance” between traffickers and her government.

“There is also organized crime in the United States and there are American people who come to Mexico with these illegal activities,” Claudia Sheinbaum said during her morning press conference on Thursday. “Otherwise who would distribute fentanyl in the cities of the United States?”

Continue reading...

Trump’s claim that Mexican cartels and government are allied is not reality

Posted on by

Corruption in Mexico is a problem, experts say, but any claim the two are linked shows a lack of comprehension

Mexico breathed a sigh of relief this week when Donald Trump delayed his threatened tariffs by a month, apparently swerving away from an economic crisis at the last moment.

But one aspect of the spat still rankles: the Trump administration’s vague but shocking accusation of an “intolerable alliance” between Mexico’s government and organised crime.

Continue reading...

One of France’s most wanted alleged drug lords extradited from Morocco

Posted on by

Félix ‘the Cat’ Bingui due to appear in Marseille court on multiple charges including money laundering

One of France’s most wanted suspected drug traffickers was due in court in Marseille after his extradition from Morocco.

Félix Bingui, known as “the Cat” and reportedly head of the notorious Yoda clan, was arrested in Casablanca last March.

Continue reading...

‘Guayaquil Four’ boys missing in Ecuador pose challenge to president

Posted on by

Protests have erupted nationwide after disappearance of boys not seen since they were approached by soldiers

The disappearance of four boys in Ecuador after they came into contact with the armed forces is posing a severe challenge to President Daniel Noboa’s “war on drugs”.

The four – all black, aged between 11 and 15, and residents of Las Malvinas, a poor area in the country’s largest city, Guayaquil – were returning from a football game near their homes on 8 December when 16 air force soldiers approached them.

Continue reading...

Ex-drug lord Fabio Ochoa walks free in Colombia after 20 years in US prisons

Posted on by

Victims of Medellín cartel demand justice as some express dismay former mob boss faces no charges in Colombia

The return of the former drug trafficker Fabio Ochoa to Colombia following his deportation from the United States has reopened old wounds among victims of the Medellín cartel, with some expressing dismay at the Colombian authorities’ decision to let Ochoa walk free.

Some of the cartel victims said they were hoping the former drug lord will at least cooperate with ongoing efforts by human rights groups to investigate one of the most violent periods of Colombia’s history and demanded that Colombian prosecutors also take Ochoa in for questioning.

Continue reading...