Category Archives: Drugs trade

Mexico’s former drugs tsar Genaro Garcia Luna convicted for aiding El Chapo cartel

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Garcia Luna took millions in bribes from Sinaloa gang, Brooklyn corruption trial told

A former Mexican law enforcement official once in charge of the fight against drug traffickers has been convicted at a US corruption trial over his ties to the Sinaloa cartel.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Genaro Garcia Luna accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the cartel once run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in exchange for protection from arrest, safe passage for cocaine shipments and tipoffs about forthcoming law enforcement operations.

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British organised crime boss arrested in Thailand

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Richard Wakeling, 55, had been on the run since he fled the UK before his trial for drug smuggling in 2018

A British organised crime boss has been arrested in Thailand after being on the run for five years.

Richard Wakeling, 55, from Brentwood, Essex, tried to import £8m of liquid amphetamine into the UK in April 2016.

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Myanmar opium production surges since coup, UN finds

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Conflict and economic hardship force farmers to rely on opium, with poppy cultivation rising by 33% in 2022

Production of opium has flourished in Myanmar since the military’s seizure of power, with the cultivation of poppies up by a third in the past year, according to a UN report.

In 2022, in the first full growing season since the military wrested control from the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021, Myanmar saw a 33% increase in the cultivation area to 40,100 hectares, according to the report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime released on Thursday.

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Ex-Mexico security chief’s trial poised to lift lid on US and Mexico’s ‘war on drugs’

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Genaro García Luna, accused of accepting millions in bribes from cartels, in trial that could implicate officials on both sides of border

One of Mexico’s most powerful former officials will stand trial in the US this week, charged with accepting million-dollar bribes from a violent cartel in a case with profound political implications that could expose the inner workings of the “war on drugs” on both sides of the border.

Genaro García Luna, a former head of Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI who went on to lead the country’s security ministry, was arrested in Texas in 2019, charged with conspiring to traffic cocaine and lying to the US government.

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Sinaloa cartel launches violent response as Mexico recaptures El Chapo’s son

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Ovidio Guzmán’s arrest on Thursday prompted heavy fighting from cartel gunmen in the city of Culiacán

Mexican authorities have captured Ovidio Guzmán, a son of incarcerated drugs kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, prompting a wave of retaliatory attacks from cartel gunmen in the northern city of Culiacán.

After a night of violence, gunmen exchanged fire with security forces, blocking roads with burning vehicles and shooting at army helicopters and police aeroplanes bringing reinforcements to the city.

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Brother of top Mexican drug lord arrested in Jalisco state

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Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, brother of cartel boss ‘El Mencho’, is third member of family to be arrested by Mexican authorities

The brother of one of Mexico’s top drug lords has been arrested, the Mexican military said, marking another high-profile capture amid a wave of violence that has overwhelmed the country.

Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, brother of the Jalisco New Generation cartel boss known as “El Mencho”, was arrested on Tuesday in the state of Jalisco by the Mexican army working with the national guard, the attorney general’s office and the national intelligence agency.

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Police foil alleged plot to import 30kg of methamphetamine into WA inside 3D printers

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Two men, alleged to be senior members of an international crime syndicate, face charges in Taiwan

Two men alleged to be senior members of an international crime syndicate have been charged in Taiwan over an alleged plot to import 30kg of methamphetamine into Western Australia hidden inside 3D printers.

It was revealed on Saturday that a 33-year-old man and a 36-year-old man were arrested in July and October this year after they were noticed by the Australian federal police as part of Operation Ironside.

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Colombia activist murders reach record high of 199 this year

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Human rights ombudsman decries ‘alarming and unprecedented figure’ owing to attacked by illegal armed groups tied to drug trade

Colombia will end the year with at least 199 killings of social leaders and human rights defenders – the highest level recorded – due to attacks by illegal armed groups in areas tied to the drug trade, the country’s human rights ombudsman has said.

In the first eleven months of the year, 199 people were murdered, higher than the total number of social leaders and rights defenders killed in 2021 and 2020, when 145 people and 182 people were killed respectively, the ombudsman said.

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30 tonnes of cocaine seized in raids against European ‘super cartel’

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Arrests made in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Dubai, including one ‘extremely big fish’

A “super-cartel” that controlled one-third of the cocaine trade in Europe has been taken down in six countries, police have said.

The EU police agency, Europol, announced that 49 suspects were arrested during the investigation, after raids in Europe and the United Arab Emirates targeting the cartel’s “command and control centre” and logistics network.

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Six men charged over international drug ring after Sydney dawn raids seize cash, cocaine and crypto

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NSW police say several transnational organised criminal networks were collaborating on drug imports

Six Sydney men have been charged and millions of dollars in cash and drugs seized after a multi-agency police investigation into an international drug ring.

Another man was arrested in Los Angeles as part of a joint operation with US homeland security.

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Arrest of mafia drug-trafficker on Europol’s most wanted list shrouded in mystery

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Bruno Carbone, right-hand man of mafia boss Raffaele Imperiale, was arrested at Rome airport amid claims he was extradited from Syria

The arrest of an Italian drug trafficker who was on Europol’s most wanted list is shrouded in mystery amid reports that he was captured and extradited from Syria.

Bruno Carbone, who had been on the run since 2003, was the right-hand man of Raffaele Imperiale, a drug broker for the Naples’ Camorra mafia who was arrested in Dubai in August 2021.

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‘Canberra ketamine’: new recreational drug discovered at Australian pill-testing service

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‘As far as we’re aware, this is the first detection of a new drug by a drug-checking service anywhere in the world,’ says professor


A new recreational drug dubbed CanKet, similar to ketamine but with unknown side effects, has been found by scientists at Australia’s first fixed pill-testing site.

CanTEST, a face-to-face drug-checking service, was launched in Canberra in August. Since then, almost 200 people have brought their recreational drugs in for analysis and advice based on the results. Some people choose to discard their drugs if the service finds they are laced with harmful or unexpected substances.

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Mexico’s citizens caught in crossfire as cartels launch attacks across the country

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Brazen strikes by organised crime leaders have left bystanders killed as many question the president’s security policies

For Carlos Holguín it was supposed to be just another day of toil.

After leaving the factory where he works morning shifts in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, the 24-year-old began his nightly routine last Thursday as a food app delivery driver.

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Mexico prison cartel clash spills on to streets of border city leaving 11 dead

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Four radio station employees among dead as alleged gang members rampaged through Ciudad Juárez

A prison confrontation between members of two rival cartels spilled on to the streets of the border city Ciudad Juárez, where alleged gang members have killed nine more people, including four employees of a radio station.

The violence began on Thursday, when Los Chapos, members of the infamous Sinaloa cartel formerly led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, clashed with the local group Los Mexicles, in a Juárez prison, the deputy security minister, Ricardo Mejía, said.

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Rapper Kodak Black arrested on drug charges in Florida

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The rapper was released on $75,000 bond on Saturday after being booked into jail in Fort Lauderdale

Rapper Kodak Black has been arrested in south Florida on charges of trafficking in oxycodone and possession of a controlled substance.

The rapper, whose legal name is Bill Kapri, was previously pardoned by Donald Trump on the last day of his presidency for a previous conviction on a weapons charge. He was booked into jail in Fort Lauderdale on Friday and released on Saturday after a $75,000 bond was negotiated at a bail hearing, his lawyer Bradford Cohen told Rolling Stone.

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Cameron Diaz reveals she may have been unwitting Moroccan drug mule

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Actor talks of time in Paris before she became highly paid star when she was asked to carry a suitcase

Before she was a blockbusting Hollywood actor and before she was a “clean” wine entrepreneur, Cameron Diaz may have been an unwitting drug mule, she has revealed.

Diaz has told the story of when, as young woman starting out in the world, she moved to Paris to pursue a modelling career.

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Germany’s move to legalise cannabis expected to create ‘domino effect’

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Coalition government consults health experts, economists and growers in race to clear legal hurdles within two years

Germany is mulling over the consequences of soon becoming the world’s largest potential market for legally sold cannabis, as the country’s left-liberal government presses ahead with plans to allow the controlled distribution of the drug among adults.

Olaf Scholz’s coalition government has in recent weeks reiterated its 2021 coalition-deal vow to legalise for recreational use what its Green and liberal party minister have taken to referring to as Bubatz, a slang word for weed popular among German rappers.

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War on drugs prolonged Colombia’s decades-long civil war, landmark report finds

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Truth commission’s report, touted as a chance to heal after half a century of bloodshed, called for a ‘substantial change in drug policy’

The punitive, prohibitionist war on drugs helped prolong Colombia’s disastrous civil war, the country’s truth commission has found, in a landmark report published on Tuesday as part of an effort to heal the raw wounds left by conflict.

The report, titled “There is a future if there is truth” was the first instalment of a study put together by the commission that was formed as part of a historic 2016 peace deal with the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

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£68m of cocaine delivered with bananas to two supermarkets in Czech Republic

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Czech police searching more stores on same delivery route while contacting overseas counterparts about shipment from Central America

Employees at a supermarket in the Czech Republic found 840kg of cocaine worth 2bn Czech crowns (£68m) inside boxes of bananas that were delivered to the store.

The delivery, which was sent to supermarkets in the towns of Jicin and Rychnov nad Kneznou in the northern region of the country, is believed to have been sent to the stores by mistake.

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Police losing narco war in deadly Amazon region where duo disappeared

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A key police outpost lies in ruins after a daring raid – a sign of the growing danger on an increasingly lucrative smuggling route

In the crime-infested tri-border region where Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira disappeared, rumours abound over what happened at Puerto Amelia in January this year.

Were Brazilian drug traffickers responsible for burning the Peruvian police outpost on the River Yavarí to the ground?

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