Category Archives: Drugs trade

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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‘Air Cocaine’ smugglers given long sentences by French court

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

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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.

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British child raised in Pakistan jail returned to UK without mother

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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.

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

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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.

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Home Office gives green light to first drug testing clinic

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‘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.

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

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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”.

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

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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.

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Sri Lanka advertises for two hangmen as country resumes capital punishment

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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.

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

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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.

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

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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.

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El Chapo trial: Mexican drug cartel boss found guilty

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Joaquín Guzmán, 61, could spend the rest of his life behind bars after being convicted following three-month New York trial

The notorious cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán has been found guilty of 10 counts of drug trafficking, at the end of a three-month New York trial that featured dramatic testimony of prison escapes, gruesome killings and million-dollar political payoffs.

Related: Behind the El Chapo trial: what's been left unsaid in a New York courtroom

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As El Chapo deliberations drag on, the unthinkable is asked – can he get off?

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Jury has surprised observers and unnerved prosecutors by asking for transcripts of ‘snitch’ witnesses

Whatever happens in the jury room in Brooklyn this Monday morning, people outside are starting to think the unthinkable: that Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán might get off.

It would be a reckless gambler that would bet on acquittal for the accused Mexican drug lord, but the odds shorten with each day of indecision. This is not the slam-dunk conviction prosecutors – and most of the rest of the world – were expecting.

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The El Chapo trial’s most shocking and bizarre moments

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As the jury begins deliberations, we recap three months of amazing stories and allegations

Until his trial began, much of the public perception of accused Mexican drug lord El Chapo, real name Joaquín Guzmán, had come from rumours and legend. But over the past three months we have heard what the lead prosecutor, Andrea Goldbarg, called “a mountain of evidence” against the notorious leader of the Sinaloa cartel, including allegations of decades of murder, torture, bribery and corruption.

Related: Is Emma Coronel the devoted wife of El Chapo, or is she being used as a prop?

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Witness claims El Chapo had sex with minors he called ‘vitamins’

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Unsealed documents made public just as jury is about to start deliberations in Joaquín Guzmán’s drug-trafficking case

Unsealed documents about the Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán contain claims by witnesses that he had sex with minors he called “vitamins”. The disturbing allegation comes just as a jury is about to start deliberating in the US drug-trafficking case.

Related: Betrayal, torture and a $100m bribe: what the El Chapo trial has revealed

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