Search teams believe locals must have known about site in Salvatierra, Guanajuato state
Search teams are excavating a site in the central Mexico state of Guanajuato where 59 bodies have been found in clandestine graves in the past week.
The striking aspect of the discovery is that the site is not a desolate area far out in the countryside, but the town of Salvatierra.
Continue reading...Human rights groups calling for a probe into president Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-narcotics crackdown say abuses continue
The UN human rights council has been accused of a “collective failure” over its decision not to call for an investigation into the tens of thousands of killings alleged to have occurred under Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs”.
Human rights groups and UN experts had repeatedly called for an inquiry into the anti-narcotics crackdown, launched by the president after he won the 2016 election on a promise to rid the country of drugs.
Continue reading...Prisoner under death sentence dug hole from cell in Jakarta into waste pipes to road outside
A Chinese drug trafficker facing a death sentence has escaped from jail on the outskirts of Indonesia’s capital, Jakarta, by tunnelling through the sewers, police have said.
Cai Changpan, 37, who was convicted of methamphetamine smuggling, dug a hole from his cell at the prison in the Tangerang area into waste pipes and from there to a road outside, a Jakarta police spokesman, Yusri Yunus, said.
Continue reading...The Hollywood actor almost fell into a police trap when he met with the fugitive Mexican over a film deal, reveals new book
He is one of Hollywood’s most acclaimed actors, at one time known as much for his hellraising, turbulent marriage and interest in humanitarian causes as for his films. Now it has emerged that Sean Penn’s taste for adventure – and a potential movie part – almost led him into a trap that had been set for the notorious Mexican drug smuggler and fugitive Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The tale, recounted in a new book, El Jefe: The Stalking of Chapo Guzmán, sheds new light on an international spying operation set up to apprehend the drug lord who was responsible for ordering as many as 200 murders, according to prosecutors.
Continue reading...Police seize drugs valued at up to €6m and arrest at least 17 suspects at stables
At least 17 people are in custody in the Netherlands after police raided a former riding stables that had been transformed into the country’s largest ever illicit drugs “laundry” capable of producing up to 200kg of cocaine a day.
Thirteen of those detained were Colombian nationals, police said on Tuesday. Three Dutch citizens – including the 64-year-old owner of the stables, in the northern village of Nijeveen – and one Turkish suspect were also arrested.
Continue reading...Secretive leader of Jalisco New Generation cartel, who seeks treatment for kidney disease, currently seen as ‘public enemy No 1’
One of Mexico’s most wanted drug lords, El Mencho, is reported to have built his own private hospital in the western state of Jalisco.
Related: 'The only two powerful cartels left': rivals clash in Mexico's murder capital
Continue reading...Human Rights Watch calls on government to do more to protect civilians after at least eight murdered by armed groups
Drug cartels and rebel groups are imposing their own bloody coronavirus lockdowns across Colombia – and killing those who do not obey, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).
At least eight civilians have been murdered by the armed groups, some of them holdovers from Colombia’s half-century civil war, which are using Whatsapp chats and pamphlets to warn citizens of the lockdowns in the rural areas where they operate.
Continue reading...Police in Italy have seized more than 84m fenethylline tablets, weighing 14 tonnes, at the port of Salerno, in what they say is the biggest seizure of amphetamines in the world. Fenethylline is known by some as the 'Isis drug' after investigations found it was used by Islamic State fighters during battles and sold by the group for profit
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Continue reading...Activists claim young people are deliberately targeted and call for UN to investigate human rights record of Duterte regime
At least 122 children, including a one-year-old, have been killed during President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” in the Philippines, according to a report that concluded some children have been deliberately shot at and targeted as proxies.
The study, by the World Organisation Against Torture, adds to growing calls for the UN human rights council to establish an independent investigation into abuses committed under Duterte. Rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of people may have died as a result of unlawful killings during anti-drug operations launched after his election in 2016.
Continue reading...Ovidio Guzmán was briefly captured in October only to be let go hours later as security was overwhelmed by cartel forces
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, on Friday said he personally ordered the release of one of the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, after his brief detention during a military operation.
Scenes of mayhem during the operation caused López Obrador’s government considerable embarrassment in October as security forces briefly captured Ovidio Guzmán only to let him go hours later as the security forces were overwhelmed by cartel forces.
Continue reading...Carlos Lehder Rivas ran Medellín cartel alongside Pablo Escobar that smuggled cocaine worth billions to the US in 1970s and 80s
The man who co-founded the notorious Colombian Medellín drug cartel alongside Pablo Escobar has been transferred to Germany from the United States, according to Spiegel Online.
Carlos Lehder Rivas, who has both German and Colombian citizenship, was escorted to Germany by two US officials on a regular passenger flight from New York to Frankfurt and handed over to German authorities, the report said.
Continue reading...Thousands of litres of methyl fentanyl point to ‘unprecedented’ production of opioids in so-called Golden Triangle area
Myanmar has made south-east Asia’s largest-ever seizure of synthetic drugs in raids that revealed “unprecedented” production of opioids in the area, the UN has said.
Between February and April, authorities swooped on labs in the lawless Kutkai area of Shan state, seizing nearly 200m meth tablets, 500kg (1,100lbs) of crystal meth, 300kg of heroin, and 3,750 litres of methyl fentanyl.
Continue reading...From jungle stakeouts to burning drug dealers’ property, a group of mothers is willing to do whatever it takes to free their community from addiction
Sister Ester keeps several small plastic bags of colourful methamphetamine – or meth – tablets beside her bed, along with a pistol and a plastic box of bullets.
“All of these items were seized by our group in raids on houses selling drugs over the past few weeks,” she says.
Continue reading...Gilberto ‘Fuminho’ Aparecido dos Santos arrested in international sting operation
Mozambique has expelled one of Brazil’s most wanted criminals, an alleged drug lord who has been on the run for two decades.
Gilberto “Fuminho” Aparecido dos Santos was sent home on a Brazilian air force plane that left Maputo at 1.30am on Monday with dozens of police officers onboard, the authorities said.
Continue reading...The bloody battle broke out in the border state of Chihuahua, where the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels have been at war
A major shootout between rival drug gangs has killed 19 people in the northern Mexico border state of Chihuahua, officials say.
The state prosecutors’ office said on Saturday that 18 corpses, two grenades, vehicles and guns were found at the scene of the clash in the hamlet of Chuchuichupa the township of Madera.
Continue reading...Mexico’s homicide rate raced to a new record in March, as violence raged even as Covid-19 spread across the country and authorities urged the population to stay home and practise social distancing.
Mexico registered 2,585 homicides in March – the highest monthly figure since records began in 1997 – putting 2020 on track to break last year’s record total for murders.
Continue reading...Five people held after 752kg of drug found in 25-tonne blocks imported from Mexico
Police in Spain have seized 752kg of methamphetamine after breaking up a gang that was smuggling the drug into the country by hiding it in special cavities drilled into huge blocks of marble.
The investigation into Spain’s largest-ever methamphetamine seizure of the drug began last August after police and inland revenue officers noticed that a company was importing 25-tonne marble blocks from Mexico to the Spanish port of Valencia despite lacking the necessary resources and infrastructure.
Continue reading...MySafe scheme for addicts aims to help reduce overdose deaths in Canadian city
A vending machine for powerful opioids has opened in Canada as part of a project to help fight the Canadian city’s overdose crisis.
The MySafe project, which resembles a cash machine, gives addicts access to a prescribed amount of medical quality hydromorphone, a drug about twice as powerful as heroin.
Continue reading...Ostentatious wedding to groom with underworld links is seen as reminder of bride’s family’s power
It was the society wedding of the year in Mexico’s drug cartel heartland: Alejandrina Gisselle Guzmán, daughter of the convicted kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, tied the knot with the kin of another member of Mexico’s underworld.
And in the ostentatious style of a family accustomed to getting its way, they were married in a closed-door ceremony in the cathedral of Culiacán – the city at the centre of the Sinaloa cartel’s criminal empire.
Continue reading...Hundreds of packets of hashish, worth €1m, also found on three Sicilian beaches
The recent discovery of the decomposed bodies of three scuba divers on the beaches of Sicily could be tied to drug trafficking, according to prosecutors.
The body of a third diver was found on Wednesday in Contrada Ginestra, in Termini Imerese, on the northern coast of Sicily. The first two washed ashore in the area of Cefalù and Castel di Tusa, on the northern coast, on 1 and 8 January. None of the bodies have been identified and local authorities have not received any reports of missing persons.
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