Category Archives: Drugs trade

‘We forget our troubles’: crystal meth use rises during lockdown in Zimbabwe

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Harare’s drug dealers say business is booming as more young people, some at school, use mutoriro

Inside a tiny room in Kuwadzana, a township in Harare, Solomon Sigauke* and his friends talk animatedly about football and listen to loud music. The misty vapour from the crystal meth fills the room as they take turns on a fluorescent pipe.

Sigauke, 25, has no cigarette lighter so he is improvises, holding a burning candle while his friend Kudzo puffs the smoke from the burning substance, known locally as mutoriro. .

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El Chapo’s wife helped him run drug empire from jail, US court hears

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Emma Coronel is ‘not a big fish’, experts say, but indictment accuses her of assisting dramatic jailbreak in 2015

The wife of the world’s most notorious drug cartel boss, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, has appeared in court charged with helping him run his drug empire from jail, a day after she was arrested at Washington’s international airport.

Emma Coronel Aispuro, a 31-year-old Mexican-American who married the drug kingpin in 2007 after he spotted her in a beauty pageant, is also accused of helping organise her husband’s breathtaking jailbreak in 2015, which involved a mile-long tunnel leading from his prison shower and a motorbike adapted to run on rails from one end to the other.

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Emma Coronel, wife of El Chapo, arrested on drug trafficking charges

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Joint US-Mexican citizen has also been charged with conspiring to help arrange her husband’s escape from prison in 2015

Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of Mexico’s most notorious cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, has been arrested in Virginia on drug trafficking charges.

In a statement released on Monday, the US justice department said that Coronel, 31 – who is a joint US-Mexican citizen – was arrested at Dulles international airport and was scheduled to make her initial appearance in federal court on Tuesday via video conference.

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Alleged drug lord on world’s most wanted list arrested in Amsterdam

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Tse Chi Lop detained at request of Australian police investigating $70bn-a-year Asia-Pacific drug trade

Dutch police said on Saturday they had arrested the alleged leader of an Asian drug syndicate who is listed as one of the world’s most wanted fugitives and has been compared to Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Tse Chi Lop, a Chinese-born Canadian national, was detained on Friday at the request of Australian police, who led an investigation that found his organisation dominates the $70bn-a-year Asia-Pacific drug trade, Dutch police spokesman Thomas Aling said.

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Outrage after Mexico exonerates ex-defense minister in drug case

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Gen Salvador Cienfuegos was arrested last October for allegedly shielding a conspiracy to smuggle drugs into the US

Mexico has exonerated a former defense minister who US prosecutors alleged was a drug capo nicknamed The Godfather, sparking outrage and claims that the country’s powerful armed forces have become untouchable.

Gen Salvador Cienfuegos was arrested at a Los Angeles airport last October for allegedly shielding a multimillion-dollar conspiracy to smuggle drugs into the US. But those charges were dropped by the justice department in November as part of a controversial backroom deal and Cienfuegos returned home to Mexico.

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Mexico security forces’ seizures of fentanyl rise by 486% this year

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  • Officials say synthetic opioids easier to produce and smuggle
  • Drug labs have doubled from 91 last year to 175 in 2020

Seizures of the synthetic opioid fentanyl by Mexican security forces have increased by at least 486% in 2020, the country’s defence secretary has announced.

Mexico’s military and police forces seized an estimated 1.3 tons of the synthetic opioid this year, compared to 222 kilograms in 2019.

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Ghost boat laden with cocaine washes up in the Marshall Islands

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Abandoned vessel containing 649kg of drug washes up on a remote Pacific atoll after potentially years at sea

Police in the Marshall Islands have found the Pacific nation’s largest-ever haul of cocaine in an abandoned boat that washed up on a remote atoll after drifting on the high seas, potentially for years.

Attorney general Richard Hickson said the 5.5 metre (18ft) fibreglass vessel was found at Ailuk atoll last week with 649 kg (1,430lb ) of cocaine hidden in a compartment beneath the deck.

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Murder in Mexico: journalists caught in the crosshairs

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The 2012 killing of Regina Martínez, who was investigating links between organised crime and politics, began a wave of violence in the most dangerous country to be a reporter

Regina Martínez Pérez was considered an enemy of the state. The 48-year-old journalist had made powerful foes investigating allegations of collusion between political leaders, security forces and narcotraffickers in the Mexican region of Veracruz.

She was a source of irritation for four consecutive state governors, highlighting violence, abuses of power and cover-ups in the pages of Mexico’s foremost investigative news magazine, Proceso.

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Thailand’s $1bn ketamine bust probably just chemicals after all

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Officials admit what they thought was 11.5 tonnes of drugs is most likely trisodium phosphate, a food additive and cleaning agent

Thai authorities have admitted that an 11.5-tonne drug bust may contain an innocent chemical used as a food additive or cleaning agent – and not ketamine, as they believed.

Thailand’s anti-narcotics bureau had hailed the seizure of what they said was nearly a billion dollars’ worth of ketamine – an anaesthetic that can also be used as a party drug.

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Almost 60 bodies found in pits at property in Mexican town

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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.

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UN accused over failure to investigate ‘war on drugs’ killings in the Philippines

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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.

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Drug trafficker on death row escapes Indonesian jail through sewers

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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.

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Movie star Sean Penn, drug lord El Chapo and a failed marine raid

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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.

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Netherlands police bust country’s largest cocaine lab at ex-riding stables

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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.

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Top Mexican drug kingpin El Mencho reportedly builds own private hospital

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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

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Colombian cartels killing those who don’t obey their Covid-19 lockdowns

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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.

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Italian police seize £900m of ‘Isis drug’ fenethylline en route from Syria – video

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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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‘War on drugs’ blamed for deaths of at least 122 children in Philippines

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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.

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Mexican president says he ordered release of El Chapo’s son

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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.

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Medellín cartel co-founder transferred to Germany after prison sentence

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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.

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