drug cartel

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Drug Crime Looms Over Everyday Life in Mexico

People alter habits to guard against risk of violence

(Newser) - The effects of the wave of violent drug crime in Mexico--one paper puts this year’s related deaths at 2,682--have seeped into everyday life in the once-pacific country, the New York Times reports. “You have to be more careful with everything these days,” says a watchdog. Some...

Mexican Drug Wars Spread to Touristy Yucatan

(Newser) - As drug violence soars in Mexico, casualties are spreading to the Yucatan peninsula, a major tourist destination and spring break hot spot. Twelve decapitated bodies were found near the popular ruins of Chichen Itza this week, the Los Angeles Times reports. That's because a government crackdown has heightened “a...

Mexican Drug Lords' Guns Traced to US

Smuggling's a cinch as officials look to immigration, drugs

(Newser) - Thousands of powerful automatic weapons used by drug cartels in Mexico have been traced back to US shops, and little is being done to curb the guns’ flow southward, the Los Angeles Times reports. More than 90% of guns taken at the border and picked up after clashes come from...

Mexican Cartels Growing Pot in US National Park

Plants worth hundreds of millions thriving amid Sequoias

(Newser) - Mexican drug cartels are growing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of marijuana in the thick of California’s Sequoia National Forest, CNN reports. Hours on foot from the nearest road, pot gardens flourish with as many as 10,000 plants, irrigation systems created by daming mountain creeks, and their...

Where Does All That Seized Money Go?

Asset forfeiture: an ugly side of the drug war

(Newser) - What would you do with a few million in drug money? Last year, state and federal authorities seized about $2 billion from Mexican smugglers. The feds have to put any seized money into a dedicated fund, but the rules are looser for states. In Texas and Georgia, for example, sheriffs...

Mexican Troops Accused in Drug War Deaths

Military responsible for deaths of 13 unarmed citizens

(Newser) - Mexicans increasingly accuse state troops of beating and murdering innocents on their mission to curb violent drug cartels, Time reports. Since the state assigned 25,000 soldiers to fight drug-runners 2 years ago, troops have killed at least 13 unarmed people—while traffickers have added 1,800 more to the...

Fed Agents Gunned Down at Mexico City Restaurant

Officials were involved in drug fight

(Newser) - In a brazen display of Mexican drug cartel violence, two federal agents were shot dead in broad daylight as they dined in a Mexico City restaurant yesterday, CNN reports. The shooter then sped off in a black car. One victim was the nation's second-highest-ranking federal police officer and was in...

Mexico Overhauls Justice System
 Mexico Overhauls
Justice System
Jun 18, 2008 2:30 AM CDT

Mexico Overhauls Justice System

Calderon signs sweeping reforms

(Newser) - Sweeping reforms of Mexico's criminal justice system were signed into law by President Felipe Calderon yesterday. US-style public trials and presumption of innocence will replace Mexico's slow, closed-door system that proceeds almost exclusively through briefs, reports the Washington Post. The reforms also give investigators power to hold suspects 80 days...

7 Cops Cut Down in Mexican Drug Battle

Latest victims in Mexico's spiraling drug violence

(Newser) - A gun battle in Mexico's drug capital of Culiacan ended with seven federal police officers and a civilian lying dead, and four officers wounded. Drug dealers opened fire and hurled a grenade as police raided a drug house in the city, where 1,000 people have died in drug-related violence...

Yank Among 4 Found 'Executed' in Baja

Killing may be linked to wave of drug crime

(Newser) - The bodies of four people apparently killed execution-style, including at least one American, were found in the popular Mexico tourist state of Baja California, reports CNN. The decomposing remains were found just 20 miles south of the US border. Two of the victims were in a car with California plates....

Drug Lords to Mexican Cops: Join Us or Die

Cartels post death threats, hit lists to threaten police

(Newser) - Mexican drug cartels are running a campaign of warnings and death threats to police who won’t join them, the AP reports. Banners across roads, hit lists, and messages on cops' two-way radios work to intimidate “those who still don’t believe” in the cartels’ power. Four top Mexican...

Third Top Cop Executed in Mexico Drug War

'We have to take back our streets,' prez pleads

(Newser) - A third key police officer was assassinated yesterday in the intensifying war between Mexican officials and drug cartels, the BBC reports. The deputy police chief of the border town of Juarez was killed when gunmen peppered his car with bullets as he left home. The head of Mexico's anti-kidnap unit...

Mexico's Top Drug Cop Assassinated

Cartel reportedly behind early-morning killing of Edgar Millan Gomez

(Newser) - The official leading Mexico's anti-drug efforts was gunned down early this morning, the Los Angeles Times, shot eight times after arriving at his Mexico City home from work. Mexican outlets reported that the so-called Sinaloa cartel is behind the death of Edgar Millan Gomez, 42; he's the third high-ranking federal...

Thug Attack Kills 10 on Mexican Ranch

Organized crime cited; 2nd shooting in 2 days to target rancher

(Newser) - Sixty gunmen opened fire on a Mexican ranch yesterday, killing 10 and injuring six more, AFP reports. The shooting came a day after another in the same state killed at least seven. Both attacks were on the head of a local cattlemens' organization; both carried signs of organized crime in...

Cocaine Moves by Submarine
 Cocaine Moves by Submarine 
May 4, 2008 10:36 AM CDT

Cocaine Moves by Submarine

New method confounds drug enforcement efforts

(Newser) - Cocaine traffickers have embraced a startling new method to transport their product into America, the Economist reports: homemade submersibles. The cartels themselves seem to be producing the small craft, which descend to just below the waterline. They sport large cargo space and fuel tanks that allow them to sail far...

Wachovia Targeted in Drug Money Laundering Probe

Feds look into bank's conection with suspect casas de cambio

(Newser) - Federal prosecutors have targeted Wachovia in an investigation into the use of money-exchange houses along the Mexican border to transfer money from US sales to Latin American drug lords, the Wall Street Journal reports. The bank invested heavily in the casas de cambio despite warnings that such firms were often...

Bloody Drug Wars Rock Mexican Town

With 210 dead in the first three months of 2008, president sends in the army

(Newser) - Bloody drug wars are ravaging the Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez—across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas—despite desperate attempts at control by the government. After 210 lives were claimed by the battles between cartels in the first three months of 2008, President Felipe Calderon sent over 2,...

Cocaine on the Upswing in Peru
 Cocaine on the Upswing in Peru 
Mar 23, 2008 3:48 PM CDT

Cocaine on the Upswing in Peru

US attempts to quell trafficking stagnate in coca-based economy

(Newser) - Peru's cocaine business is growing again, sparking a spate of killings, threats, and US-funded attempts to stop it, the Los Angeles Times reports. Coca bush plots have increased by a third since 1999 to feed markets in Europe, East Asia, and Brazil—but growers are hard to collar because they...

Chavez Linked to Columbian Drug Trade

FARC guerrillas run cocaine through Venezuela

(Newser) - Hugo Chavez recently grabbed headlines by brokering the release of two women held hostage by FARC, Colombia's guerrilla rebels. But Chavez was no neutral mediator: FARC operates openly in Venezuela, and even hand-in-hand with government agencies, both to wage war in Colombia and smuggle Colombian cocaine into Europe, the Guardian ...

US Cocaine Supply Plummets
US Cocaine Supply Plummets
Oct 3, 2007 5:46 AM CDT

US Cocaine Supply Plummets

Prices rocket to highest in 20 years

(Newser) - The cocaine supply has dropped sharply in the last year in 37 US cities, which law enforcement officials attribute to a crackdown on drug cartels by Mexican authorities and a record volume of drugs seized at sea. New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco were among major cities experiencing sharp...

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