Drug Smuggling

Belgian judge Bart Willocx, President of the Antwerp Court of Appeal, warned Monday the country is at risk of turning into a narco-state as a result of international drug crime and mafia groups forming a “parallel force” in society.

In a radio interview on Friday, President Donald Trump surprisingly revealed that American forces have neutralized at least one smuggling facility in Venezuela, the first land strike in Trump’s campaign against Venezuelan narco-terrorists and dictator Nicolas Maduro.

A U.S. Coast Guard crew offloaded a mountain of cocaine worth hundreds of millions of dollars in San Diego, California, on Monday.

Lithuanian authorities said Tuesday they had arrested 21 people allegedly connected to a criminal network that smuggled cigarettes using specially equipped weather balloons from Russia-allied Belarus which have violated the Baltic country’s airspace in recent weeks.

Spanish police arrested 13 suspected members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, seized a stash of illegal drugs and dismantled two drug laboratories, authorities said Friday.

The U.S. military conducted another lethal strike on boat piloted by alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth revealed Saturday.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury outed and sanctioned a human smuggling organization based in Cancun that focused on moving the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and South America. The organization used yachts to move thousands of migrants into Mexico, from where it would work with other groups to get them to California.

Drug gang crime has become so out of control in Brussels that military forces will be deployed to the Belgian capital, the government announced this weekend.

A recently extradited cartel boss from Mexico, who is facing numerous federal drug trafficking charges in Virginia, was a favored government contractor in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas. The state is controlled by the controversial governor from the MORENA party, Americo Villarreal.

Greek police said Sunday they seized over 270 kilograms (595 pounds) of cocaine with an estimated value of over 5.5 million euros ($6.5 million) and arrested three men.

British authorities seized 2.4 metric tons of cocaine in a ship arriving in England from Panama, authorities said Saturday, calling it one of the U.K.’s biggest drug busts in years.

Texas Department of Public Safety special agents seized approximately $2.4 million worth of methamphetamine after Customs and Border Protection officers discovered the load being smuggled into Texas from Mexico. Troopers arrested the driver for allegedly smuggling the drugs into the United States.

Border Patrol agents in San Diego found a sophisticated cross-border smuggling tunnel that connects California to Tijuana, Mexico. The tunnel reportedly extended more than 1,000 feet into the United States from Mexico.

A Texas Department of Public Safety K-9 team responded to a call for assistance from local law enforcement to help capture a fleeing suspected fentanyl smuggler. The team searched a ranch approximately 150 miles north of the Texas-Mexico border and found the fugitive in a dirt and brush pile.

Former U.S. college basketball player Jarred Shaw could face the death penalty in Indonesia after his arrest for allegedly smuggling cannabis candy drugs.

The Trump administration awarded a contract for the construction of new border wall segments along the Texas-Mexico border. This is the first such award of the president’s second term.

Mexican authorities tried to take a share of the credit for a large-scale meth seizure that was carried out by officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Roma, Texas.

Las autoridades mexicanas intentaron obtener parte del crédito por una incautación de metanfetamina a gran escala que en realidad fue realizada por oficiales de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza (CBP) de Estados Unidos en Roma, Texas.

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) cast the only no vote on a bill requiring an annual report to Congress on cross-border cartel smuggling tunnels. The bill, H.R. 495, passed the House Monday on a vote of 402-1.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum publicly blamed Americans struggling with addiction as the cause of her country facing a new set of tariffs from the Trump administration. She chose to blame victims of cartel drug trafficking rather than ruthless drug lords who enjoy the protection of Mexico’s government.

In three separate events in the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, agents seized nearly 560 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $18 million. Two seizures occurred at a fixed highway checkpoint after routine immigration inspections. The third seizure resulted from a roving patrol stop initiated by Border Patrol agents. The three seizures were reported within hours of each other on Sunday morning.

Russia has reportedly freed a second American detained on drug charges, less than a week after releasing teacher Marc Fogel from three years in captivity.

A group of gunmen in South Texas kidnapped two victims and held them in the border city of Brownsville, Texas. The gunmen tortured them for days over the alleged theft of drugs.

Australian police seized a record 2.3 tons of cocaine and arrested 13 people in raids after the suspects’ boat broke down off the coast of Queensland, authorities said Monday.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum fired a warning at incoming U.S. President-elect Donald Trump over his threats to impose tariffs because of the ongoing immigration and drug trafficking issue.

Authorities in Mexico City are investigating an alleged drug trafficking organization that used a tunnel to move drugs into one of their street-level storefronts. While drug traffickers favor the use of tunnels along the U.S.-Mexico border, its use in other parts of the country is rare.

According to a source within the Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has all but abandoned its offices in Eagle Pass and Del Rio, Texas. Only one special agent is working in one border office, and a local police task force officer is working in the other. The situation, according to the source, leaves just one DEA agent working a few days per week along the Texas border between El Paso and Laredo.

Federal prosecutors allege that two officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations spent years working with an unnamed drug cartel.  The officers allegedly allowed the criminal organization to move large amounts of fentanyl, methamphetamines, cocaine, and heroin through their inspection lanes,  court documents revealed.

The governor of the Mexican state of Sinaloa asked the various factions of the drug cartel that controls his state for peace. The request followed a series of killings tied to infighting within the criminal organization. The killings emerged after the apparent kidnapping and surrendering to U.S. authorities of Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada by the Chapitos faction of the organization.

A former Texas peace officer will spend more than ten years in prison for using his position to smuggle drugs and launder money. The former cop tried to claim that he had been doing undercover work while using his police vehicle to move drug loads across state lines, federal prosecutors said.

An Arizona mother-son duo were arrested after allegedly attempting to smuggle thousands of fentanyl pills through an Illinois suburb.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers working at the Lukeville, Arizona, recently made what the agency is calling its largest seizure of fentanyl to date. Officers at the port of entry discovered approximately four million blue fentanyl pills weighing more than 1,000 pounds.

Federal authorities revealed that members of the Sinaloa Cartel used a network of Chinese underground bankers to launder more than $50 million in drug proceeds.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers assigned to the San Diego Field Office seized tons of illicit drugs during May. A single smuggling attempt led to the seizure of more than 11,000 pounds of methamphetamine — the third-largest meth seizure in CBP history.

The Biden administration claims that the Texas border island that was utilized by Mexican drug cartels for drug and human smuggling operations is owned by the federal government. The State of Texas recently secured the island from the Mexican drug cartels and cleared it of underbrush.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers working at the El Paso area ports of entry managed to keep 11.2 pounds of fentanyl and 113 pounds of cocaine from hitting the United States illicit drug market in just one week’s worth of seizures. The seizures involved several cases during the week preceding the Cinco de Mayo holiday. In all, the street value of the narcotics is estimated at $1.5 million.