Given Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s talent for escaping repeatedly from maximum security prisons, several extra measures are being taken to keep him in place until his extradition to the U.S. However, now Guzmán is complaining that he’s not sleeping and guards are engaging in cruel behavior directed at him.
Mexican actress Kate del Castillo recently made waves by facilitating a clandestine interview in Mexico between actor Sean Penn and notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán. However, her representatives and tabloids are reporting she feels betrayed by Penn for using her and not giving her more credit.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has acknowledged the urgency of securing drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán by asking Mexican officials to accelerate Guzmán’s extradition proceedings.
For the first time in four years, Mexico saw an 8.7 percent increase in the murder rate, according to government sources. There was also a coinciding claim of a decline in kidnapping and extortion, perhaps indicating that criminal groups are once again shifting their tactics.
As half a dozen legal districts compete for who will get to try notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán after his extradition to the U.S., the City of Miami, Florida has emerged as a top contender.
A federal jury in New Orleans, Louisiana, convicted a former Houston police officer on January 15 of charges of supplying a Mexican drug cartel with high-powered weapons and other equipment that helped them smuggle massive amounts of cocaine into Louisiana other communities across the country.
Two National Guard members pleaded guilty in a San Diego federal court on January 14 to illegally selling guns they believed were destined for Mexico—and thus likely the hands of violent drug cartels.
Now that the Mexican government has agreed to negotiate terms for drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s extradition to the U.S., he will likely follow in the footsteps of many other Mexican kingpins before him—a plea deal to reduce his sentence, then 15-25 years in the federal prison known as Supermax in Florence, Colorado.
A federal judge recently sentenced the last two of 34 Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT) gang members to prison for their roles in a methamphetamine drug distribution network. The FBI claimed it marked the end of the gang’s foothold in Central Texas.
In an act that has become all too common, individuals allegedly affiliated with organized crime have murdered the mayor of a small town in Mexico less than a day since she took office.
Recent drug seizures and indictments indicate that Miami is back on the map as a trafficking hub for cocaine passing through Caribbean waters. After the fall of the Cali and Medellín drug cartels in Colombia, both the Florida Straits and the streets of south Florida quieted down dramatically.
The drug trafficking ties between Colombia and Mexico go back decades, to when Colombian cartels started supplying Mexican drug runners with cocaine in the late 1970s. Those ties have since strengthened, and the recent discovery of a money laundering network between the two countries’ more powerful cartels is evidence of this.
Two alleged gun-runners were arrested in Spain on charges of buying military-grade weapons for drug cartels in Mexico. The controversy over how high-powered weapons get into the hands of Mexican drug cartels has been raging for years. US suppliers are often in the cross-hairs, so the recent arrest of individuals buying military-grade weapons for the cartels in Spain put a twist on perceptions of weapons trafficking to Mexico.
Mexican authorities announced on December 4 they have detained the brother of the Cartel de Jalisco’s notorious leader. Formally known as the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), the drug cartel is one of the fastest growing—and most violent—criminal organizations in Mexico.
Georgia authorities busted a drug ring and tied the group to Mexican drug cartels.
Investigators in Costa Rica are working feverishly to find out why the children of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán were in their country as recently as last year.
The number of deaths from drug overdose in the United States has surpassed those from firearms and motor vehicle accidents each year since 2008, according to a newly released report published by the Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) have significantly increased opium production and shifted their operations to expand heroin trafficking in recent years. The TCOs launched a concerted effort to make the illicit drug readily available to Americans as the number of heroin overdose deaths in the U.S. surge, reports the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
On October 7, the US Department of Justice announced the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) had dismantled a drug trafficking organization responsible for the transportation of multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine and drug money between Puerto Rico and the Continental United States. This organization was using drug mules to smuggle kilograms of cocaine hidden in suitcases on airplanes.
