Montenegrin police arrested today in Pljevlja Goran Sokovic / 38 / declared for international search by Serbia on suspicion that he participated in the smuggling of over 2 tons of cocaine from South America into Europe, Montenegrin electronic edition pcnen.com announced, referring to the BETA.
In late January Serbia declared Darko Saric from Pljevlja for an international search, who had allegedly organized the trafficking of cocaine from South America in October last year. According to the Montenegrin police Saric is now hiding in one of the European countries.Montenegrin police arrested today in Pljevlja Goran Sokovic / 38 / declared for... more
"Ricky Donnell Ross (aka Freeway Ricky Ross), the convicted drug dealer who was featured in a Gary Webb expose on CIA involvement in the drug business gives an exclusive 1 hour interview with Alex Jones.
Part 1 of 5"Ricky Donnell Ross (aka Freeway Ricky Ross), the convicted drug dealer who was... more
The Deputy Head of the Unit for Combating Organized Crime (GDBOP), Kalin Mihov, has said that the big drug cartels in Latin America often use Bulgarians to smuggle cocaine.
Mihov, speaking after Bulgarians Zlatin Rumenov Raynov and his brother Kaloyan were arrested on Saturday in the Dominican Republic for trafficking 1.3 tons of liquid cocaine, said that they were most likely employed to transfer the drugs from the Caribbean to Europe.
Mihov confirmed that the Bulgarian brothers have been have been charged and that a Santo Domingo Court has ordered their permanent detention.The Deputy Head of the Unit for Combating Organized Crime (GDBOP), Kalin Mihov, has... more
Christof talks to an African immigrant about the desperate conditions that drive men to traffic and deal cocaine.
For more news video by Current TV visit http://current.com/vanguardChristof talks to an African immigrant about the desperate conditions that drive men... more
More than 500 kg of cocaine was found by police Tuesday afternoon stashed in a cargo ship originating from Ecuador and bound for Germany that was docked in Klaipėda’s port.
The bust was carried out by Lithuania’s Criminal Police Bureau in conjuction with Latvian, American and Ecuadorian authorities. Hidden inside frozen fish, the cargo ship is estimated to contain €86 million worth of cocaine at street prices.
The bust was carried out by Lithuania’s Criminal Police Bureau in conjuction with Latvian, American and Ecuadorian authorities. Hidden inside frozen fish, the cargo ship is estimated to contain €86 million worth of cocaine at street prices.More than 500 kg of cocaine was found by police Tuesday afternoon stashed in a cargo... more
Austin police recently seized crack cocaine disguised as potato chips from a man.
Kevin Ray Landry, 35, faces federal charges for intent to distribute. He was taken into custody on July 3. Police say he had approximately 10 grams of cocaine in his possession.
Police then obtained a search warrant for Landry's car where they found 168 grams of crack cocaine. The drugs were hidden in potato chip containers and shaped like wafers.
Since 1994, police have seized $50,000 from Landry in nine other incidents.
"When you go to federal prison you do all your time, you get 30 [years] you do 30 [years.] And because we've been working on this guy for so long we are going to go for the maximum we can do so that we don't have to chase him around the block again," APD Commander Harold Piatt said.
In early 2008, an official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a report to his superiors detailing what he called “the most significant development in the criminal exploitation of aircraft since 9/11.”
The document warned that a growing fleet of rogue jet aircraft was regularly crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean. On one end of the air route, it said, are cocaine-producing areas in the Andes controlled by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. On the other are some of West Africa’s most unstable countries.
The report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, was ignored, and the problem has since escalated into what security officials in several countries describe as a global security threat.
The clandestine fleet has grown to include twin-engine turboprops, executive jets and retired Boeing 727s that are flying multi-ton loads of cocaine and possibly weapons to an area in Africa where factions of al Qaeda are believed to be facilitating the smuggling of drugs to Europe, the officials say.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been held responsible for car and suicide bombings in Algeria and Mauritania. Gunmen and bandits linked to the group have also stepped up kidnappings of Europeans, who are then passed on to AQIM factions seeking ransom payments.In early 2008, an official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a report... more
Four Australians, three of whom are Victorian, will go on trial in an Italian court next month on charges of conspiring with the Calabrian Mafia to import one of Australia’s largest cocaine shipments.
The accused - Nicola Ciconte, 54, of Rowville; Michael Calleja, 51, of Kew; Vincenzo Medici, 45, of Mildura, and Carmelo Loprete, 41, of Adelaide - will be tried in absentia in the small town of Vibo Valentia in the southern region of Calabria on February 10, after the Italian Government failed to extradite them from Australia.
”The four Australians are being tried as fugitives,” senior anti-Mafia prosecutor Salvatore Curcio told The Age exclusively. ”They will not be there, but if they have an interest in this trial they should come to Italy,” he said.
Security at the trial is expected to be extra tight after a bomb attack on a court building in the nearby city of Reggio Calabria a week ago.Four Australians, three of whom are Victorian, will go on trial in an Italian court... more
It was a medical mystery. In the summer of 2008, a man and woman, both in their 20s and both cocaine users, were separately admitted to a Canadian hospital with unremitting fevers, flulike symptoms and dangerously low white-blood-cell counts. Their symptoms were consistent with a life-threatening immune-system disorder called agranulocytosis, which kills 7% to 10% of patients and is rare except in chemotherapy patients and those taking certain antipsychotic medications.
Neither of the Canadian patients fit that bill, but they did have one thing in common: illegal drug use, says Dr. Nancy Zhu, who treated the patients during her hematology fellowship at the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton. "We were theorizing that maybe it was something in the cocaine," she says. (See how cocaine scrambles genes in the brain.)
The medical literature didn't contain any studies linking agranulocytosis with cocaine. However, in April of that same year, a New Mexico lab had identified a small number of unexplained cases of the disorder, also in people who had snorted, injected or smoked cocaine. Later, in 2009, a few cocaine addicts in San Francisco - crack smokers, mostly - began displaying even stranger symptoms, like dead, darkened skin. "It looked like people were getting burns all over their body," says Dr. Jonathan Graf, a rheumatologist at the University of California, San Francisco. "[Their skin was] black, as if you had taken a cigarette butt to it. In some people, it was all over, on their legs and bellies."
By that time, back in Canada, a toxicologist at Alberta Hospital had noticed an unusual chemical in the urine of the two cocaine-using patients: levamisole. Zhu contacted him, and they put the puzzle together. Further research revealed that levamisole, a drug that was once used to treat colon cancer but is now reserved for veterinary use as a medication to get rid of worms, can cause agranulocytosis in humans. The "burns" seen on Californian patients, who also were suffering from agranulocytosis, were the result of skin infections related to patients' compromised immunity. There have now been several dozen cases of cocaine-related agranulocytosis reported in North America - and one known death. "For some reason, this drug called levamisole keeps popping up," Zhu says. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2009.)
Where is it coming from? According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, levamisole has become increasingly popular as a "cut," or diluting agent, in cocaine and possibly some heroin. It is now found in 70% of all cocaine seized in the U.S., up from 30% in 2008. Unlike most cuts - usually inert or relatively harmless substances like the B vitamin inositol, which are added by lower-level dealers looking to stretch supplies - levamisole appears to be added to cocaine from the outset, in the countries of origin. The substance has been found in various concentrations in cocaine analyzed in countries around the world, from Switzerland to Australia. And urine tests of cocaine users attending a drug clinic at San Francisco General Hospital in 2009 - one floor above Graf's office - found that 90% of samples were positive for levamisole; similar tests in Seattle revealed that 80% of cocaine users there had levamisole in their systems.
"If it's showing up in all those different places, that's a prima facie indicator that it's happening at the highest levels of production," says Craig Reinarman, a sociologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has long studied cocaine. But since cocaine is illegal, there's no easy way to remove levamisole from the supply chain. Law enforcement could instead target large purchasers, possibly putting pressure on dealers to switch to other cuts.
READ MORE AT LINKIt was a medical mystery. In the summer of 2008, a man and woman, both in their 20s... more
There is growing concerns that Al Qaeda in Africa and Latin American drug cartels are working together. Latin American cocaine flights go to Africa, en route to Europe. Are Al Qaeda members on the empty planes back to Latin America?
Johannesburg, South Africa - It’s known as the Coca Cola plane. In early November, drug traffickers landed a Boeing 727 in the Malian desert in Gao state and offloaded as much as 10 tons of cocaine. Then, rather than fly it back across the Atlantic to Latin America, they simply burnt it, treating it like a used Coke can.
The terrain of northern Mali is stark desert, and a haven for Islamist insurgents with close ties to Al Qaeda. Initially, investigators thought the plane had crashed in the desert on take off.There is growing concerns that Al Qaeda in Africa and Latin American drug cartels are... more
Venezuelan authorities on Saturday said they have captured a prominent Colombian drug trafficker wanted by the United States.
U.S. authorities had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest of Salomon Camacho Mora.
Venezuelan intelligence and counter-drug agents captured the 65-year-old Colombian during the past week in the city of Valencia, the state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported. It was not immediately clear what steps led up to the arrest.Venezuelan authorities on Saturday said they have captured a prominent Colombian drug... more
David Pinsky aka Dr. Drew, who is best known as VH1’s reality show doctor in “Celebrity Rehab” and “Sober House”, apparently, has one secret and dirty cocaine abuse past that has been revealed by two former colleagues at LA radio station KROQ.
In collaboration with the National Service of customs (SNDJ) and Scotland Yard, the police of Toulouse dismantled a network of cocaine trafficking that operated between Barcelona and London.
Said organisation managed the transportation of the drugs from the Dordogne to the suburbs of London. The dismantling of this network was made possible after a custom check on the motorway between Narbonne and Toulouse in May 2009, in which custom officers discovered 540.000 Euros in cash inside a vehicle with a British number plate. The British driver was arrested.
(Translation by FLARE Communication and Information department)In collaboration with the National Service of customs (SNDJ) and Scotland Yard, the... more
The image of cocaine as a "safe party drug" is a myth that must be dispelled, say UK experts, as a study shows the drug is linked to 3% of sudden deaths.
LINK : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8454652.stmThe image of cocaine as a "safe party drug" is a myth that must be... more
Dutch authorities have seized more than a tonne of cocaine hidden among containers of whisky on a cargo shipment from Jamaica, their largest seizure ever from the island nation.
The 1,100 kilos of the drug, with a street value of more than 30 million euros, has already been destroyed. "We've had bigger seizures but not from Jamaica," a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor said.
A special team comprised of seaport police, customs, the financial crimes investigation service and the public prosecutor's office found the container last week in Rotterdam, Europe's biggest port, they said in a statement on Tuesday.Dutch authorities have seized more than a tonne of cocaine hidden among containers of... more
The Clueless star, who died mysteriously on Dec. 20 at age 32, owed more money than her Beverly Hills home is worth. The 8,000 square foot mansion is now occupied by her mother, Sharon, and her husband of 2 1/2 years, Simon Monjack.Brittany Murphy died virtually broke – and her financial mess has triggered a... more
Wild wild Charlie Sheen and his wife went on an all-night Yuletide cocaine binge before Charlie went ballistic resulting in his arrest after the crazed Two and a Half Men star allegedly attacked his terrified spouse with a knife and threatened to kill her.
Sources close to the couple gave The ENQUIRER an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the Christmas Day fracas that left badly shaken Brooke Mueller fearing for her life.
That's according to US authorities. Actually, the language they used is "unholy alliance". Catchy.
Three West African men accused of ties to al Qaeda were extradited to New York in December on drug trafficking and terrorism charges.
It was the first time U.S. authorities established a link suggesting al Qaeda is funding itself in part by providing security for drug smugglers in West Africa.
"As suggested by the recent arrest of three alleged al Qaeda operatives, the expansion of cocaine trafficking through West Africa has provided the venue for an unholy alliance between South American narco-terrorists and Islamic extremists," Bergman said in an interview over the weekend.
In a week when it's all Al Qaeda all the time (this is what, the third time I've written about them already and it's only Tuesday?) the DEA doesn't want to be left out. We've seen before that Africa is the new transit line for cocaine to Europe (as Christof Putzel reported in Vanguard: Cocaine Mafia) and we've seen a few more connections this week between Africa and Al Qaeda. But if the US government is right on this - could it be a potentially dangerous alignment of militant groups? Joshua Keating at FP Passport is skeptical:
...[A]s I noted last month, the three men arrested (whose self-proclaimed links to al Qaeda have yet to be proven) last month, were not caught making a deal with FARC, they were making a deal with an undercover DEA agent that they thought was representing FARC. The ringleader of the group, Harouna Toure, did boast to the agent about smuggling "two tons of hashish to Tunisia" and the "human smuggling of Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian subjects into Spain," but these wouldn't involve South American naro-terrorists. Is there any other evidence that FARC and al Qaeda are actually taking advantage of the "venue" they've been provided?
Keating also pointed out that Matthew Cordell of UN Dispatch gave an awesome name to the whole affair: FARQaeda. Now, that's catchy.
Singer Whitney Houston, who is well known for “cracking” under pressure, may have fallen off the wagon and start doing drugs again, which could compromise the success of her comeback with the album “I Look To You”.
As the Mexican drug lords use increasingly ruthless tactics in the battle for control of the cocaine smuggling routes. Assassinations, street battles and police corruption have become an everyday occurrence in Mexico. Laura Ling investigates the situation the honest politicians and journalists are faced with, as well as witnessing first hand the brutal extent the drug lords will go to.
Mexican Drug War, Mon 18th Jan, Sky 183 and Virgin 155
More hard-hitting documentaries coming up on Mondays here:
Join the group to get regular updates on our Mondays at 10 documentaries.As the Mexican drug lords use increasingly ruthless tactics in the battle for control... more
