drug smuggling

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Top Afghan Airline Hauling Opium: US

US military bans contracts with Kam Air

(Newser) - Afghanistan's leading private airline has been transporting opium in "bulk" on civilian flights, the US military says. Central Command has now banned Kam Air from any military contracts, marking the first time the military has slapped drug-related penalties on a major Afghan firm, the Wall Street Journal notes....

Bali Sentences Brit Granny to Death Over Cocaine

She says gang forced her to smuggle the drug

(Newser) - An Indonesian court sentenced a British grandmother to death today for smuggling cocaine worth $2.5 million in her suitcase onto the resort island of Bali—even though prosecutors had sought only a 15-year sentence. Lindsay Sandiford, 56, wept when judges handed down the sentence and declined to speak to...

Smugglers Launch Pot Over Border With Cannon

But a citizen finds them first

(Newser) - The catapult didn't work so well. Nor did driving over the border fence with a makeshift ramp. Now Mexican drug smugglers have resorted to cannons, authorities say. Smugglers used a pneumatic cannon to shoot containers of pot over the border into an Arizona field, reports the Yuma Sun . It...

Man Busted With $250K of Meth in Fake Snickers: Feds

He's nabbed at LA airport heading to Japan

(Newser) - A California man was nabbed aiming to smuggle $250,000 worth of methamphetamine into Japan in packages that looked like Snickers bars, say authorities. Rogelio Mauricio Harris, 41, of Long Beach, was busted as he was about to board a plane in Los Angeles. Federal agents discovered what looked like...

US Takes Drug War to Africa
 US Takes Drug War to Africa 
Jul 22, 2012 7:45 AM CDT

US Takes Drug War to Africa

Critics say United States just playing 'Whac-A-Mole,' risks blowback

(Newser) - Latin America has long been the United States' focus on the war on drugs. But increasingly that war is reaching Africa, too, as US forces are training counternarcotic squads in Ghana and are looking to start similar programs in Nigeria and Kenya, reports the New York Times . In addition, the...

'Extraordinary' US-Mexico Drug Tunnel Found

Arizona tunnel was built by professional engineers, DEA says

(Newser) - One of the biggest and best-engineered cross-border drug tunnels yet has been found by drug enforcement agents in the US. The 755-foot tunnel linked a warehouse in southwestern Arizona with a derelict ice-making plant behind a strip club in Mexico, reports the Los Angeles Times . It could only be accessed...

US Navy Hauls in 10 Tons of Pot
 US Navy Hauls in 10 Tons of Pot 
Jun 20, 2012 1:30 AM CDT

US Navy Hauls in 10 Tons of Pot

Smugglers dump load when spotted off Mexican coast

(Newser) - Smugglers dumped at least 10 tons of marijuana in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico after they were spotted by troops on an aircraft carrier, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune . Starboard lookouts on the USS Nimitz carrier watched two suspicious boats as sailors started dumping black plastic bags...

How Mexico's Biggest Drug Cartel Looks Like Facebook

Joaquín Guzmán runs Sinaloa like a legitimate business

(Newser) - Joaquín Guzmán is bigger than Pablo Escobar ever was. The CEO of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Guzmán is behind up to half the drugs that enter the US from Mexico. At 55, the short and stocky drug-runner with a third-grade education has become a driven, obsessed entrepreneur...

55-Year-Old Housewife Arrested Over Cocaine Stash

Lindsay Sandiford traveling from Thailand to Bali when customs found drugs

(Newser) - A 55-year-old British woman has been arrested after allegedly trying to smuggle more than 10 pounds of cocaine from Bangkok into Bali, reports the BBC . Indonesian customs officials say the drugs were found in the lining of Lindsay Sandiford's bags as they went through an X-ray screening on May...

Firefight May Blow Cover on DEA Role in Honduras

Mayor says agents mistook villagers for drug smugglers, killing 4

(Newser) - DEA agents in "commando-style" units have been quietly helping Honduran police go after drug smugglers, but a firefight this month may make it a lot harder to keep the operation low-key, reports the New York Times . A local mayor says a helicopter with DEA agents and Honduran cops fired...

Cops: LAX Screeners Let Drugs Go Through

Four TSA agents arrested, accused of taking bribes

(Newser) - The feds busted four TSA agents for allegedly helping drug traffickers smuggle suitcases packed with cocaine, marijuana, and meth through security at Los Angeles International Airport. The screeners are accused of accepting up to $2,400 in bribes for allowing the drugs to pass through X-ray machines and checkpoints, reports...

Guatemala Prez: Regulate the 'War on Drugs' to Death

Pérez Molina says experience proves drugs health issue, not criminal

(Newser) - Guatemala's President Otto Pérez Molina, due to his old job as head of intelligence services of the army, has been at the forefront of his country's drug war for more than 20 years. But despite "decades of big arrests and the seizure of tons of drugs,...

Customs Finds Record 180 Heroin Pellets in Woman

TSA noticed tight stomach during pat-down

(Newser) - A woman arrested at Washington's Dulles International Airport has set a record that nobody who values their life would attempt to beat, customs officials say. The 52-year-old woman had swallowed 180 pellets of heroin, containing nearly five pounds of the drug, reports the Los Angeles Times . The woman was...

US Suspects Afghan Air Force of Drug Running

Investigators say US-funded force has been ferrying illegal weapons, too

(Newser) - The US military and the DEA are both investigating the Afghan Air Force, over allegations that it has been using its aircraft—most of which were funded with US cash—to ferry narcotics and illegal weapons around the country, officials tell the Wall Street Journal . Senior AAF and Afghan government...

28 Pounds of Cocaine Seized on Cruise Ship in SF

Customs officers bust three on Australia-bound liner

(Newser) - It was supposed to be the cruise of a lifetime—around the Caribbean to Hawaii and onward to Australia. But three passengers who didn't make it past San Francisco look set to spend a big chunk of their lifetimes in jail. Customs officials seized close to 28 pounds of...

Feds Find Another Huge Drug Tunnel

It connected warehouses in Mexico and California

(Newser) - Another massive tunnel used for drug smuggling that stretches across the US-Mexican border is out of operation. The subterranean passageway connected a warehouse in Tijuana to a warehouse in San Diego and is the latest and most significant among a string of hidden drug-smuggling corridors located by authorities, reports AP...

San Diego Tunnel Yields 17 Tons of Pot

Cross-border tunnel linked US site to Tijuana warehouse

(Newser) - Who needs drug mules when you have drug moles? Federal agents seized a total of 17 tons of marijuana after discovering a tunnel linking warehouses in Tijuana and San Diego, the Los Angeles Times reports. The tunnel, believed to be the work of the Sinaloa cartel was the length of...

Feds Make Historic Cocaine Bust in Caribbean

Interception, seizure off Honduras coast a first for Coast Guard

(Newser) - The Coast Guard, working with FBI dive teams and the Honduran navy, has recovered 7.5 tons of cocaine worth $180 million from a drug submarine scuttled by smugglers off the coast of Honduras. The interception and seizure is the first of its kind in the Caribbean, the Miami Herald...

US Busts 7 Would-Be Drug Runners for Taliban

Men also tried to sell weapons, face extradition to US

(Newser) - The US is slapping seven men with charges of trying to peddle weapons and drugs to the Taliban, Reuters reports. In a global sting, agents posing as Taliban operatives arrested five men in Liberia and and two in Romania after the men went through on what they believed were legitimate...

Drug Catapult Seized at Mexican Border

Border fence pot-flingers foiled

(Newser) - Mexican drug smugglers trying to get marijuana across the border have resorted to medieval methods. A pot-flinging catapult was seized after National Guardsmen in Arizona spotted it being used other side of the border and alerted Mexican authorities, AP reports. The smugglers got away but left behind their vehicle, 35...

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