Tag: drug trafficking

Nervous when boarding a flight to Germany, an Italian national, was arrested while trying to leave Costa Rica with 197 ovules of cocaine inside his body. Following his arrest, the man was transferred to a medical center. The detention was made at the Juan Santamaria international...

(Insightcrime.org) Twice in less than 40 days, authorities in Argentina have found marijuana hidden in ambulances, illustrating the creativity with which drug traffickers are attempting to slip under the radar. Eighty-five kilograms of marijuana were found on May 24 in a government emergency services ambulance...

Nicaragua claims to be the safest country in Latin America says a report by the Latin American Herald due to its sophisticated “Containment Wall” public safety strategy. The report says that Nicaragua's capital city deputy police chief Fernando Borge told EFE, “We have a comprehensive...

(Insightcrime.org) An annual report by the US State Department on international drug trafficking suggests that Latin America continues to struggle with developing effective strategies to combat criminal activities due to a variety of factors ranging from corruption to shifts in regional drug dynamics. The annual...

Colombia's Caracol television program Testigo Directo (Direct Witness) put the finger in the wound after interviewing months ago a coordinator of the mafia of that country, that indicated that Costa Rica is one of the paradises of the narco-traffickers. The journalists wondered what is becoming...

The Costa Rican flag rose Tuesday in Baltimore on a refurbished former U.S. Coast Guard patrol boat, one of two outdated vessels the United States is donating to the country to help fight drug and human trafficking. Costa Rican Coast Guard crews are undergoing ten...

(History.com) Drug trafficking in the United States dates back to the 19th century. From opium to marijuana to cocaine, a variety of substances have been illegally imported, sold and distributed throughout U.S. history, often with devastating consequences. EARLY OPIUM TRADE IN THE UNITED STATES During the...

(Prensa Latina) The number of women jailed in Mexico for crimes associated with drug trafficking increased in recent years. The Equis, Justice for Women organization, presented a report on this issue, in which it warns that between 2014 and 2016, the number of women incarceration...

A US$2 million dollar two-story mansion that is under construction, standing out in a middle-class neighborhood of La Guacima, Alajuela, is the most expensive asset seized from drug traffickers. The residence, which resembles a large hacienda, lacks the finishing touches, is located just one kilometer...

The alleged leader of the Akl brothers criminal organization has been deported to Isreal, after being captured in downtown Escazu about two weeks ago. The immigration service confirmed the deportation of Lita Jake, an Israeli national, who entered Costa Rica in 2011 and applied for...

TODAY COLOMBIA via Insightcrime.org - In an annual designation of major drug trafficking and producing nations, US President Donald Trump broke with decades of precedent by calling out the anti-narcotics efforts of Colombia, potentially complicating cooperation with one of the United States' closest anti-drug...

(Insightcrime) An Italian crime boss and one of Italy's most wanted criminals has been arrested in Uruguay after decades on the run, highlighting another case in which an international criminal has sought refuge in the country. On September 3, authorities arrested Rocco Morabito -- the...

Q COSTA RICA - 74 homicides in the last 34 days, for an average of 2 murders per day, according to statistics from the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ). The violence of the past month brings the total number of homicides to 380 (as of...

The alert went out on Friday, 26-year-old model, Isamara Alejandra Villalta Solano and her 17-year-old brother, Kendall Gonzalez, had gone missing. Posts and reposts on the social media called for help in locating the two. But that all came to a tragic end for the model,...

"In the past decade, when I came to work here (Forensic Medicine), 12 years ago, we had homicides where the bodies had one to two gunshot wounds. Now, the bodies we see have up to 20 gunshot wounds." That is the word of Maikel Vargas,...

After a stint of one year, three months and some days in a Nicaraguan jail, the Costa Rican model, Adriana Corella, has shown on the social networks she is recovering her life. Accused of money laundering and then after being tried, convicted to four years...

Q24N (Insightcrime.org) One of Honduras' most powerful and politically-connected business tycoons, Yani Rosenthal, has pleaded guilty to a money laundering charge in the United States, suggesting the possibility that he could provide information on other Honduran elites involved in criminal activities. Rosenthal pleaded guilty July...

The Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) hypothesize the son-in-law of the massacred couple and their two sons on Friday in Monte Plata de La Cruz, Guanacaste, was the target of the attack. That is the strongest hypotheses judicial investigators are working on, sources close to...

(InsightCrime) An increase in domestic drug sales and consumption in Costa Rica appears to be fueling rising homicides, but authorities have tended to blame foreign crime groups rather than focusing on internal factors behind increasing violence. Attorney General Jorge Chavarría recently blamed spikes in homicide...

Q COSTA RICA - "Costa Rica is like never before, I am not the one to say it, the numbers do: Costa Rica has the highest homicide rates in its history." That opinion is from Michael Soto, acting deputy director of the Organismo de Investigación...

Q COSTA RICA - Four men were killed on Thursday in a four-hour period in Pavas, Paso Ancho and Tibas, in what authorities believe is pay-back, acts of revenge, linked to organized crime and the illegal drug trade. In Paso Ancho, the bodies were 150...

(Insightcrime.org) A UN official stated that Central American gangs are strengthening their ties with transnational drug trafficking groups, in some cases using the dark web, raising questions about the potentially evolving role of Central American gangs in the transnational drug trade. Amado Philip de Andrés,...

Who would know more about police strategy and tactics other than a former head of the nation's police force? And that is possible why the reason why drug cartels wanted him. And so did the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ), who had their sights...

Q COSTA RICA - A change in the business model of narcos - drug traffickers - has resulted in an oversupply of illegal drugs in Costa Rica, making substances such as synthetic drugs, crack, cocaine and marijuana more accessible, especially to young people. Authorities in...

Guatemala’s most influential newspaper, Prensa Libre, published a strong criticism of the United States’ recent comments about fighting drugs. The editorial, published this Friday, June 16, was a strongly worded critique of the Trump administration’s contradictory approach to fighting the “War on Drugs.” Vice President Mike Pence, it said,...

(Q24N) Insightcrime.org - Officials believe a coca plantation recently discovered in Honduras was set up by Colombians, suggesting a criminal migration that could potentially not only import the drug production businesses to Central America but also the coca curse that has long ravaged Colombia. An...

The United States has asked Guatemala to extradite former Vice President of Guatemala Roxana Baldetti for drug trafficking charges, according to the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry. Baldetti is currently under “preventive detention” while officials sort out the charges of corruption against her, which date back to...

Q COSTA RICA - Costa Rica's ambassador to Washington, Roman Macaya Hayes, said the budget cuts planned by the Donald Trump government for 2018 do not compromise the cooperation promised by the United States to Costa Rica to combat drug trafficking and organized crime. On...

Q COSTA RICA - Men, mostly young and inexperienced in the handling of firearms, are behind the large number of homicides related to narco or drug trafficking occurring in Costa Rica, according to the Organismo de Investigación Judicial (OIJ) data, based on the profile...

The street sale of crack and marijuana has become such a lucrative business in Costa Rica, that controlling the streets is the cause of many of the country's murders. This is the determination of the Organismo de Investigacion Judicial (OIJ) analysis of the fundamental reason...

Q COSTA RICA - The two Lebanese brothers, who on Monday one was shot and killed by assassins and the other caught fleeing the country, were known to Costa Rican authorities, so says the head of the country's intelligence, the Dirección de Inteligencia y...