Worldcrunch
The crisis of gang violence in Ecuador is being driven by international drug trafficking, a major illicit economy that exists because of the ban on drugs. It and other Latin American countries are paying a high price for this unjust ban, and must unite to call for its end.
Ecuador’s President has called in the army to fight the country’s rampant drug gangs. Sadly he can at best sever the fingertips of a criminal hydra, as big as the world itself.
The capture of Colombia’s most wanted drug trafficker shows that in spite of the cartels’ resilience, the state can and will fight crime at the highest levels, writes top Bogotá daily El Espectador.
The war on drugs continues to feed the flames of violence in Colombia, even in this so-called ‘post-conflict’ period.
Its long-time leader awaits sentencing in the U.S, but the international drug empire Mexico’s Joaquin Guzman helped build is going strong. Who will be the next kingpin?
Given the harm mobsters like Pablo Escobar inflicted on Colombia’s image and society, how have they kept such a prominent place in the national culture 25 years after his death?
Medellín authorities want tourists and youngsters to be mindful of the victims of drug trafficking, not view mobsters as merely rogues or ‘Robin Hoods.’
-Essay- BOGOTÁ — I always had mixed feelings about the Netflix series Narcos. The first two seasons were based on the life and times of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and the show has just released a third season. Initially, I did not want to watch a series depicting what I had watched on the […]
Repatriating people like Ismael Arciniegas, a Colombian executed in China for drug smuggling, could create a perverse incentive.
Gangs extort at leisure in the El Salvadoran capital, making a mockery of police and the state. Could this again happen in Colombian cities like MedellÃn?
Juan Pablo Escobar has dug up many memories about his notorious father, the late Colombian gangster Pablo Escobar. He is conscious of the crimes, but also that his was a loving father.
Justice is twisted in a country where a man is jailed for stealing candy from a store, while gangsters and corrupt politicians are always able to negotiate prison reductions.
TIGRE — Is there a place they haven’t thought of yet to hide drugs? How about a meat pie? Argentine police have uncovered a so-called “narcopizzeria” in the district of Tigre in the northern outskirts of Buenos Aires, which supplied customers with cocaine hidden in “pizzas, pies and chicken.” A report in Clarín showed pictures […]
Though reports say Peru has surpassed Colombia as world’s top source of cocaine, it has not faced the same kind of violence. Is Lima turning a blind eye toward drug trafficking?
EL NORTE (Mexico), CNN (USA), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch MEXICO CITY – At least 17 people were killed in a Northern Mexico prison on Tuesday, reports El Norte. Eleven inmates and six guards died in a shootout as the prisoners attempted to escape the prison through tunnels, reports CNN. “The inmates started to shoot with […]
MEXICO CITY – More blood and more death. Mexico’s drug wars seem to be getting crueler and more sadistic by the year. Of all the players involved, probably no one is more responsible for the increasing violence than Miguel Angel Treviño, a.k.a. ‘Z-40,’ who has just taken over control of the notorious Los Zetas cartel […]
-Analysis- LIMA – The negotiations that are set to begin formally in October are by no means the first attempt to demobilize members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and incorporate the guerilla organization into the political process. There’s no guarantee, therefore, that these talks will succeed where others have failed. And yet […]