“We have a problem”: Surging cocaine violence has Uruguay clamouring for DEA help
GABRIEL STARGARDTER and LUCINDA ELLIOTT, of Reuters, report…
Cocaine market is booming as meth trafficking spreads, UN report says
Vienna, Austria Reuters Cocaine demand and supply are booming worldwide and methamphetamine trafficking is expanding beyond established markets, including in Afghanistan where the drug is now being produced, a United Nations report said on Sunday. Coca bush cultivation and total cocaine production were at record highs in 2021, the most recent year for which data […]
Ecuador turns surfeit of seized cocaine into concrete
Quito, EcuadorReuters Huge quantities of seized drugs in Ecuador are presenting the Andean country with an unlikely new construction material: cocaine. Under President Guillermo Lasso, a conservative ex-banker, Ecuador has ramped up efforts to fight gangs who use the country as a transit point for shipping cocaine to the United States and Europe. Workers carry […]
Peru’s Boluarte vows to crush “narcoterrorism” after deadly police ambush
Lima, PeruReuters Peruvian President Dina Boluarte pledged a crackdown on “narcoterrorism” on Monday, speaking at the funeral of seven police officers gunned down in an area where drug traffickers operate in alliance with remnants of Shining Path militants. The officers were ambushed on Saturday as they traveled through the remote Andean and jungle region known […]
Colombia’s potential cocaine production at record high, UN says
Bogota, ColombiaReuters Potential production of cocaine in Colombia and the area sown with coca, the drug’s base ingredient, rose last year to their highest levels in two decades of monitoring, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said on Thursday. Possible output rose 14 per cent to 1,400 metric tons and the area sown […]
Death and deforestation: Cocaine trade adds to Amazon’s woes
ANDRE CABETTE FABIO, of Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how the murders of Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips have stoked concern in Brazil about links between drugs smugglers and environmental crime…
“We want justice”: Argentines vent anger after adulterated cocaine kills 22
Tres de Febrero, Argentina Reuters At least 22 people have died in Argentina and more than 80 others have been hospitalised, many on ventilators, after consuming cocaine suspected of being adulterated, local government officials said on Thursday. The cases are clustered around several towns in Buenos Aires province, the country’s most populous and home to […]