#drug-trafficking

#drug-trafficking

An investigation into a man suspected of selling drugs out of his car in East Oakland culminated in his arrest Thursday, as well as the seizure of nearly $475,000, more than 25 pounds of heroin and half a dozen handguns, authorities said. The Alameda County Narcotics Task Force opened the investigation after fielding numerous complaints from residents, according to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. Detectives identified the suspect and obtained warrants for him, his residence and associated properties.

A British grandmother facing the death penalty in Bali for smuggling a large haul of cocaine was repatriated to the UK from Indonesia on Friday, officials said. Lindsay Sandiford, 69, was sent back along with fellow British national Shahab Shahabadi, who was serving a life sentence for drug offences. The plane taking them from Bali to London left at around 12.30am on Friday, I Nyoman Gede Surya Mataram, Indonesia's acting deputy for immigration and corrections coordination, said.

Law enforcement officials on Tuesday announced the arrests of five people, with felony warrants issued against two more, in a drug trafficking ring operating from Mami-Dade County to Port St. Lucie, with seizures of 2,262 grams of cocaine, fentanyl and other illegal drugs. "We're going to keep blowing up these networks right here in the state," said Attorney General James Uthmeier, comparing Tuesday's news with the Trump Administration's ongoing military strikes against suspected drug runners in international waters off South America.

That peaceful arrest during which smiles were even exchanged was the culmination of months of negotiations between U.S. authorities and one of Colombia's most powerful drug traffickers. He was accused of flooding drug routes with more than 900 tons of cocaine and laundering billions of dollars. The scene, recounted by Colombian historian Petrit Baquero, marked the demise of Julio Lozano Pirateque, alias Patricia.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday on his social media account X that the U.S. military had launched three extrajudicial attacks on four vessels sailing in the Pacific on Monday. Fourteen people were killed in the operation, and there was one survivor. Hegseth claimed, without providing evidence, that the vessels were transporting drugs and that their crew members, killed in the operation, belonged to designated terrorist organizations. He did not specify which organizations.

Despite allegedly flushing an unknown quantity of methamphetamine and heroin down his toilet during a police raid, a local resident has been charged with being a drug dealer, court records show. The 51-year-old San Leandro resident was charged with possessing heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and marijuana for sale, and with being a prohibited person in possession of ammunition, court records show.

The United States' campaign of extrajudicial military attacks against alleged drug trafficking speedboats continues unabated. On Friday, the Pentagon announced a new strike against one of these vessels in international waters in the Caribbean, in which six people were killed. It is the first such strike in the Caribbean since Washington confirmed two attacks in the Pacific on Wednesday, which also brought the U.S. military campaign against the cartels in the Americas to those waters.

SOLEDAD Three California prisoners with alleged ties to organized crime are suspected of murdering an Aryan Brotherhood member at Salinas Valley State Prison, authorities announced Thursday. Todd Fox Morgan, 57, of Santa Clara County, was killed with improvised weapons by Todd Givens, 56, Ray Waldron, 51, and Robert England, 61, on a prison yard a little before 10 a.m. Thursday, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The Central Intelligence Agency is providing the bulk of the intelligence used to carry out the controversial lethal air strikes by the Trump administration against small, fast-going boats in the Caribbean Sea suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela, according to three sources familiar with the operations. Experts say the agency's central role means much of the evidence used to select which alleged smugglers to kill on the open sea will almost certainly remain secret.

Donald Trump has escalated tensions between Washington and one of its closest Latin American allies, declaring the US will slash assistance to Colombia and enact tariffs on its exports because its president, Gustavo Petro, does nothing to stop drug production. Trump referred to Petro as an illegal drug leader in a post on the Truth Social platform and warned that Petro better close up drug operations or the United States will close them up for him, and it won't be done nicely.

On President Donald Trump's orders, the U.S. military last month began carrying out a series of strikes in the Caribbean, blowing up boats suspected of moving drugs and killing a total of at least 27 people so far. (Multiple news outlets reported that a strike yesterday was believed to be the first one to leave survivors.) Although Trump has called the dead "narcoterrorists," his administration has not provided good evidence to support that characterization.