What happened in Marseille is a crime meant to instill fear, a crime aimed at the Republic and the state. That is why, starting January 1, we will implement a system similar to the one we use against terrorism, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez announced on Thursday, during a visit to the city, where he was accompanied by Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin.
escaped from under the noses of the soldiers guarding him. Zhang, an alleged drug trafficker, managed to get to Cuba and then reportedly all the way to Russia only to be turned back. At the end of October, the Cuban government announced that it had arrested him. The same day he was flown back to Mexico and extradited straight to the US.
Brett Maxwell, a 51-year-old apartment manager, was arrested on suspicion of possessing firearms, assault weapons and narcotics for sale after the Santa Clara County Gun Violence Task Force located 19 firearms and "several pounds" of methamphetamine and heroin in his apartment and storage unit, according to a news release from the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office. The cache of weapons also included explosives and ghost guns - weapons manufactured without serial numbers - and three of the firearms were assault weapons, prosecutors added.
A former Olympic snowboarder who allegedly became the head of a billion-dollar drug trafficking organization has been charged with ordering the murder of a witness against him earlier this year, according to an indictment unsealed Wednesday by federal prosecutors in Los Angeles. Authorities said Ryan Wedding, a Canadian who is on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, issued an order to kill a witness in a 2024 federal narcotics case against him.
In the US alone, 12% of the population have reported using injectable weight loss drugs, such as Wegovy/Ozempic, Zepbound and Saxenda, over the past year. That's more than double the number recorded in early 2024. In European countries, demand is also on the rise: In the UK, for example, a survey found that 21% of the public had accessed an online or in-person pharmacy in the past year to obtain weight loss medication.
Three men were arrested Monday for allegedly offering to pay $100,000 in cash to a juror at the Brooklyn drug trial of former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic, leading a federal judge to abruptly dismiss the jury as it was about to hear opening statements. An anonymous jury will be chosen when Gogic's trial resumes after a 30-day break, said John Marzulli, a spokesperson for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. Judge Joan Azrack scheduled a Dec. 17 conference.
LOS ANGELES A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer was sentenced to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to working with Mexican traffickers to bring drugs into the U.S., officials said Thursday. Diego Bonillo, 30, pleaded guilty in July to multiple charges, including conspiracy to import controlled substances such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. As part of his plea deal, he admitted to using his position to allow drug-filled cars into the U.S. from Mexico without inspection.
We will have the collaboration of several international agencies, including, of course, the DEA. Because drug trafficking and terrorism are not the problem of a single nation, Oviedo said Wednesday at an official event. Oviedo focused primarily on the coca-producing region known as the tropics of Cochabamba, or Chapare, a political stronghold of Morales and an area with minimal regulation over coca leaf production. Local coca growers have warned that they will not allow the international agency to set up operations there.
Officials in Colombia say the country will continue to share intelligence with international agencies combatting drug trafficking, just days after President Gustavo Petro said he was suspending such collaboration with the United States over attacks on vessels in international waters. Colombian Defence Minister Pedro Arnulfo Sanchez said in a social media post on Thursday that Petro had provided clear instructions to maintain a continuous flow of information with international agencies working on drug trafficking.
Those crimes included putting his live-in nanny in a headlock, grabbing her breast and forcing her hand onto her genitals in February; menacing a nurse at Mount Sinai South Hospital in January by swinging an IV pole at her and threatening to fing kill her; menacing and grabbing the arm of a congregant of a synagogue in May; and repeatedly evading bridge tolls while driving a Lamborghini and Ferrari.
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.
Two British drug convicts including death row prisoner Lindsay Sandiford were repatriated from Indonesia on Friday, as part of a deal to return them on humanitarian grounds. Indonesia has some of the world's toughest drug laws, but has moved to release more than half a dozen high-profile detainees in the last year. Sandiford, 69, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs.
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 that the U.S. military has carried out strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean on four boats accused of carrying drugs, killing 14 people and leaving one survivor in the deadliest single day since the Trump administration began its divisive campaign against drug trafficking in the waters off South America. It was the first time multiple strikes were announced in a single day as the pace of the attacks has escalated.
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.
