This was a fantastic seizure by our colleagues at Border Force, and taking this amount of cocaine out of circulation will have deprived the organised criminals involved of millions in profits.
The investigation kicked into high gear after firefighters responding to a car fire discovered Mbolo-Isac inside a blue Toyota RAV4. Surveillance video shows someone pounding on the driver's window before two people chase the vehicle. As detectives canvassed the area and pulled additional footage, the NYPD released a photo of the man they were seeking, while local coverage highlighted distinctive tattoos and multiple prior arrests as part of the public appeal.
The drugs were stored inside a pair of backpacks at Palma's apartment, prosecutors said. One was hidden in a laundry hamper in Palma's bedroom closet. It contained more than 400 grams of methamphetamine, 200-plus grams of a mixture containing fentanyl, other controlled substances and digital scales. A loaded gun was found in the same pack.
This highly organised gang thought they were outsmarting the police and prison authorities. What they didn't know is they were subject to sustained specialist surveillance by Met officers. All seven men admitted their roles in a serious, organised, and prolific enterprise to supply Class B and C drugs, and conveying list A and B articles into prisons.
These semi-submersible boats have been used for years by drug gangs to smuggle cocaine from South and Central America. In more recent months as the price of cocaine has plummeted, gangs have changed tactics: instead of letting the boats sink on delivery, they have started to reuse the vessels, setting up a refuelling platform at sea and sending the boats back so they can make as many journeys as possible.
According to the annual ranking by the Mexican organization Citizen Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, which compiles a list of the 50 most dangerous cities in the world, six Ecuadorian cities will appear among the top 10 in 2025. Babahoyo appears on the list for the first time as the second most violent, with 166 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants.
A former LAPD officer was able to fly in and out of the country several times and live freely in Southern California for more than a year despite an active warrant for his arrest in the 2015 killing of a homeless man, according to his defense attorney and L.A. County prosecutors leading his pending murder case. A grand jury indicted Clifford Proctor, 60, in September 2024, after the district attorney's office reopened an investigation into the shooting death of Brendon Glenn.
Mexico has sent another 37 alleged members of Mexican criminal organisations to the United States, the country's security minister said, amid US President Donald Trump's threat of ground attacks against drug cartels in the region. The handover of alleged drug cartel members on Tuesday is the third major transfer to the US in the past year and brings the total number of suspects transferred to 92.
A federal judge on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to make arrangements to allow some of the Venezuelan migrants deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador to return to the U.S. at the government's expense. The case has been a legal flashpoint in the administration's sweeping immigration crackdown. It started in March after President Donald Trump invoked the 18th century Alien Enemies Act to send Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members to a mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT.
The US military on Thursday said it killed two people in a strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal drugs in the eastern Pacific. "Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations," the US Southern Command posted on X. It added that "no US military forces were harmed" in the operation. The statement did not offer any evidence that the boat pictured was actually carrying narcotics before it was blown up in the attack.