Latest Illegal drug trade Stories
By Michael PerrySYDNEY -- Young Australians have been making the pilgrimage to the Indonesian resort island of Bali for decades, lured by the cheap cost of living, tropical sun and beaches and exotic Asian culture.Cheap drugs, especially marijuana, have been another lure since the Bali hippie/surfer trail first opened in the 1970s. Early Australian surf movies featured naked hippies on Kuta Beach smoking marijuana as a reflection of Bali's free spirit.Today, two Australians sit in a Bali jail...
By Selcuk GokolukISTANBUL -- Emre is a successful university student with a promising future.He enjoys privileges most Turkish youngsters can only dream of. He has a car, takes overseas trips, and goes to a private college. And like a growing number of his peers, Emre regularly takes drugs."It gives you a different point of view. You start to see the world from another angle," said Emre, who is in his early 20s and based in Istanbul. He declined to give his surname.Statistics point...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Colombian drug dealers smuggled heroin into the United States by surgically implanting the powerful drug into puppies, the Drug Enforcement Administration said on Wednesday.Special Agent-in-Charge John Gilbride of the DEA's New York Field Division said in a statement that 21 Colombian nationals were arrested on Wednesday for smuggling over 20 kilograms (44 lb) of heroin, worth $20 million at street prices, into the United States.Among the methods used to transport the...
LONDON (Reuters) - Babyshambles lead singer Pete Doherty has been arrested on suspicion of possessing illegal drugs, just days after pleading guilty in a London court to possessing heroin and cocaine, police said on Monday. The 26-year-old, best known for an on-off relationship with British supermodel Kate Moss, was stopped by police early on Saturday and arrested for alleged possession of class A and class C drugs. He was also suspected of driving under the influence of illicit...
By Tim GaynorPINO GORDO, Mexico -- Mexican Indians have grown maize, worshiped nature and lived by the light of pine torches in the canyons of the western Sierra Madre mountains for centuries. But this way of life is abruptly changing.Now armed drug gangs are forcing them to plant opium poppies and marijuana in their ancestral lands, which lie in a notorious region dubbed Mexico's 'Golden Triangle' of drug trafficking.The rugged point where the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Sinaloa meet is...
By Mica Rosenberg GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemala, a major transit point for illegal drugs to the United States, needs more U.S. help to trap cocaine gangs and stop them from gaining political power, its interior minister warned on Tuesday. Carlos Vielmann said the Central American nation was under attack from drug barons and drew a parallel with Colombia in the 1980s, when top cartels declared war on the government. "We can see effects in Guatemala similar to what happened in...
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore will stick to hanging as its method of execution, the government said on Monday, less than two weeks before the planned hanging of an Australian drug smuggler. Lawyers for Nguyen Tuong Van -- who is due to be hanged on December 2 following his conviction for drug smuggling -- earlier on Monday asked the Australian government to take the case to the United Nations International Court of Justice in a last-ditch bid to stop the execution. "We had...
CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday troops had raided a hidden airfield and captured 2.5 tonnes of cocaine at a time when he is under fire from Washington for failing to fight drug trafficking. Chavez said National Guard soldiers raided a clandestine airstrip in a remote eastern region where they found cocaine packages aboard a U.S.-registered aircraft and more bales of the drug buried nearby. "Part of the drugs were found in the inside a ......
By Jason Webb BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Cocaine is becoming more expensive on U.S. streets in a sign that a $3 billion aid program to Colombia is finally bringing results and reducing illegal drug imports, the White House drugs czar said on Thursday. The price of cocaine on U.S. streets rose by 19 percent from February to September, hitting about $170 per pure gram, according to data published by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Higher prices probably mean...
MIAMI (Reuters) - Police from the United States, Spain and Canada said on Tuesday they had dismantled an international drug-smuggling ring and arrested Canada's top drug kingpin in Spain over a shipment of one ton of cocaine. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Miami said four suspects were arrested. The office did not name the leader of the gang, whom it described as "the largest drug trafficker in Canada." It said the collaboration between Spain's Guardia Civil,...
