BRUSSELS — Customs seized 116 tons of cocaine in the port of Antwerp in 2023, setting a record for the second year in a row, Belgian authorities said on Wednesday. Demand for cocaine is growing rapidly across the EU, and governments blame the drug trade for outbreaks of violence in major port cities like Antwerp, … Read more
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s two main drug cartels have long taken their deadly rivalry with them as they expand into distant markets from Asia to Australia to Africa, but never before with such intensive street gang violence and a presidential declaration of a state of “internal armed conflict” this week in Ecuador. Gunmen from an … Read more
QUITO, Ecuador — A bomb threat sent an anti-explosives unit scrambling into a bustling area of Ecuador’s tense capital Thursday while authorities in an eastern city reported a nightclub arson killed two people as the South American country staggers under a spike of violence blamed on drug gangs. Police in the capital, Quito, said they … Read more
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — A group of armed, masked men in Ecuador launched an audacious attack on a television station during a live broadcast and so revealed the country’s spiraling violence in the wake of an apparent recent prison escape. The imprisoned leader of a drug gang mysteriously vanished from his cell in the coastal city … Read more
GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador — It was a day like any other at the TC Television studio in Ecuador, with its mid-afternoon newscast underway, when masked gunmen burst in, unleashing at least 15 minutes of threats and fear — all broadcast live. First, a man with a pistol appeared in the middle of the public TV station’s … Read more
RIO DE JANEIRO — One of Brazil’s top criminal leaders was locked up in a 6-square-meter (65-square-foot) isolation cell at a maximum security prison to avoid being killed by rivals, authorities said Tuesday. Luiz Antônio da Silva Braga, the boss of the largest militia group in the state of Rio de Janeiro, surrendered to federal … Read more
RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s federal police said one of the country’s top criminal leaders surrendered Sunday after negotiations with local authorities. Luiz Antônio da Silva Braga, better known as Zinho, is the top leader of the largest militia group in the state of Rio de Janeiro. He had 12 arrest warrants issued against him, … Read more
QUITO, Ecuador — Ecuadorian authorities said Thursday they are investigating the kidnapping of a British businessman and former honorary consul, who was rescued by police after being abducted over the weekend. The prosecutors’ press office said that several units are following some leads after police arrested nine suspects linked to the kidnapping of Colin Armstrong, … Read more
BANGKOK — State prosecutors in Thailand indicted a member of the country’s Senate on six charges involving narcotics trafficking, money laundering and association with a transnational criminal organization, said a statement received Friday from the attorney-general’s office. The senator, Upakit Pachariyangkun, denied all the charges when he appeared Thursday at criminal court in Bangkok, and … Read more
MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s government is pouring resources into detecting what it suggests are “fake” missing people — cases reported by political opponents to embarrass the government, or kidnapped people who return home but don’t notify authorities. Yet officials make no significant effort to find actual missing people, angering the families of Mexico’s estimated 113,000 … Read more