News of drug

Milei plans to build Argentina-Bolivia border wall, citing crime

28-01-2025 09:29 Salta Province plans to build short fence near the Bolivian border as part of a crackdown on drug-trafficking and contraband.

FILM & CINEMA

'Emilia Pérez' lauded in Hollywood but criticised in Mexico

27-01-2025 13:17 New Spanish-language production starring trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón receives 13 Oscar nominations, but is slammed for misrepresenting Mexico's drug-related violence.

Hidrovía Paraná-Paraguay

Paraná-Paraguay waterway a focal point for global security policy

10-01-2025 13:44 Ongoing tussle involving major dredging companies seeking to participate in Milei government's tender. Hidrovía Paraná-Paraguay is a naval highway for the trafficking of illicit drugs to the rest of the world.

CRIME & SECURITY

‘Narco-terrorists’ make death threats against security minister, governor

02-12-2024 16:18 Security Minister Patricia Bullrich vows to clamp down on “narco-terrorists” after threats against her and Santa Fe Province Governor Maximilaino Pullaro in video.

CRIME & INSECURITY

Security success or truce? What explains the drop in violence in Rosario?

23-09-2024 15:13 Something has changed in Rosario since late 2023. The most violent city in Argentina saw a 62% drop in homicides year-on-year between January and August. Is a new zero tolerance approach working, or is there an implicit pact between the authorities and drug-gangs?

DRUG-TRAFFICKING

‘Mochileros de la cocaína’ – Rising numbers of drug ‘mule’ backpackers

12-09-2024 13:00 Farm hands, manual labourers and local guides in the north of Argentina are being coopted by criminal organisations for the overland transfer of drugs across the frontier with Bolivia, crossing mountains and valleys without caring about the weather or the visibility.

by Leonardo Nieva

DRUG-TRAFFICKING

Cocaine ‘mules’ arrested in Jujuy with capsules hidden in bodies

12-09-2024 00:54 Bolivian nationals were transporting 323 capsules of cocaine hidden on their person, reports authorities.

FEATURE

Poverty, marginalisation, cocaine: Gangs find lucrative combo

30-03-2024 06:48 Argentina's economy is in intensive care. Financial stagnation, coupled with record inflation and the slashing of public spending have resulted in rising poverty and marginalisation. But in every crisis some see opportunity, and this time, it is crime groups. With drug-trafficking expanding in the barrios, analysts warn of new complex dynamics in the long run.

by Josefina Salomon*, In.Visibles

EDITORIAL

Belling terror

16-03-2024 06:41 The solution to drug crime bloodshed in Rosario is far from being as brutally simple as the problem, as some would seem to think.

CRIME & INSECURITY

Rosario is always near

16-03-2024 06:25 As with so many other matters, Argentina’s leaders have not lived up to the challenge of efficiently combatting drug-trafficking. Yet it would be a mistake to confine the responsibility for Rosario’s bloody violence to politics.

by Javier Calvo

CRIME & SECURITY

Federal troops arrive in Rosario as drug violence, paralyses city

14-03-2024 21:53 After a week marked by a wave of violence, murder and drug-trafficking, 450 reinforcements arrive in troubled city, adding to the 2,000 members of the Coast Guard, Border Guard, Federal Police and Airport Security Force who are providing support.

CRIME & SECURITY

Bullrich unveils new protocol for federal forces, relaxes rules on use of weapons

14-03-2024 11:00 Security Minister outlines new protocol for federal security forces, which will allow officers to shoot in order to prevent a criminal from escaping; "We don't want more Chocobar cases," declares Bullrich in reference to notorious 2017 incident.

CRIME & INSECURITY

Drug gangs in Rosario threaten journalist, news network

11-03-2024 18:03 Journalist Nelson Castro and his TN news channel team receive intimidating messages after reporting from the south of Rosario.

CRIME & SECURITY

Santa Fe governor orders Bukele-style tactics for narcos in Rosario

11-03-2024 12:53 Santa Fe Province Governor Maximiliano Pullaro is angering narco bosses with his Bukele-style approach to tackling drug violence in dangerous Rosario.

CRIME & SECURITY

Government sends federal forces to Rosario to tackle drug violence

11-03-2024 12:23 President Javier Milei says he will respond to Governor Maximiliano Pullaro's request and send federal security forces to Rosario to help tackle drug violence.

WAR ON DRUGS

Petro: US anti-drug policies caused Latin American 'genocide'

01-03-2024 15:47 "We have lived through a genocide of a million Latin Americans in the last half-century," declares Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who points the finger at the United States.

El Salvador Elections

El Salvador's Bukele claims 'record' re-election victory

05-02-2024 11:30 Fireworks erupted in El Salvador's capital Sunday as President Nayib Bukele claimed to have won more than 85 percent of the presidential vote.

El Salvador Elections

El Salvador goes to polls with gang-busting Bukele miles ahead

02-02-2024 12:32 El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele is all but guaranteed a resounding victory in elections Sunday, with his no-holds-barred war on gangs having earned him approval ratings hovering around 90 percent

Ecuador drug war

Ecuador nabs wanted narco-trafficker, president says crackdown bearing fruit

23-01-2024 15:37 Carlos Arturo Landazuri Cortes, nickname 'El Gringo,' was arrested on Monday; Accused is the alleged leader of a drug-dealing dissident group and suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of three Ecuadorean journalists in 2018.

INTERVIEW / PERIODISMO PURO

Mariano Cúneo Libarona: ‘The necessary and urgent right now, the debatable goes to the Omnibus bill’

20-01-2024 06:55 Javier Milei’s justice minister on the president’s controversial decree, the ‘Omnibus Law’ and “a process of revolutionary change” in Argentina.

by Jorge Fontevecchia

Drug war crisis

Relatives of Ecuador drug boss 'Fito' arrested and deported from Argentina

19-01-2024 12:40 Security forces arrest and detain relatives of fugitive drug-boss Jose Adolfo Macías, alias 'Fito,' in Córdoba; Wife and children deported in early hours of Friday morning.

Ecuador drug war

Soldiers enter key Ecuador prison as 'war' on narcos deepens

18-01-2024 14:08 Hundreds of soldiers enter a prison in a Guayaquil as part of crackdown on drug bosses, day after high-profile assassination of prosecutor investigating last week's attack on public TV station.

Narco-violence terrorises Ecuador

Ecuador’s ‘armed conflict’ against drug cartels explodes into violence

11-01-2024 16:50 Tanks and soldiers patrol the streets of Ecuador as third day of terror continues; Cartels have ‘declared war’ against President Daniel Noboa and the national government.

NARCO-VIOLENCE IN ECUADOR

Ecuador's 'armed conflict' with drug gangs – what we know

10-01-2024 18:21 What you need to know about the unfolding crisis in troubled Ecuador.

SCANDAL OVER RIVER PLATE

Uruguay foreign minister resigns after leaked calls on fugitive drug-trafficker

02-11-2023 15:39 Uruguay's foreign minister resign after the release of recordings in which he allegedly seeks to cover up information involving Sebastián Marset, an accused cocaine-trafficker and subject of an international manhunt.

CRIME & SECURITY

Rosario surpasses grim threshold of 150 homicides

06-07-2023 09:35 Four people killed in just three hours in crime-ridden Rosario; Argentina's second city, with a population of 1.3 million, has already suffered 151 homicides this year.

Drug-trafficking

Uruguay finds cocaine in surfboards bound for Europe

14-06-2023 10:32 Uruguay's anti-drug brigade seize almost 50 kilos of cocaine hidden in surfboards in an international operation launched in May with police from Spain, Portugal and Italy. The drugs were bound for Europe.

NIGHTMARE EXPERIENCE

Woman interred alive in Brazil tomb

30-03-2023 14:16 Thirty-six-year-old woman found sealed alive inside a mausoleum wall at a cemetery in Brazil, after surviving around 10 hours inside the narrow tomb.

CRIME & SECURITY

Rosario: A city under threat from murderous drug gangs

29-03-2023 13:18 Rosario, Argentina's second city with a population of 1.3 million, has a homicide rate of 22 per 100,000 inhabitants – five times the national average. As a result of its privileged position as a major port city, drug-trafficking is having a devastating impact on the city’s poorest neighbourhoods and residents.

CRIME & SECURITY

Government reinforces security forces in Rosario amid drug violence

07-03-2023 15:07 President Fernández boosts the number of federal security forces available to authorities in Rosario and says he will send a division of the Army to support efforts to overhaul and urbanise working-class neighbourhoods.

CRIME & SECURITY

Rosario: a death a day in a city on edge from drug-trafficking

07-03-2023 09:37 Three out of every four homicides registered in the city of Rosario are premeditated, observes survey.

Anger in Rosario

Homes of alleged drug-traffickers in Rosario vandalised after child's killing

07-03-2023 07:50 Residents of the working-class neighbourhood of Los Pumitas ransacked and vandalised homes of suspected drug-traffickers on Monday; Vigilante response to death of an 11-year-old child, who was killed in a violence shootout over weekend.

CRIME & SECURITY

Messi’s family threatened by narcos in his hometown of Rosario

02-03-2023 19:28 Several shots were fired early Thursday at a supermarket in Rosario owned by the family of Messi’s wife, Antonela Roccuzzo.

CRIME & SECURITY

Shots fired, threats left at supermarket belonging to Messi's wife's family

02-03-2023 12:07 Narco violence in Rosario escalates as supermarket belonging to the family of Antonela Rocuzzo, the wife of Lionel Messi, was hit by a mafia-style attack in the early hours of Thursday morning.