Drug smuggling

Inside the European City Overrun by Deadly Drug Cartels

A Spanish coastal city near the border of Gibraltar, La Línea de la Concepción is close to the top of the list of places not to visit—or, at least, that’s the impression imparted by La Línea: Shadow of Narco, Netflix’s new four-part docuseries (available now) about the area’s rampant crime and corruption courtesy of drug trafficking and tobacco smuggling. As more than one speaker remarks during the course of this two-hour non-fiction effort, it’s a locale so thoroughly dominated by narcos that it’s on the verge of becoming the next Medellín. Which, as you might imagine, hasn’t done wonders for its tourism or business climate.

Executive produced by Luis Velo and Guillermo Gómez, and directed by Pepe Mora, La Línea: Shadow of Narco is a snapshot of this beautiful locale, which residents praise for its warm weather, cheap bars, plentiful fishing, and fantastic beaches. Alas, while those wide stretches of pristine sand are an ideal destination to frequent during the day, they’re best avoided at the dead of night, when they become infested with high-speed smuggling boats that bring in 70 percent of Spain’s hash.

Drug smuggling

FBI: BLACK DISCIPLES LEADER “BIG LAW” REPORTEDLY KILLED BY MEXICAN CARTEL

According to a recent court filing from the FBI, it is believed that late Black Disciples leader Lawrence “Big Law” Loggins was shot and killed in 2019 while sitting in his car by the Mexican Gulf Cartel over an “unaccounted for” drug and gun shipment.

This revelation came to the bureau through an informant, another Black Disciple member, who was being interrogated following a gun and drug bust in 2018. The CI told the FBI that the Loggins’s successor as the Disciples’ leader, Kenneth Brown, spoke about the moments that led up to Big Law’s murder being that he was in the car when Loggins was fatally shot.

Brown, who the informant called Loggins’ right hand man, told him that a shipment of cocaine and guns were to arrive in Chicago from the Gulf Cartel, but now some of the shipment is somehow “unaccounted for.” According to the CI, Brown said that Law was killed over the shipment and that he was left to foot the almost half million dollar bill owed to the cartel.

Drug smuggling

Completely New Type Of Narco Submarine Discovered In The Atlantic

The Atlantic narco-submarine scene is intensifying. On August 27 Spanish police, once again, captured a completely new type drug smuggling vessel. It is only the third so-called ‘narco sub’ found in Spain, but like the previous two it is particularly unusual. Spanish smugglers do things their own way, creating very different vessels than their Latin American counterparts. This new type is known locally as a Ghost Glider (planeadora fantasma).

So-called narco submarines are purpose designed boats intended to hide low in the water to avoid detection. Very few can actually submerge, but the name fits. This one appears to be a hybrid of what we call a Low Profile Vessel (LPV) and a traditional go-fast vessel (GFV). It doesn’t appear to sit as low in the water as most others, but has other trappings of narco-subs, notably the custom deck and cockpit. These can be seen in this photo gallery by the Faro de Vigo (in Spanish).

Drug smuggling

Mexican cartel using weaponized drones in drug wars to take out rivals

A Mexican drug cartel have begun using weaponized drones in an effort to take out their rivals — one of the latest tactics in the drug wars that have plagued the Central American nation, according to reports.

The airborne attacks have become a common weapon for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel — Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, or CJNG in Spanish — which authorities believe controls one-third of the drugs that enter the US, to gain a larger foothold in the export of illegal drugs, according to a report by Forbes.

“The CJNG has been involved with such devices since late 2017 in various regions in Mexico,” Robert Bunker, director of research and analysis at C/O Futures, a California-based consulting firm, told Forbes.

Drug smuggling

New Narco Submarine Challenge In Atlantic Ocean

Narco submarines are commonly associated with the Pacific and Caribbean. The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard have interdicted many loaded with tons of drugs destined for North America. Then last November the first documented ‘transatlantic’ narco-submarine reached European shores. It is unlikely that it was the first — only the first to get caught. European navies, police, customs, and coast guard units lack experience with narco submarines and may be ill-prepared to counter them. And it may be a U.S. problem, too.

European law enforcement units are used to cocaine being smuggled in shipping containers, or in hidden compartments aboard vessels, as well as parasitic narco-torpedoes, which are containers attached to the underside of merchant vessels. But they have not, until now, had to seriously consider narco subs.

Drug smuggling

Unusually Large Narco Submarine May Be New Challenge For Coast Guard

The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy have faced an array of so-called narco submarines, purpose built for smuggling cocaine, for the last fifteen years. These are constantly evolving. Now a super-sized narco submarine has been discovered in the Colombian jungle. It represents another evolution of the threat facing U.S. Southern Command’s (SOUTHCOM) Enhanced Counter-Narcotics Operations. The U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, partner navies and law enforcement are determined to stop these vessels, but it is very challenging because they are designed to get through.
The Colombian Army, one of SOUTHCOM’s partners, made the discovery on August 6 before it could carry its payload north. It was destroyed where they found it so we may never know the full details of the design. But it is clear that it is very large, and in fact the official estimates make it the largest of its type ever found.

Drug smuggling

Meth looking like candy found in northern Ohio, DEA warns it is coming to Michigan

“Some people said they look like Flintstone Vitamins,” said DEA Agent Keith Martin. “They look like candy.” But the colorful tablets are deadly methamphetamines.

“The cartels could care less who you are, as long as they have your money,” Martin said.

Martin is the special agent in charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Detroit Field Division. He says over the last couple of months they have seized thousands of the meth pills resembling candy in northern Ohio.

“If it’s in Ohio, it’s probably in Michigan and probably in Detroit,” Martin said.

Though not discovered in Michigan yet, Martin is concerned. He says Mexican drug cartels are now the primary manufacturers and distributors of meth in the U.S.

In Ohio in 2018, an eighth of a ton of meth was seized in just one day.

“That’s typically a seizure you would have at the border,” he said. “It’s not something you’d see in the Midwest.”

Drug smuggling

$40 Million Worth of Cocaine Seized by U.S. Coast Guard in Huge Drug Bust

More than $40 million worth of cocaine was seized in June during a collaborative effort between the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard.

The drugs were confiscated by crew members of the U.S.S. Preble, a guided missile destroyer, and members of a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment. After spotting a suspicious low profile, go fast (LPGF) boat in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, the Preble moved in for an interception. Coast Guard members boarded the LPGF. Discovered on board the LPGF was 100 bales of cocaine, amounting to over 4,400 pounds.

"This interdiction and drug seizure was a big win for our Navy and Coast Guard team," said U.S.S. Preble Commanding Officer Commander Leonardo Giovannelli in a June statement. "Not only did we flex our sensors and communications suite, but our combat team was able to work across the interagency and contribute directly to a major line of operation with tangible results."

Drug smuggling

Navy Makes Important Narco Submarine Capture

The narco-submarine may not have been expecting a guided missile destroyer to be bearing down on it. Until April this year, U.S. Navy warships were less often involved in drug submarine busts on the high seas. But the Trump administration’s new enhanced counter-narcotics operations has changed that, as a narco-sub found out on May 14. This may mark the start of a new age in narco-submarine interdiction.

Despite its inherent stealthiness the vessel was detected by a P-8 Poseidon from the VP-26 ‘Tridents’ squadron of the U.S. Navy. A destroyer, USS Pinckney, with a U.S. Coast Guard team aboard, then moved into position to intercept it. The destroyer’s SH-60 Sea Hawk helicopters and fast boats made the interdiction. This was the first reported narco-sub seizure since President Trump announced 'enhanced counter-narcotics operations' on April 1.

Drug smuggling

Gangs take bigger risks to smuggle drugs into lockdown Britain

Organised crime groups are taking increasingly audacious risks as they attempt to smuggle large quantities of drugs into lockdown Britain, senior police figures say.

Analysing the latest operations of transnational criminal networks, the National Crime Agency’s head of drug threat said that police were making more significant seizures during the pandemic than normal.

Lawrence Gibbons said that with restrictions on movement, the absence of flights and with only essential travel advised on many routes such as Eurotunnel, international drug dealers were being forced to make high-stakes decisions.

“Lockdown restrictions mean they are having difficulty moving drugs,” he said. “Because there is less opportunity they are taking more risks by moving drugs in bulk.

“If you’re a drug dealer [in Belgium or the Netherlands] and you’re trying to get your 100kg of cocaine into Britain, you would often split that into four lots of 25kg. If one gets stopped, three get through. But because of the lack of opportunity they’re either sending two lots of 50 or 100 in one go, which they wouldn’t normally do. We’ve had some massive seizures.”

Drug smuggling

The 4 Types Of Narco Submarines The Military Faces

Less than two weeks after President Trump initiated Enhanced Counter-Narcotic Operations in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean, national security officials are already celebrating seizures of illegal drugs. The imagery used in official tweets center on one of the most difficult threats facing the coast guard: narco submarines.

On April 9 Secretary of Defense Mark Esper tweeted “As of today, the @USNavy and @USCG have already seized 2,100KG of cocaine headed for America using the strategy announced one week ago.” The image chosen showed a narco sub being interdicted by the Coast Guard in the Eastern Pacific on Aug. 31, 2015. A similar message was posted on the official Southern Command twitter account. It used a more up to date image, from Nov. 4 last year.

So what are these so-called “narco subs” and what are the main types? To a trained eye the two vessels shown in the tweets above are very different from each other, representing different categories...

Drug smuggling

Trump announces enhanced narcotic operations amid coronavirus, deploys destroyers and Air Force assets

President Trump -- flanked by Attorney General Bill Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and top military officials at the White House coronavirus briefing -- announced on Wednesday a massive new "counternarcotics operation" in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea to "combat the flow of illicit drugs into the United States."

"We must not let the drug cartels exploit the pandemic to threaten American lives," Trump said. "In cooperation with the 22 partner nations, U.S. Southern Command will increase surveillance, disruption and seizures of drug shipments and provide additional support for eradication efforts, which are going on right now at a record pace."

Included in the force package are Navy destroyers, other combat ships, Air Force surveillance planes and helicopters, and ten Coast Guard cutter ships, Trump said, noting that the new forces would double U.S. interdiction capacity in the region -- and help slow the spread of the coronavirus by reducing illicit travel.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the United States had obtained intelligence that cartels were seeking to "take advantage" of the coronavirus to smuggle drugs. Asked about the intelligence later in the briefing, Trump called it strong but wouldn't elaborate.

Drug smuggling

DEA discovers 2,000ft smuggling tunnel between Tijuana and San Diego and 4,000 pounds of drugs worth $29million

A 2,000-foot underground tunnel connecting Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego, and a massive haul of drugs worth $29.6million was discovered, the Drug Enforcement Agency revealed on Tuesday. 

The DEA said agents on the San Diego Tunnel Task Force made the tunnel discovery March 19 before reaching out to Mexican authorities for additional support.

The tunnel was built by a transnational cartel and extended from Tijuana, Mexico, to the Otay Mesa area of San Diego. 

Federal investigators said the underground passageway is at least 31 feet underground and almost three feet wide throughout its trajectory.

The DEA confiscated almost 3,000 pounds of marijuana, 1,300 pounds of cocaine, 86 pounds of methamphetamine, 17 pounds of heroin and two pounds of fentanyl.  

It is the first time in San Diego's history that five different types of narcotics were found inside a tunnel.

Drug smuggling

Narco Submarines At All-Time High

Last year yielded a bumper crop of narco-submarines, and it looks set to continue. These purpose-built vessels are one way Colombian cartels smuggle drugs towards the United States. The number discovered by authorities are at an all-time high. Based on open source intelligence there were 36 reported incidents in 2019. This compares to just two a decade earlier.

The reported incidents, when they are interdicted or discovered, are only the tip of the iceberg. Many more get through. And despite the higher rate of interdictions, they keep coming. So there is no sign that the losses are at a level which deters the criminals.

Interdiction rates are difficult to measure because we have half the picture. We can only count the ones which don’t get through. Speaking to people with knowledge of the subject, historically the percentage intercepted or found has been estimated to be between 5% and 15%. If we take a very conservative view and say that as many as 20% were either interdicted or otherwise discovered in 2019, extrapolating the reported incidents gives us an estimate of 180 narco submarine trips in total. It could be more.

Drug smuggling

Global Shipping Faces Troubling New Smuggling Questions

Global shipping companies are wrestling with apparent growing demand in a sector that they don’t want and that has law enforcement authorities around the world on high alert.

Ocean carriers saw a series of seizures of large shipments of drugs in the U.S. and Europe in 2019, and officials say they are a sign of the growing use of commercial ships for increasingly large loads of cocaine, heroin and other drugs. Officials say the growing scale of shipping operations, with the biggest container ships doubling in size over the past decade, have made them an attractive target for drug traffickers.

Ship operators are under pressure to deliver vast amounts of cargo on time, and the rule of thumb around the world is that only one in 10 containers gets checked as boxes move quickly through ports and into sprawling, complicated logistics networks.

Containers are also the cheapest way to ship cargo. It can cost up to $1,500 on average to ship a box from South America to Europe or the U.S.

Drug smuggling

Uruguay seizes 6 tons of cocaine worth $1B in country’s largest bust

Naval and customs officers in Uruguay seized a staggering six tons of cocaine this week, with authorities calling it the country's biggest bust ever.

The National Armada said in a press release that on Dec. 26 officers at the Montevideo port were checking four shipping containers with soy flour destined for Lome, the capital of Togo in West Africa.

Authorities said a scanner flagged “abnormalities” in the shipment, which turned out to be a total of 4,003 bricks of cocaine – about 4.4 tons of the drug. One container contained 3,089 bricks of cocaine, each weighing about 2.4 pounds.

Officials estimated the value of the drug shipment at $1 billion in the European market.

According to news reports, the export firm had not transported much soy flour in the past, and the flour isn't widely consumed in Africa, raising suspicions that led to a careful search of the containers.

Nearly a third of the cocaine consumed in Europe is smuggled there via Africa, local media reported.Uruguay customs director Jaime Borgiani said it was not known exactly where the cocaine originated from, but it was loaded on to trucks Tuesday at a ranch about 180 miles from Montevideo.

Drug smuggling

$312 million of cocaine seized from 'go-fast' vessels, narco sub, US Coast Guard says

The U.S. Coast Guard has seized over 18,000 pounds of cocaine worth an estimated $312 million in a series of drug busts in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

The operation, part of joint efforts involving five separate Coast Guard cutter crews, concluded with one vessel, the Bertholf, off-loading the entire amount seized at the marine terminal in San Diego on Wednesday.

Each crew was responsible for locating thousands of pounds of drugs between mid-October and early December, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a news release.

There were seven separate vessels intercepted, including one "self-propelled semi-submersible vessel (SPSS) or narco submarine," officials said.

Drug smuggling

U.S. Coast Guard Intercepts Highlight Growing Drug Submarine Epidemic

In November, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Thetis intercepted two semi-submersibles in the Eastern Pacific, a favorite haunt of so-called narco-subs. They were carrying cocaine northbound toward the United States. Each vessel was carrying just under two tons of the narcotic.

Although only reported now, the events took place a few days before another drug submarine was found in Galicia, Spain, providing proof for the first time of a transatlantic drug submarine route. It is unlikely to be the first to actually venture across the Atlantic, however. The European vessel was not an unrelated phenomenon. Although it was discovered over 5,500 miles away, that semi-submersible had clear connections to some smuggling vessels found in the Pacific.

Even in international waters crewing an unregistered semi-submersible is illegal. This may actually increase the safety of the crews. Previously crews attempted to scuttle the boat because without the cocaine no crime could be proven. But now merely being on the low profile boat is illegal, so there is less incentive to abandon ship. Staying aboard and awaiting capture reduces the risk of drowning.

Drug smuggling

Cocaine seized from 'narco-submarine' in Spain was likely headed for UK

A large portion of the three tonnes of cocaine smuggled aboard the “narco-submarine” seized by Spanish police last weekend would have ended up on British streets, according to the UK National Crime Agency (NCA).

The 20-metre semi-submersible craft was intercepted off the coast of Galicia, north-west Spain, on Sunday following a joint operation with police forces from the UK, Portugal, the US and Brazil. The NCA said the cocaine was worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

Two alleged crew members were arrested after attempting to leave the boat and swim ashore. A third is still being sought by Spanish police officers.

“It is highly likely a lot of this cocaine would have ended up on the streets of the UK, fuelling serious violence and impacting on the most vulnerable members of society,” Tom Dowdall, the NCA’s deputy director international said on Wednesday.

Drug smuggling

Cocaine Hidden in Fruit Feeds European Pipeline

The latest bust occurred on September 30, when customs officials discovered 1,500 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a shipment of bananas at the Rotterdam port in the Netherlands, according to a news release by Rotterdam prosecutors.

Drug smuggling activity at the Port of Rotterdam — Europe’s largest port and a gateway to the continent — has surged in recent years. In April, 1,600 kilograms of cocaine — also concealed in banana cargo from Costa Rica — was seized. The size of the drug shipments have also increased, according to a police expert who spoke with Dutch national newspaper Algemeen Dagblad.

“Before we used to be impressed by 500-kilogram batches,” he said. “Now we seize 5,000-kilogram shipments, meaning that these quantities also enter the country.”

An estimated 60 percent of cocaine trafficked to Europe in 2018 came through the ports of Rotterdam and Belgian port city of Antwerp, according to the Dutch newspaper. Most cocaine arriving in Antwerp is brought to the Netherlands, where it is distributed farther into Europe. Fruit containers with cocaine also enter the Dutch port of Vlissingen, where 700 million kilograms of bananas a year arrive in a specialized terminal.