Trump puts $50 million bounty on Venezuelan president for helping terrorists bring 'deadly violence' to US
The announcement came directly from Attorney General Pam Bondi, who accused Maduro of conspiring with multiple gangs to bring guns and illegal drugs into the United States.
Maduro uses foreign terrorist organizations like [Tren de Aragua], Sinaloa and Cartel of the Suns to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country,' she said.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has so far seized 30 tons of cocaine that were subsequently linked to Maduro and his associates, Bondi said.
Nearly seven tons of that total was linked to Maduro himself, she added, explaining that this represents a primary source of income for gangs operating in Venezuela and Mexico.
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The Sun
5 hours ago
- The Sun
How ‘budget Pablo Escobar' bus driver ran £1bn empire smuggling cocaine in pineapple juice & partying with prostitutes
MOST people wouldn't look twice at the mild-mannered former bus driver who had become a cleaner to support his family. A slightly tubby middle-aged man, living in Hendon in north London, Jesus Ruiz-Henao, now 64, had carefully curated a persona as a upstanding member of the community who had a charity helping kids back home. 16 16 16 But in reality, he was a ruthless drug trafficker who bought £1billion worth of cocaine into the UK and was at the centre of two different police investigations for his illegal dealing. In a new documentary on Discovery+, The Bus Driver: Britain's Cocaine King, Ruiz-Henao boasted: 'My life story is a lot like Hollywood movie. I was doing the drug trafficking for over 10 years and I was arrested and sentenced for over a billion pounds of cocaine. 'I was like a pioneer of the cocaine in the UK.' Finally arrested in the early noughties, after four years of investigative work by the National Crime Squad and the Metropolitan Police, cops believe reckon Ruiz-Henao's affable demeanour hid a much nastier side. In an exclusive interview with The Sun, former Detective Sergeant Ian Floyd told The Sun: 'He's a manipulator. He uses people. And the threat of violence doesn't have to be direct. It can be inherent. It can be perceived. 'Although he's very softly spoken, not outwardly violent, there's always that level behind him where people will perceive a threat, even if it's not overt.' Ruiz-Henao had spent his teenager years as a low level cocaine dealer in Colombia following the death of his father in 1974. He got into the trade as a quick and easy way to make money - and it didn't hurt that some of his cousins were already working with cartels. But when Ruiz-Henao lost a stash of drugs and wasn't able to pay what he owed, he was targeted by gangs and shot in the stomach, prompting a move to the UK in 1986. Crime lord Jamie 'Iceman' Stevenson GUILTY of running global drugs gang & importing £100m cocaine haul in banana boxes He took his wife, sister, and brother-in-law with him, claiming the move was to allow him to live a normal life but, unable to repay the lost money to cartels, he later admitted 'If I didn't move to the UK, I was already dead.' With the help of his wife, and local MP Jeremy Corbyn, the crook was able to claim asylum in the UK, with indefinite right to remain, and got a job driving a bus. But he claims everyone kept asking him for cocaine because of his Colombian roots and 1989, just two years after he began driving the 134 double-decker, he returned to selling cocaine. My life story is a lot like Hollywood movie ... I was like a pioneer of the cocaine in the UK Jesus Ruiz-Henao Initially, it would take Ruiz-Henao up to five weeks to sell a kilo of cocaine that he had got through friends and relatives back home. By 1993, he was selling cocaine in bulk and had to quit his bus driving job to focus more on his burgeoning criminal empire. At the time of his arrest in November 2003, he and his brother-in-law, Mario Tascon, now 42, were thought to be smuggling around £25million worth of cocaine into the UK each year. Idolising Escobar 16 16 16 In the documentary, the former drug dealer brags about his life of crime and ambition to be like Colombian cartel boss Pablo Escobar. He even goes as far as to claim he met the notorious drug lord, saying: 'My first bicycle in my life, I get it from the hands of Pablo Escobar. 'I was thinking he has the power, he has the money. I want to be powerful like them. I want to have everything.' But investigators who brought down Ruiz-Henao in 2003 have slammed the kingpin as a 'budget version' of the feared cartel boss. We used to get 20 to 30 prostitutes. They'd go around the swimming pool just wearing their knickers and we'd party for two to three days there Jesus Ruiz-Henao Former Detective Sergeant Steve Lear, who was part of the team who put Ruiz-Henao behind bars, said: 'The story about him getting a bike from Pablo Escobar, I think that's just complete hogwash. They're from completely different parts of Colombia.' Ex-Detective Sergeant Ian Floyd added: 'He was a budget version of what he wanted to be, which was Pablo.' Family connections 16 Ruiz-Henao had easy access to the drugs thanks to relatives in the dangerous Norte Valle Cartel, which rose to prominence after the Medellín Cartel fell apart following Escobar's death in 1993 and the rival Cali Cartel were destroyed by police. The cartel supplied London-based Ruiz-Henao with hundreds of kilos of cocaine. In return, he sent millions of pounds back through various routes to pay for the drugs from wire transfer services, people couriering the cash personally and even through his charity allegedly helping poor kids in Colombia. One of his money launderers, Fernando Carranza Reyes who worked at the Le Grand Colombia, had become a police informant and allowed cops to build a case around the money being sent back to the country. Clever concealments 16 16 16 16 As larger and larger quantities were being shipped to the UK in the early noughties, Ruiz-Henao and the cartel became more inventive with their methods of transportation. Ian explained: 'There were shipments out of Colombia in submarines, homemade submarines which had a tonne of cocaine on it, smuggling cocaine in through pineapples, dissolved into pineapple juice. Thousands upon thousands of cans were imported.' Another cocaine importation Ian's team intercepted was impregnated into a woman's suitcase. 'The suitcase she was carrying, we could tell from a swab test, contained cocaine,' he said. 'When we weighed the suitcase, it was five kilos heavier than a normal suitcase of that description. They'd managed to dissolve the cocaine into the plastic, but we couldn't get it out.' The police were never able to recover the drugs from the plastic. While the cops couldn't figure it out, the cartel had flown over a specialist chemist to extract the Class A drug. Ruiz-Henao bought a small house near Clacton-on-Sea with his drug profits and set up a home laboratory for the cocaine to be extracted from the plastic. Ruiz-Henao said: 'There's a big container of chemicals put in there and just mix it up and the cocaine will sink and the plastic, it floats up.' He also boasted of having customs officers on his payroll to ensure the laced suitcases and the passengers bringing them were able to get through the border without issues. Lavish holidays 16 16 The crook believed that because he didn't spend lavishly in the UK and paid someone to attend a cleaning job as him, that cops weren't going to notice him. But he did go wild on trips abroad to Spain and other countries, where he felt it was safe to splash the cash. Ruiz-Henao boasted: 'We used to get 20 to 30 prostitutes. They'd go around the swimming pool just wearing their knickers and we'd party for two to three days there.' But he wasn't as discrete as he thought. Under new rules in the early 2000s, the cops were able to get access to his credit cards. Steve said: 'One of the things that we used in financial investigation in his case, was the amount of money that he had spent utilising his credit cards and his bank cards over his legitimate earnings. "He was allegedly earning £45,000 per year as a cleaner and he was spending, I think, around about to £250,000.' And Ian's team were tracking the drug money to Colombia and then back to Ruiz-Henao. The teams combined forces after both posting surveillance on a property belonging to the kingpin. This meant that, when they swooped in to arrest Ruiz-Henao and the gang in November 2003, they were confident that he'd have no choice but to plead guilty and he did. In 2006, Ruiz was sentenced to 19 years in prison after pleading guilty for conspiracy to supply class A drugs. He was handed a further ten years for a guilty plea for money laundering. Following the arrest of Ruiz-Henao and his second in command Tascon, the price of cocaine went up 50 per cent, indicating the gang's large share of the market. But cops rubbish the crooks claim that he pioneered cocaine in the UK. Ian said: 'He was a cog in the wheel of the supply of cocaine. And he was probably one of the larger cogs. But I wouldn't necessarily put it the whole exponential rise in cocaine demand, down to him. 'Cocaine was the becoming the drug of choice, and the demand for it was there, and he was one of many supplying it.' After serving his sentence in the UK, Jesus Ruiz-Henao was deported to Colombia, where he was once The Bus Driver: Britain's Cocaine King, streaming exclusively on discovery+ from August 11 th 16
Reuters
6 hours ago
- Reuters
US, EU, and Ukrainian officials to meet in UK on Saturday ahead of Trump-Putin meeting
LONDON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - British foreign minister David Lammy and U.S. Vice President JD Vance will meet Ukrainian and European allies in Britain on Saturday to discuss President Donald Trump's push for peace in Ukraine, a spokesperson for Downing Street said. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ahead of the security meeting, the spokesperson said. Starmer and Zelenskyy discussed Trump's proposals for ending the war in Ukraine ahead of talks with his Russian counterpart on August 15 in Alaska. "The Prime Minister spoke to President Zelenskyy of Ukraine this morning. They looked ahead to the meeting of National Security Advisers from Europe, Ukraine and the United States taking place today, hosted by the UK Foreign Secretary and US Vice President," the spokesperson said. "They agreed this would be a vital forum to discuss progress towards securing a just and lasting peace."
The Sun
7 hours ago
- The Sun
Boy, 5, killed by sick loan sharks after being held hostage over mum's £40 debt as three suspects arrested
A FIVE-year-old boy was allegedly killed by three members of the same family after his mum failed to repay a £40 debt. Fernando was held captive for at least eight days before his body was found dumped among piles of rubbish. 3 3 3 The murder of the child, identified only as Fernando, has shocked the municipality of Los Reyes La Paz, located just east of Mexico City. Three people have been arrested and are being held in pre-trial detention, according to Mexican news agency Noticieros Televisa. At an initial hearing, prosecutors presented a timeline alleging that the child was forcibly taken and held captive in the suspects' home for at least eight days. When investigators visited the property on Monday, they reported a "rotten smell" that led them to discover Fernando's body hidden in sacks. Fernando died from a skull fracture and also had injuries to his arms, legs and chest, according to the forensic report. Three months earlier, his mum, Noemí Gómez, had reportedly borrowed 1,000 pesos - around £40 - from the family whose home he was later found in, to help cover the rent on her new place. The three loan sharks kidnapped Fernando from his home on July 28, telling his mum they would hold him hostage until she repaid the debt. Gómez said she visited her son on several occasions, but each time the group refused to release him because she was unable to pay them back. Gómez's neighbour, María Pascual, told Noticieros Televisa: "The day she went to ask for her child, they tried to beat her because she couldn't speak well. "She's a person who doesn't know how to defend herself." Travis Decker 'sighting' sparks intensified search for dad, 32, just a day's walk from where 3 daughters' bodies found The worried mum, who is said to have a speech impediment, then went to La Paz's Public Ministry to file a missing person's report. But it wasn't until the case was reported to the State of Mexico Women's Ministry that an official investigation was launched. On Monday, officers raided a home in the Ejidal El Pino neighbourhood of La Paz, where the alleged killers live. During the hearing on Thursday, two of the suspects chose not to speak. The third, a woman identified only as Lilia N, denied the charges. She claimed that Fernando's mother had asked her to care for him for a week while she moved house, and had also borrowed a wheelbarrow to help with the move. Lilia also said Fernando had been unwell and that she took him to the doctor three times. She claimed he was injured in two separate falls - once hitting his head on a washbasin and again while bathing. However, prosecutors presented a very different timeline of events. They argue that the suspects misled the boy's mum by telling her he was with his father and grandfather, when he was not. When police officers arrived at the suspects' home to look for Fernando, they reportedly said: "He ran away and we couldn't find him." Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Gómez told reporters that Fernando was a "loving kid". She added: "He wasn't to blame for anything that happened. I want justice for him." The suspects, currently being held in a jail in Nezahualcóyotl, are facing charges of kidnapping and aggravated homicide. They were due to appear in court on Friday but have reportedly requested more time to gather evidence. The trial is scheduled to continue on Monday. It comes as a Mexican Masterchef star and TikTok influencer died in a car crash. Yanin Campos, 38, appeared as a contestant on the hit cooking show in 2018. She was driving in the city of Chihuahua, Mexico, on Saturday when she reportedly lost control of her SUV.
