I peer out of the bulletproof windows and steel protective grills of an American-made MRAP armoured vehicle. People stare up at the huge truck as it passes teeming night-time markets in Haiti's capital. We're heading for gang territory. The roads are narrow, but it's after dark so the usual traffic jams have eased, allowing the convoy of trucks to squeeze by. We've joined a Kenyan-led peacekeeping mission into the heart of gang territory in the city. You know you have arrived in their territory when the people disappear – and it happens in an instant.
I peer out of the bulletproof windows and steel protective grills of an American-made MRAP armoured vehicle.
People stare up at the huge truck as it passes teeming night-time markets in Haiti's capital. We're heading for gang territory.
The roads are narrow, but it's after dark so the usual traffic jams have eased, allowing the convoy of trucks to squeeze by.
We've joined a Kenyan-led peacekeeping mission into the heart of gang territory in the city.
You know you have arrived in their territory when the people disappear – and it happens in an instant.
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The Guardian
20 hours ago
- The Guardian
Pablo Escobar's top cocaine pilot details working for drug lord in new podcast
A man who eventually became Pablo Escobar's go-to cocaine pilot has revealed that he first turned down an employment offer from the notorious Colombian drug lord because he was content with the $4m a month he was earning while flying for a competitor. But, in a new podcast containing what is believed to be his first interview since authorities arrested him at his Florida mansion in 1988, Tirso 'TJ' Dominguez recounted how he changed his mind about working for Escobar when the so-called Patron – or boss – offered him a salary that was five times higher: $20m monthly. 'I had 30 Lamborghinis, and I dressed well,' Dominguez says of his ensuing lifestyle during the eight-part documentary podcast titled Cocaine Air, a copy of which was provided to the Guardian. 'They brought me the car that matched the shirt that I decided to wear that day.' The interview that Dominguez granted Cocaine Air host Johnathan Walton after spending more than a dozen years in prison for drug trafficking and money laundering provides a stark, first-hand account of what would motivate someone to work for one of the world's most infamous criminals. Escobar had a hand in murders, kidnappings and bombings before Colombia's special forces shot him to death in 1993. As he told it to Walton, Dominguez only became involved in drug smuggling in the late 1970s after his father, a south Florida real estate developer, unexpectedly died from cancer in the middle of building a sugar mill in Haiti. Dominguez says he was 20 at the time, and he was subsequently scammed out of $100,000 by two ruthless Miami bankers who refused to give him the $14m loan his father had secured before dying. Desperate to raise capital for the sugar mill, Dominguez – whose mother was a homemaker – learned to fly airplanes so he could earn some money from drug dealers by illicitly smuggling marijuana into the US from the Bahamas and Colombia. He says he graduated to illegally flying cocaine over American skies after he dropped $800,000 worth of marijuana into the wrong smuggling boat, prompting his suppliers to kidnap him and threaten to kill him along with his family if he did not quickly make them whole. The quickest path to regaining the lost investment was to fly a plane load of coke to be dealt on behalf of another supplier, so Dominguez did it, according to what he says. 'I never wanted to get into cocaine because cocaine [smugglers] were the bad guys … doing all the killing,' Dominguez says on Walton's podcast, which is unrelated to an upcoming Netflix documentary of the same name but on a different subject. 'I don't condone drugs. I've never done any drugs. I was the victim of a con which actually pushed me in the direction that I ended up in.' Nonetheless, that first flight brought Dominguez a cool $1m to pay back his irate weed suppliers, he says. He says that was lucrative enough for him to decide to begin flying smuggled cocaine full-time, proving himself to be someone who was punctual as well as professional – and he never lost a shipment. Dominguez said his reliability ultimately captured the attention of Escobar, who tried to recruit him to his cartel. Yet Dominguez, also nicknamed Tito, initially was unmoved, saying he was fine with four flights a month at $1m a pop. 'I'll be honest with you – Pablo Escobar didn't mean anything to me,' Dominguez says on Cocaine Air. 'I [was] full of myself. I walk on water, you know? I'm making $4m a month. What the hell's wrong with that?' Escobar then offered to pay Dominguez for four flights a month at $5m a trip. Dominguez thought $20m monthly – the equivalent of $60m today when factoring in inflation – was too much to pass up. And he says that was when he opted to begin flying for Escobar exclusively. That fee evidently became too much even for Escobar, who later started paying Dominguez in cocaine. Dominguez at that point went from a cocaine smuggler to a dealer, meaning he could fly the product, sell it, collect the proceeds, launder the money and invest the funds – all on his own, without needing to count on middle men. 'I did what no other smuggler had ever done in the history of smuggling,' Dominguez bragged to Walton, whose prior projects include the hit Queen of the Con: The Irish Heiress podcast series. In a particularly noteworthy moment on Cocaine Air's series opener, Dominguez reads from a memoir co-authored by Escobar's brother – his accountant Roberto Escobar – that asserts TJ had a fleet of 30 airplanes and was one of the 'main transporters' for Pablo's drug empire. Dominguez recalled accumulating a mansion, a company that sold cellphones at a time when the devices cost $5,000 a piece, a housing development, a charter airplane and boat business, and an exotic car dealership at the peak of his powers. He even raised a pet mountain lion whom he dubbed Top Cat. But it all came crashing down one early morning in April 1988 when federal investigators – equipped with rifles and helicopters – descended on his house and arrested him. Prosecutors had charged him and 12 associates with illegally bringing more than five tons each of marijuana and cocaine into south Florida from at least July 1984 to December 1985, as the Miami Herald and Sun Sentinel newspapers reported. Officials contended that Dominguez's exotic-car dealership in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and his other businesses in the area were fronts for a multimillion-dollar drug smuggling ring. They seized two dozen luxury cars – Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Excaliburs and Panteras – and five airplanes collectively worth nearly $3m to auction them off, among other consequences for Dominguez. In 1991, about two years before Escobar's slaying, Dominguez pleaded guilty to distributing cocaine and marijuana as well as illicitly laundering money. He spent 13 years imprisoned, including two in solitary confinement after one of his fellow inmates reported Dominguez after he managed to buy a helicopter from within his cell and plotted to be flown out to freedom. Dominguez explains on Cocaine Air that, before being caught, he had instructed the helicopter pilot to land on the grounds of the prison and then 'just jump me over the fence'. 'There was a canal, not too far away – I had a car waiting for me,' Dominguez says on Cocaine Air, which premiered Wednesday with plans to release new episodes weekly through 23 July on podcast platforms such as Apple and Spotify. Now aged 73, Dominguez told the podcast that he considers his debt to society repaid and aspires to become a legitimate entrepreneur. 'Failing is when you quit,' Dominguez says of his desire to write a new chapter in his life. 'You're going to fall? You fall forward. That means you gained two steps already. 'The glass is always half full for me.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Trump travel ban comes as little surprise amid barrage of draconian restrictions
Donald Trump's first travel ban in 2017 had an immediate, explosive impact – spawning chaos at airports nationwide. This time around, the panic and chaos was already widespread by the time the president signed his proclamation Wednesday to fully or partially restrict foreign nationals from 19 countries from entering the United States. Since being sworn in for his second term, Trump has unleashed a barrage of draconian immigration restrictions. Within hours of taking office, the president suspended the asylum system at the southern border as part of his wide-ranging immigration crackdown. His administration has ended temporary legal residency for 211,000 Haitians, 117,000 Venezuelans and 110,000 Cubans, and moved to revoke temporary protected status for several groups of immigrants. It has moved to restrict student visas and root out scholars who have come to the US legally. 'It's death by 1,000 cuts,' said Faisal Al-Juburi of the Texas-based legal non-profit Raices, which was among several immigrants' rights groups that challenged Trump's first travel ban. 'And that's kind of the point. It's creating layers and layers of restrictions.' Trump's first travel ban in January 2017, issued days after he took office, targeted the predominantly Muslim countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. The order came as a shock – including to many administration officials. Customs and Border Protection officials were initially given little guidance on how to enact the ban. Lawyers and protesters rushed to international airports where travellers were stuck in limbo. Confusion spread through colleges and tech companies in the US, and refugee camps across the world. This time, Trump's travel ban came as no surprise. He had cued up the proclamation in an executive order signed on 20 January, his first day back in the White House, instructing his administration to submit a list of candidates for a ban by 21 March. Though he finally signed a proclamation enacting the ban on Wednesday, it will not take effect until 9 June – allowing border patrol officers and travellers a few days to prepare. The ban includes several exemptions, including for people with visas who are already in the United States, green-card holders, dual citizens and athletes or coaches traveling to the US for major sporting events such as the World Cup or the Olympics. It also exempts Afghans eligible for the special immigrant visa program for those who helped the US during the war in Afghanistan. But the policy, which is likely to face legal challenges, will undoubtedly once again separate families and disproportionately affect people seeking refuge from humanitarian crises. 'This is horrible, to be clear … and it's still something that reeks of arbitrary racism and xenophobia,' Al-Juburi said. 'But this does not yield the type of chaos that January 2017 yielded, because immigration overall has been upended to such a degree that the practice of immigration laws is in a state of chaos.' In his second term, Trump has taken unprecedented steps to tear down legal immigration. He has eliminated the legal status of thousands of international students and instructed US embassies worldwide to stop scheduling visa interviews as it prepares to ramp up social media vetting for international scholars. The administration has arrested people at immigration check-ins, exiled asylum seekers to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, and detained scholars and travellers at airports without reason. Although Trump's travel ban excludes green-card holders, his Department of Homeland Security has made clear that it can and will revoke green cards as it sees fit – including in the cases of student activists Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi. Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion 'The first Muslim ban was very targeted, it was brutal, it was immediate, and it was massive,' said Nihad Awad, the executive director at the Council on American–Islamic Relations. 'Now, the administration is not only targeting nations with certain religious affiliations, but also people of color overall, people who criticise the US government for its funding of the genocide in Gaza.' And this new travel ban comes as many families are still reeling and recovering from Trump's first ban. 'We're looking at, essentially, a ban being in place potentially for eight out of 12 years,' said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council. 'And even in that period where the Biden administration lifted the ban, it was still very hard for Iranians to get a visa.' Iranian Americans who came to the US fleeing political persecution back home, who couldn't return to Iran, have in some cases been unable to see their parents, siblings or other loved ones for years. 'You want your parents to be able to come for the birth of a child, or to come to your wedding,' Costello said. 'So this is a really hard moment for so many families. And I think unfortunately, there's much more staying power for this ban.' Experts say the new ban is more likely to stand up to legal challenges as his first ban. It also doesn't appear to have registered the same intense shock and outrage, culturally. 'The first time, we saw this immediate backlash, protests at airports,' said Costello. 'Now, over time, Trump has normalized this.'
Sky News
a day ago
- Sky News
Ex-footballer appears in court charged with assaulting Sugababes singer
A former professional footballer has appeared in court charged with assaulting Sugababes singer Keisha Buchanan, as well as controlling or coercive behaviour. Taiwo Leo Atieno faces eight charges relating to his ex-girlfriend, Ms Buchanan, across an approximately 13-year period. The 39-year-old, who played for Luton Town while they were in the Conference Premier league between 2010 and 2011, appeared via video link from HMP Wormwood Scrubs wearing a suit and tie. Atieno was not asked to enter pleas and Judge Ian Bourne KC granted his release from prison on conditional bail during the Harrow Crown Court case sitting at Southwark on Thursday. Atieno, who was born in Brixton in London but played for the Kenyan national team, is charged with assaulting the founding Sugababes singer between 1 January 2012 and 1 January 2015 - causing her actual bodily harm. He is also charged with controlling or coercive behaviour against Ms Buchanan between 29 December 2015 and 1 May 2018. The charge alleges he opened Ms Buchanan's correspondences, controlled her finances and when she could go to the gym and shower, and would not let her wear red lipstick. The charge claims this caused Ms Buchanan "serious alarm or distress which had a substantial adverse effect" on her "usual day-to-day activities". He is accused of doing this "at a time when he knew or ought to have known that the behaviour will have a serious effect" on her. Atieno is also charged with six counts of breaching a non-molestation order, twice by allegedly posting information about Ms Buchanan to a third party online on 18 July and 20 July 2024. He is further accused of breaching the order by emailing Ms Buchanan on 2 August, 19 November, 19 December and 23 December 2024. His bail conditions stipulate that he must surrender his passport. The judge said: "There must not be any contact either directly or indirectly with the complainant Keisha Buchanan. "That means any form of contact, whether it be by email or other sort of social media messaging system - any contact at all". Julian Malins KC, defending, said Atieno "fully understands it, and assures the court through us that he will abide by that". Atieno was also told not to apply for international travel or to enter the London Borough of Barnet. He is due to enter pleas on 22 August. His trial is set to begin on 13 April 2026. Ms Buchanan became one of the original members of the Sugababes with Mutya Buena and Siobhan Donaghy as a teenager in 1998. Donaghy left in 2001 and was replaced by Heidi Rang, while Buena was replaced by Amelle Berrabah in 2005. Buchanan, the last remaining original member, was replaced by Jade Ewen in 2009. The founding trio regained the right to use the Sugababes name in 2019. They reunited to perform at Glastonbury Festival in 2022.
