Slight decline in Fentanyl deaths in St. Tammany, Washington Parishes
DA Collin Sims discussed the latest successes and goals of the Opioid Initiative Task Force. Sims said they arrested a man in the Hammond area allegedly responsible for nearly half of Fentanyl sold on the Northshore.
New Orleans police investigating two fatal shootings near St. Roch Thursday morning
Sims said he wants to prosecute more street level dealers for murder when they sell drugs related to an overdose death.
'And the hardest thing for us is when we don't have the evidence where it comes from, and you're left with someone's relative or loved one that's dead, and you can't go after the guy that did it,' Sims said. 'The worse part of this job is when you can't do that.'
Sims said many people who die from overdoses have multiple drugs in their bloodstream and many use multiple dealers. Investigators must prove which drug caused the death and who supplied it.Latest Posts
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Yahoo
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Fredonia man sentenced for selling drugs leading to fatal overdose
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — A Fredonia man was sentenced to serve 11 years and three months in prison after selling drugs that led to the fatal overdose of a man in 2022, the United State's Attorney's Office announced Tuesday. John Wallace Buchanan, 38, was convicted of narcotics conspiracy and pleaded guilty in May of last year. He is also ordered to pay $8,570 in restitution to the family of the victim, identified as B.G. Officials said Buchanan sold heroin, which he admitted frequently contained fentanyl and methamphetamine, and used social media for selling and engaging in illegal 'firearms activities.' He also used his home to carry out drug trafficking activities. In the early morning of Jan. 10, 2022, police responded to B.G.'s home in Celoron, N.Y., for a death investigation. Officials said B.G. was found lying on the living room floor with an elastic headband in his hands and a needle close by. Police found a conversation between Buchanan and B.G. from Jan. 7, 2022 on B.G.'s phone, where they were talking about drugs. Officials said Buchanan sold meth and an opioid to B.G. later that day and the next day, B.G. sent Buchanan a message saying, 'That stuff is strong.' Latest Local News 1199SEIU, Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center reach 3-year tentative agreement 'GLOW With Your Hands' connects students to potential career paths Fredonia man sentenced for selling drugs leading to fatal overdose Everything you need to know about the Erie County Fair Seneca Nation acquires Rochester Knighthawks Katie Skoog joined the News 4 team in April 2024. She is a graduate from the University at Buffalo. You can view more of her work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
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Richmond meth smuggler with Yakuza ties sentenced to eight years
A Richmond methamphetamine smuggler with links to the Japanese Yakuza cartel was sentenced Tuesday to eight years in prison. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Wendy Baker accepted a joint sentencing submission made by federal prosecutor Dan Meneley and Chun Yu Luk's lawyer Chantal Paquette. Luk was convicted last December on nine counts, including exporting almost 20 kilograms of methamphetamine to Japan and possessing for the purpose of trafficking fentanyl, carfentanil, methamphetamine, cocaine and MDMA. Baker said the eight years was appropriate because 'the volume of drugs and money found with Mr. Luk take him out of the range of the low-level trafficker.' She noted that the fentanyl found in his Richmond condo at 8080 Cambie St. was estimated to be worth almost $500,000, while the exported meth was valued at between $200,000 and $300,000. She accepted that Luk worked within a mid-level organization that was involved in both local street sales, as well as some international drug shipments. 'The drugs that were being trafficked were serious drugs and are responsible for many deaths in the province. This is conduct which leans in favour of a lengthier sentence,' Baker said. Meneley entered the agreed statement of facts in the case, which laid out the origins of the investigation into Luk's group, which began six years ago. In August 2019, the Canada Border Services Agency examined a package mailed to Japan from a postal outlet inside a Richmond tea store. Testing showed it contained methamphetamine. The Japanese National Police Agency was contacted and a controlled delivery was arranged. A month later, a second package was sent from the Aberdeen Mall. 'Again, a controlled delivery was arranged in conjunction with the (Japanese National Police Agency),' the statement said. Photos and video from the two postal outlets showed Luk and a second accused, Shuai Yuan, mailing the packages. The RCMP then watched Luk making drug transactions on Nov. 8, 2019. A search warrant was executed in June 2020 at the Richmond condo Luk shared with his common-law spouse Ya Bobo Chen. Yuan was also in the unit when police arrived. That is where all the other drugs were located, as well as a firearm, a replica gun, two tasers, three laptops, nine mobile phones, four sets of scales and a radio jammer. The Mounties also seized more than $95,000 in the condo, which has been the subject of a civil forfeiture lawsuit. Luk agreed to forfeit the cash and other items as part of the sentencing. Paquette noted that Luk had struggled with both mental illness and substance use disorder, leading to some of his criminal history. 'He had an unstable childhood. His criminal record really started after a downward spiral when his father committed suicide,' she told Baker. 'His father had some gambling issues, and his mother found out, asked for a divorce, and it led to Mr. Luk's father dying by suicide, which was very difficult on him, understandably, and that led him to use substances more heavily and to associate with negative peers and really make some bad choices.' But both Paquette and Meneley agreed that at the time of the drug offences in 2019 and 2020, Luk was stable and receiving treatment for his mental illness. 'In these circumstances, his moral culpability is not reduced by his mental illness,' Meneley said. 'In fact, his successful treatment enabled these offences.' Chen had also been facing drug charges, but those were stayed Tuesday after Luk was sentenced. Meanwhile, the whereabouts of Yuan, Luk's alleged accomplice, is currently unknown. A warrant has been issued for his arrest. When they was charged in 2022, the RCMP said it had dismantled 'a B.C.-based international organized crime network' with associates in Japan who had 'confirmed ties to the infamous Japanese Yakuza transnational organized crime syndicate.' kbolan@ Bluesky: @ Related Traveller charged with trafficking after meth found wrapped as gifts in suitcase Man charged with second-degree murder in 2024 Langley homicide
CNN
4 hours ago
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‘Mom is home again with you': Marine veteran's wife reunites with children after months in ICE detention
When Paola Clouatre arrived home, her young son Noah glanced at her sideways. He covered his face, turned around, looked back again. 'It was as if he couldn't believe that the person there was me, his mom,' Clouatre says, as she recalls the moment she was reunited with her family, two months after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while breastfeeding her three-month-old baby. The first thing she did when Noah recognized her was hug him. 'I said to him: 'It's Mom. Mom is home again with you.'' The second thing she did was breastfeed her baby, Lyn. 'I couldn't believe I was home again, it was like a shock,' Clouatre tells CNN from her home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as she cradles Lyn, and Noah runs around the room scribbling on a piece of paper. Next to her is her husband Adrián, a Marine Corps veteran who fought tirelessly for her release. Clouatre, born in Mexico, had come to the United States in 2014 with her mother. She was 14 years old. She soon lost contact with her and spent her teenage years in homeless shelters. In 2022 she met Adrian. Shortly after, they had Noah. In February 2024, they got married and later, little Lyn was born. On May 27, the couple went to an adjustment of status interview, hoping to advance the process for Clouatre to obtain her permanent residence or green card. Just a week before, they had learned that there was a deportation order against her, because she had not attended a hearing whose notice had been sent to her mother, and the young woman never found out. Clouatre was detained on the spot and transferred to ICE's rural detention center in Monroe, four hours from her home. Clouatre says she never imagined she would end up detained. She spent several days in shock, trying to process what was happening. She didn't even have time to say goodbye to her children. 'It was very hard. I missed my family, my children, my husband. I had a lot of anxiety, depression,' she recalls. 'Sometimes I didn't eat, other times I ate too much out of anxiety. I cried a lot.' But for her, most painful were the visits from her children. Her husband made the long trip to the detention center as often as possible so Clouatre could see the kids and continue breastfeeding the baby. He also managed to get her a breast pump to prevent her milk supply from drying up. 'When he brought me the children, I would hug my little girl, breastfeed her, but it was only for a while. When the visit ended, I had to say goodbye. My son would grab my hand, walk with me, he didn't want to let go. He cried when they took him away. Goodbyes were the most painful,' Clouatre recalls. Several times, she says, she was told they told her she could be put on a plane and deported at any moment. 'I thought: 'And if I go to Mexico? Where will I go? With whom? I don't talk with my family. I didn't know how I would survive. I worried a lot. My husband and I talked about it all the time, about what would happen to me, how I would communicate, how I would move forward,' she says. Her husband had told CNN in a previous interview, while she was still detained, that deportation was an unthinkable scenario for them, since his wife no longer had any ties in Mexico. 'They mixed us all together: people with no criminal record with people who did have criminal records,' she says. 'There were about 105 women in my dormitory.' The routine was strict and the tension constant, she recalls. CNN asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about the detention conditions mentioned by Clouatre, but did not receive a response on this specific point. But when posed with other questions from migrants and human rights organizations about ICE detention centers, DHS responded that 'all detainees receive adequate food, medical treatment, and have the opportunity to communicate with their families and lawyers' and that 'ensuring the safety and well-being of people in our custody is an absolute priority at ICE.' A week ago, after her husband and his lawyer Carey Holliday tried by every possible means to secure Clouatre's release, she was finally able to leave the detention center and reunite with her family. Her husband told CNN that a judge suspended the deportation order. Then, Senator John Kennedy's office submitted a request to DHS for the woman to be released, the AP reported. Asked by CNN, DHS said that 'Members of Congress have no influence over whom ICE arrests, detains, or subjects to immigration procedures … DHS enforces the law. Period,' they responded by email, in a statement attributed to Deputy Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. 'Lisette Paola Rosas-Campos (Clouatre) filed a motion to reopen her immigration case on May 27, 2025, and requested an emergency stay of deportation from an immigration judge. The immigration judge granted the motion and she was released from ICE custody while her immigration process continues,' the DHS statement says. Clouatre must now wear an electronic ankle monitor and report to an official every two weeks as one of the conditions for her release. What's next? 'We're trying to get our lives back. Looking for an apartment in Louisiana. We want to establish a normal life,' says her husband. 'I understand the law has to be enforced, but there must also be humanity. There are people waiting for their residency. They are not criminals. They have children. They shouldn't be treated like criminals,' says the Marine veteran. Clouatre's legal process could last several years before it is formally closed, but she could eventually obtain her green card, said Holliday, the couple's lawyer, as quoted by AP. Clouatre says she does not consider her detention to be fair. 'I felt bad. As if I had done something wrong. I felt guilty, even though I hadn't done anything wrong,' she explains. But now, speaking with CNN, she says she is happy to be back with her loved ones. And the children seem just as happy. Noah stops running and sits on his mother. He looks up, turns his face to the screen and says, 'Mama.'
