Latest news with #narcotráfico
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Soaring Gold Prices Draw Illicit Miners—and Armed Gangs—to Colombia's Jungles
PUERTO CLAVER, Colombia—The lure of even a few specks of gold compels Elizabeth Mosquera awake before dawn to slog to a muddy pit, where she wades into waist-deep water and starts to pan. 'What you earn in a month in a regular job, you can make here in an hour or two,' said Mosquera, 47 years old. In Colombia, the prospecting economy is driving revenue to drug-trafficking organizations that are already awash in proceeds from the record supplies of cocaine they are exporting to the U.S. and Europe, law-enforcement officials said.
Malay Mail
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
Nine cartel suspects held over murder of five Mexican band members in Tamaulipas
CIUDAD VICTORIA, May 30 — Suspected drug traffickers murdered five Mexican band members who went missing over the weekend after being hired to perform in a crime-wracked northeastern city, authorities said yesterday Nine alleged drug cartel members were arrested on suspicion of killing the musicians, public prosecutor Irving Barrios told a news conference. The announcement came hours after officials said five bodies had been found in the search for the men, who were members of a local band called Fugitivo. Relatives had reported receiving ransom demands for the musicians, aged between 20 and 40 years old, who were last seen on Sunday in Reynosa, in Tamaulipas state, near the US border. The musicians were hired to put on a concert but arrived to find a vacant lot, according to family members who had held a protest urging the authorities to act. Investigators used video surveillance footage and cellphone tracking to establish the musicians' movements, Barrios said. They are believed to have been kidnapped on Sunday night while traveling in a vehicle to a private event, he said. 'Law enforcement arrested nine individuals considered likely responsible for the events. They are known to be members of a criminal cell of the Gulf Cartel,' Barrios added. Nine firearms and two vehicles were seized, he said. Tamaulipas is considered one of Mexico's most dangerous states due to the presence of gang members involved in drug and migrant trafficking, as well as other crimes including extortion. Criminal violence has claimed more than 480,000 lives in Mexico since 2006 and left around 120,000 people missing. Mexican musicians have previously been targeted by criminal groups that pay them to compose and perform songs that glorify the exploits of their leaders. Such performers often live in close proximity to their drug lord patrons, and can at times get caught up in gang turf battles. In 2013, 17 musicians from the group Kombo Kolombia were executed by alleged cartel members in the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon, allegedly because of links to a rival gang. In January this year, a small plane was reported to have dropped pamphlets on a northwestern city threatening around 20 music artists and influencers for alleged dealings with a warring faction of the Sinaloa drug cartel. The popularity of 'narcocorrido' songs glamorizing the criminal underworld has prompted President Claudia Sheinbaum to launch a music competition aimed at creating 'new musical narratives that move away from the glorification of violence.' Several regions in the country have banned 'narcocorridos,' sparking a recent riot during a concert after a singer refused to perform some of his most popular songs. — AFP
CBS News
06-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Colombia arrests over 200 suspected members of powerful cartel accused of paying recruits $3,500 for "dead police officers"
Colombian authorities said Monday they had captured more than 200 members of the country's biggest drug cartel, which is accused of murdering two dozen security force members in the past month. The Gulf Clan was born out of the right-wing paramilitary groups that fought leftist guerrillas in the 1990s before turning their attention to the cocaine trade. President Gustavo Petro has accused the group, with which he suspended peace talks in early 2023, of devising a strategy to "systematically murder" members of the security forces. Armed forces chief Franciso Cubides told a news conference on Monday the security forces had responded by arresting 217 members of the clan since April 15. He added that 15 other suspected drug traffickers had been shot dead in raids that had netted 6.8 tons of drugs, 123 firearms and more than 15,000 rounds of ammunition. Sixteen police officers and five soldiers have been killed in attacks blamed on what Petro has called the Gulf Clan's "pistol plan." Cubides said the attacks were part of a "desperate response" by armed groups to the "overwhelming" setbacks they were suffering at the hands of the police and military in the north and west of the country. The cartel paid its members "between 10 and 15 million (Colombian pesos, between $2,300 and 3,500) for some dead police officers," Interior Minister Armando Benedetti told a weekly government cabinet meeting. Eight members of Colombia's Gulf Clan drug cartel were killed in clashes with security forces in April 2015, the army said. Colombia Army The Gulf Clan, which engages in illegal gold mining, racketeering and migrant smuggling, is believed to number about 7,500 members, according to government estimates. The group's "primary source of income is from cocaine trafficking, which it uses to fund its paramilitary activities," according to the U.S. State Department. Last month, the police and the DEA killed a man dubbed "Chirimoya," one of the cartel's five commanders, as well as eight other members of the group. The Gulf Clan is one of several cartels recently designated as foreign terrorist groups by the United States. In 2022, the Gulf Clan shut down dozens of towns in northern Colombia for four days in reaction to its leader being extradited to the U.S. for trial. The arrests come as Colombia suffers its worst outburst of violence since the leftist FARC guerrilla army, one of the world's oldest rebel movements, signed a peace deal with the government in 2016. Benedetti admitted last month that Petro's strategy of pursuing "total peace" by engaging in dialogue with the country's various armed groups had not borne fruit. On Petro's watch, several armed groups, particularly the Gulf Clan, have grown stronger, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez admitted recently in an AFP interview.
