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Punitive sentences totalling 85 years, which were passed down last week on three English gang members, are unlikely to stem the tide of transatlantic drug shipments.As he fielded calls last week from people eager to discuss the record prison sentences handed down to four drug smugglers over the €440 million haul of cocaine recovered off west Cork, Michael Colgan repeated one message over and over again.Intelligence is key to tackling the highly organised and well-resourced drugs gangs that target the European market, insisted Colgan, the head of...
Charges against Tetra Pak heir Hans Kristian Rausing and wife Eva have been dropped Hans Rausing, 45, an heir to the multi-billion pound Tetra Pak drinks carton empire, was embarrassingly drawn into the public eye in April after his wife Eva, 44, was caught trying to smuggle heroin and crack into a function at London's American embassy.When £10m home the couple share with their four children in exclusive Cadogan Place, Chelsea, was then searched, officers found more crack and heroin - and £2,000 worth of cocaine, enough to fuel a whole nightclub...
Ramiro Vanoy Murillo, 60, and Francisco Javier Zuluaga Lindo, 38, are among 14 paramilitary members extradited to the U.S. in May for their alleged roles in a massive cocaine smuggling operation in the late 1990s. The two entered their pleas before U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore in downtown Miami.Under a plea agreement, Vanoy Murillo faces up to 19 years and Zuluaga Lindo more than 17 years behind bars. Prosecutors said they would drop additional charges against the two at sentencing. Each could also face up to $4 million in fines.The Bush...
In January 1998, Matheson was convicted of accessory after the fact involving a theft of over $500. In August 2000, Matheson was convicted of possession of Methylenedioxy Amphetamine also known as MDMA or Ecstacy and possession of cocaine.As a result of his second conviction, which took place in Allen Parish, Matheson was sentenced to serve nine years in the department of corrections.“It’s a relief to get him off the streets,” said Vernon Parish Sheriff Sam Craft. “He’s got two prior felony convictions and if convicted of these charges he will...
man is dead after being shot by a sheriff's deputy during a law enforcement sweep through Buffalo to round up members of a violent drug gang. Buffalo Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson says a Niagara County sheriff's deputy fired at the man inside a home Tuesday morning after the man aimed a gun at the officer. The man's name was not released. He was pronounced dead at a Buffalo hospital. The shooting happened as 400 officers from several agencies participated in Operation Third Strike, fanning out at 5 a.m. with federal arrest warrants. About...
The Libyan authorities have seized 50kg of heroin in a record haul, the interior ministry said in a statement on Monday. Heroin of "pure quality" was seized in the Al-Wahat region in the east of the country, the ministry said. It did not specify if any arrests were made. The statement said that the amount was the largest ever seized in a North African country and the second largest recorded in Libya. Efforts are being made "to eradicate the epidemic" in Libya where illegal narcotics are considered "weapons of mass destruction," the statement said,...
Kelowna RCMP say a marijuana grow operation busted Thursday was linked to the Hells Angels.The Kelowna drug section dismantled a grow operation in the 2000-block of Ethel Street, according to a news release Friday."Seized from the house were 86 'mother plants' and approximately 3,000 immature 'clone plants'. Police believe the house was being used as a clone factory of sorts, whereby the immature plans were being produced from the mother plants and were then available for sale or relocation to other marijuana grow sites," the release stated.Police...
Federal authorities in New Jersey say they have broken up a drug trafficking ring that was a major supplier of marijuana to Bermuda -- in the process touching off a political scandal on the island. Two men, one a resident of Bloomfield and the other alleged to be the husband of a top government official in Bermuda, were arrested after agents seized 700 pounds of marijuana last week at a warehouse in Orange. Douglas Collier, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Newark, said the operation differed from most, because rather than...
Sleuths of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) Thursday arrested a man and recovered from him four kg of heroin, worth Rs.40 million in the international market. Liakat Ali alias Lakhwinder Singh, 34, was nabbed with the contraband wrapped in a polythene bag near the Chandigarh airport. He had gone there to deliver the packet to a Nigerian who, however, failed to turn up, NCB officials said. “A close-knit network of heroin traffickers is run by a group based in Pakistan and their kingpin is a Pakistani national who is at present lodged in a Punjab...
Eight people - including a Canadian customs officer - have been charged in connection with the RCMP investigation of a drug ring.The investigation, which began in 2007, stemmed from information provided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI.The FBI established links between drug suppliers in Quebec and New Brunswick following the arrest of a cannabis supplier in Florida.The customs officer was arrested last week during a controlled delivery of drugs across the St-Bernard-de-Lacolle border crossing between Quebec and the U.S.Four...
Three new drug charges laid against ABC journalist Peter Lloyd in Singapore include one count of possessing utensils that carried traces of the veterinary drug ketamine.Nicknamed Special K, ketamine is also a recreational drug used for its psychedelic or hallucinogenic effects.The other two new charges against Lloyd are methamphetamine consumption without authorisation, and possessing utensils that carried traces of methamphetamine, a charge sheet...
The Maine-based Coast Guard cutter Tahoma arrived in Miami today with 10,000 pounds of confiscated cocaine.The cutter has been working with U.S. and British navy patrols in the Caribbean, operations which in late June led to the seizure of 13,000 pounds of cocaine worth about $227 million on the street.On June 26, the Tahoma boarded a 120-foot Honduran ship Miss Dayanna 76 miles south of Jamaica and found the 10,000-pound cocaine stash hidden on board. The 270-foot Tahoma's home port is Kittery.The Coast Guard said its cutter named Tahoma intercepted...
Senegalese police are unravelling a Latin American drug smuggling network thought to be using the West African nation as a hub for trafficking to Europe and the United States after seizing cocaine worth over $200 million.Police have discovered 2 454kg of cocaine and arrested three South American men since a deserted sailing ship, apparently broken down, drifted into a popular coastal resort last Wednesday with 50 sacks of the drug on board.The arrests...
Five guards at a Miami-Dade County prison are charged with smuggling drugs into the facility.Federal indictments also charge them with taking cash from inmates in return for helping to deliver the drugs inside the prison.They were arrested Friday. The guards worked at Dade Correctional Institution in Florida City, about 28 miles north of Miami.A kitchen employee at the prison and several inmates were also charged.Prosecutors say the arrests were part of an FBI investigation called Operation Birdcage. An undercover officer posed as a drug dealer...
Jerome Levore Parker, 29, was arrested in March after Transportation Security Administration screeners at Tucson International Airport found bundles of cocaine hidden inside his suitcase and computer bag.Parker had flown into Tucson from New York and was planning to fly to London the following day.Parker pleaded guilty to attempted transportation of narcotics for sale in Pima County Superior Court last month.Parker’s attorney, Brad Roach, told Judge Richard Nichols Parker only agreed to carry the drugs because he was behind in child support.Upon...
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Friday that U.S. intelligence led Mexican forces to a small submarine captured this week packed with 5.8 tons of cocaine.Chertoff called the vessel's seizure Wednesday off Oaxaca state in southern Mexico "a great example of our cooperation.""We shared information with the Mexican navy, but the Mexican navy acted alone in actually executing the seizure," Chertoff told a news conference in Mexico City.Mexican...
59-year-old man from Carlton in Sydney will appear via videolink before Parramatta Local Court today after allegedly trying to smuggle more than 577 grams of cocaine through Sydney International Airport.After arriving on a flight from Santiago, Chile, yesterday morning (19 July 2008), the man was detained for a frisk search by Customs officers. During the search, a large package was found concealed around the man’s groin. He was then interviewed by Australian Federal Police agents at the airport.The AFP has charged the man with importing a marketable...
Guinea-Bissau police have arrested the head of the air traffic control tower at the country's main airport after the seizure of a plane suspected of carrying cocaine, a senior police officer said on Sunday.The tiny former Portuguese colony has become a major hub for smugglers trafficking Colombian cocaine to Europe due to its poorly policed Atlantic shoreline and widespread corruption in an ill-resourced public administration, anti-drugs experts say.Last week authorities seized two planes suspected of being used by smugglers at the main international...
ABC's most senior staff will meet the network's South Asia correspondent, Peter Lloyd, in a Singapore jail this morning for the first time since his arrest for drug trafficking.The ABC's director of news, John Cameron, flew to Singapore last night, joining the ABC's legal adviser, Rob Simpson, who arrived in Singapore after Lloyd was charged with possessing and trafficking methamphetamine last week. Bail was set at $45,000. Lloyd's next court appearance is on Friday.The ABC said yesterday that Mr Simpson was in Singapore to ensure appropriate legal...
Anti-narcotics police in Guinea Bissau on Saturday arrested the three-man Venezuelan crew of an executive jet suspected of being used to smuggle cocaine into West Africa, an officer said.The arrival of the Gulfstream jet at Bissau airport last weekend, having apparently come from Venezuela, had triggered a stand-off between police who wanted to search it and the army, which blocked access to the plane, diplomats said."Three Venezuelans are being held at the moment by the judicial police," counter-narcotics unit chief Sana Camara told Reuters, without...
The man was arrested yesterday during a police drug raid and was allegedly caught with 0.8 grams of "Ice", a crack pipe and six syringes, a Singaporean newspaper confirmed last night.41-year-old Australian man charged with dealing drugs in Singapore could face 15 strokes of a cane and jail time if he is convicted."His urine was screened positive for amphetamines and he is under investigation in trafficking a controlled drug,"."If convicted he faces imprisonment of between five and 20 years and between five and 15 strokes of the cane."It is not...
Police in Sierra Leone said Tuesday they had arrested a total of 58 suspects, including a number of foreigners, in connection with Sunday's record cocaine bust in the West African state.Deputy Inspector-General Oliver Somassa said those detained included Americans, Mexicans, Colombians, Venezuelans, Brazilians and nationals from Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria. He did not give precise figures.Others included local airport officials and five police officers. An air traffic controller and an employee of a bank at the airport were picked up trying to cross...
Cocaine with a street value of €250,000 was seized in Dublin last night.The drugs were found during the search of a car on the Malahide Road at about 9pm, a Garda spokesman said.The operation was carried out by officers from the Garda National Drugs Unit. One man was arrested and is being questioned in Coolock Garda Station under Section 2 Drug Trafficking Act.In another incident, a pipe bomb and a hand grenade, along with up to 200 kilos of cannabis and one kilo of cocaine, were found during a Garda raid on a house in Finglas west, Dublin, last...
Police have charged seven people in Melbourne and Sydney over a drug importation worth more than $31 million.."Three of those arrests are in Sydney - a 23-year-old Padstow woman, a 24-year-old Prestons man and a 23-year-old man from Punchbowl.They've all been charged with drug importation and possession and will face court in Melbourne today.Authorities in the United States detected the drugs in a shipment to Australia in May.93 kilograms of ecstasy, 46 kilograms of cocaine and 27 kilograms of ice were removed from the container housing massage...
military operation has seized drugs worth £26million being smuggled to Britain from Iran.Royal Marines stormed dozens of vessels after they were spotted leaving small ports and tracked by Royal Navy warships until they entered international waters. Commandos in inflatable speedboats forcibly boarded the "dhows" loaded with heroin, cocaine, cannabis and "speed".Last night a defence source said: "The majority of the heroin and hash had been grown in...
A passenger plane loaded with 1,540 pounds of cocaine was found abandoned at Sierra Leone's main airport Sunday, police said.Airport officials discovered the craft, which was registered to a South American country, along with a handful of guns apparently left behind by a two-man crew before dawn, said Francis Munu, a police official in the capital.Munu said police had organized a search party to try to find the pilots of the plane.With cocaine prices in Europe surging ahead of prices in the United States, drug smugglers in South America are increasingly...
Five people, including three from Portugal, were being questioned over a drugs seizure of more than £5 million worth of cocaine. Dyfed-Powys Police said a multi-agency operation led to arrests on and around the Pembrokeshire coast. The five suspects have been transferred to police stations in the north west of England. Two people are from the ar...
A leader of the Tijuana cartel is alleged to be Enedina Arrellano Felix, whose brothers had managed the cartel, once the most powerful in Mexico. Another prominent woman is Sandra Avila Beltrán, dubbed "La Reina del Pacifico," the Queen of the Pacific, for her alleged role in shipping cocaine from Colombia to Mexico for the Sinaloa cartel. She was arrested last year and faces charges of organized crime, money laundering and conspiracy to traffic drugs. "We're definitely seeing more women, and we're seeing them playing a more important role," said...
Martin Wanden pulled from the sea near where drugs worth €440 million were found off the west Cork coast has denied any involvement in drug smuggling.Martin Wanden, an English national, told Cork Circuit Criminal Court that he had no involvement in the smuggling of cocaine and only ended up in the water after he went to assist a friend, who told him he had got into difficulty while fishing.“I am not guilty. I never at any point took any part in what happened. If the police had kept an open mind on this from day one I would not be here, but because...
DEFENCE attorney for alleged drug kingpin Norris 'Deedo' Nembhard, Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, yesterday applied for leave in the Court of Appeal, to allow for an application to the United Kingdom-based Privy Council in a last ditch bid to stop Nembhard from being handed over to United States authorities.On Wednesday, Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne, attached her signature to extradition warrants allowing for Nembhard and three other alleged drug dealers, Robroy 'Spy' Williams, his brother Glenford Williams and Vivian Dalley who were held along...
Ugur "Mike" Yildiz was charged last month with illegally exporting firearms. He allegedly smuggled 237 guns into Windsor, Canada.Yildiz was trying to get rid of his weapons after the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revoked his license at Chicagoland Bells gun shop in Franklin Park, authorities said. Since 2006, Canadian police have recovered 25 of his guns, two of which were used in attempted murders, U.S. authorities said.Yildiz ran Chicagoland Bells until 2005. The City of Chicago targeted Bells in an unsuccessful lawsuit...
Two London men have been jailed after being found guilty of smuggling cocaine with an estimated street value of £800,000 into the UK.Sotiris Andreas, 50, and Pavlos Petrou Andronicou, 61, both of Enfield, were sentenced to 14.5 and 19 years by a judge at Canterbury Crown Court.A customs spokesman said 14.4kg of the 20kg cocaine haul was 100% pu...
court in southern Vietnam sentenced two Taiwanese men to death for their involvement in an international heroin trafficking ring, local media reported Friday. The People's Court of An Giang province, 190 kilometres south-west of Ho Chi Minh City, handed death sentences to Wei Chun Lung and Lee Chih Wen at a two-day trial that ended Thursday, the People's Police newspaper said. The court also sentenced two Vietnamese accomplices, Phan Thi Cam Tu and Huynh Thi Anh, to 20 and 18 years in prison. According to the court's indictment, the ring was uncovered...
Daniel Davis, of Sandyhill Way, Ballymun, north Dublin, was taken to the Bridewell District Court yesterday by members of the Garda National Drugs Unit.
The unit seized about 20kg of heroin, with an alleged estimated value of €4 million, near the Halfway House pub, at Ashtown, on the Navan Road, on Monday night. Detective Garda Declan O’Connell gave details of the arrest, charge and caution. He told Judge William Hamill he had earlier arrested Mr Davis and charged him with Section 3 and Section 15 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. These sections refer...
Police in Vietnam’s largest city have arrested three Vietnamese-Australians for allegedly trafficking around two kilograms of heroin, media is reporting.The three were arrested at Ho Chi Minh City airport on Tuesday (local time), the Cong An Nhan Dan (People’s Police) newspaper said, without identifying them or saying what flight they had planned to board.Police in the communist country also confiscated $10,000 and six mobile telephones, the report said.Vietnam is considered a major trafficking hub for the heroin trade, on route to Australia, where...
Romanian authorities aided by colleagues from the US and several EU states have broken up a 17-person drug and cigarette smuggling gang, the Romanian border police said Monday. The gang contained members from Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine with the US-based Ukrainian leader appearing before a New York court. Those arrested were also charged with money laundering. The gang is suspected of having coordinated the transport of cocaine from Latin America into Western Europe. They are also believed to have smuggled cigarettes from Eastern Europe into...
"It was an enterprise concealed in suburbia," said DEA Agent Douglas S. Collier, spokesman for the agency's Newark office that worked the Esteves case. "They had so much money they didn't know what to do with it."While several neighbors, who would only speak anonymously, said last week that they wondered about the Esteveses' ostentatious lifestyle, narcotics investigators say it fits a pattern.Drug kingpins, they say, move to the suburbs for the same reasons as anyone else - for comfort and security. And, like other goal-oriented entrepreneurs,...
Israeli police say they have made the biggest drug siezure in the country's history.Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld says customs officials at the Haifa port found 104 kilograms (278 pounds) of pure cocaine hidden in coffee cans shipped from Colombia.He says it's "definitely" the biggest drug bust ever made in Israel.Police say the cocaine had a street value of more than $15 million.The uncut cocaine was discovered last month. Police say they arrested eight suspects, but released them due to lack of evidence. Police say they are still investig...
A couple with four children, three of whom are below 16 years, was sentenced to death by the High Court hereThursday for heroin trafficking five years ago.High Court Justice Ahmad Maarop also convicted them of possession of the narcotic and sentenced them to 15 years to jail, from their date of arrest in 2003, which they are to serve before their execution.Justice Ahmad, now a Court of Appeal Justice, however, granted them a stay on the death sentence pending an appeal.Azaha Abd Rani, 49, and his wife Zainun Mohd Noor, 42, both from Kelantan, were...
Employee of Kosovo Parliament’s has been arrested in Serbia under suspicion of possessing heroin. Serbian police arrested two Kosovar Albanians and one Serb for possession of heroin near the Serbian town of Kursumlija on Wednesday, according to Kosovo’s public broadcaster. It was reported that the two Kosovars are brothers, one of them who is a lawyer and the other, a driver who works in Kosovo’s Parliament, while the Serb detainee is from Serbia’s southern town of Nis. The three are being held in a local jail, where they will remain for one month...
Police arrested a 36-year-old man who was caught near the Dead Sea area allegedly carrying 13 kilograms of heroin and 40,000 ecstasy pills weighing a total of five kilograms. Officers from the Negev district, in concert with Border Police personnel in the area, noticed a suspicious figure loitering in a region long known as a gateway for drug smuggling. The contraband is estimated to be worth millions of shekels. The suspect, a Bedouin resident of the Negev, was taken into custody for questioning. Police will request the Be'er Sheva Magistrate...
Florida press on Tuesday reported that 43-year-old Bahamian Rickey Thompson is possibly facing a life sentence in connection with the deaths of three illegal immigrants who drowned in what Florida authorities say was a human smuggling attempt gone wrong.In addition to three counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Nigel Warren, of Jamaica, and Haitian citizens Roselyne Lubin and Alnert Charles, Thompson faces 27 other criminal counts, including alien smuggling resulting in death and importing drugs into the United States.The jury in that...
The national carrier Air Jamaica, which has been struggling to stay in the sky, is facing more problems on Wednesday afternoon.According to reports coming out of the United States, Customs Department agents announced that they intercepted a stash of cocaine and marijuana weighing nine pounds in total hidden aboard an Air Jamaica airliner in Philadelphia.The drugs were found hidden in a food cart of the Air Jamaica flight from Kingston that arrived...
More than 193m euros ($153m, $300m) worth of cocaine has been seized in a raid on a sailboat heading for the Basque region, Spanish officials say. The Interior Ministry says police arrested two people on the boat. Five others were arrested in the city of Bilbao. More than 1,500kg of cocaine were seized in the operation. The authorities say the two people arrested on the boat were an Italian and a Venezuelan. Spain is the main entry point into Europe for cocaine smuggled from South America. More cocaine is consumed in Spain than in any other European...
Schapelle Corby, guarded by two prison officers, spent more than three hours in the Gardenia Salon, adjacent to the wing of Sanglah Hospital where she was admitted late last month.Australian drug trafficker Schapelle Corby has been allowed out of a Bali hospital,where she is being treated for depression, to shop, have her hair done and get a pedicure.“She was here from 11am until 2.10pm, guarded by two fully-armed officers,” salon worker Ida Ayu...
Anthony Barnett, 44, of South Hempstead, L.I., pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and was scheduled for sentencing Oct. 15 by Niagara County Judge Matthew J. Murphy III.Assistant Attorney General Kevin Kane of the Organized Crime Task Force said in court that investigators were led to Barnett last summer by tapping the cell phone of David A. Phelps, 36, of Niagara Falls, the leader of the cocaine ring, who has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing as he supplies prosecutors with...
uncovered a large scale drug operation including up to in what is one of the state's biggest seizures. Police raided a property called Kinvarra on Hollybank Road at Waroo yesterday, finding between 2,000 and 3,000 cannabis plants and two sh...
Schoolboys are being preyed upon by London drugs barons and forced to smuggle drugs into Norfolk, a court heard yesterday.A judge at Norwich Crown Court warned that the young mules, who bring substances like crack cocaine to the county, would face substantial custodial sentences in an attempt to send out a strong message to fellow crooks. But he added that the youths were being exploited by “evil men” who evade detection.Following the sentencing of a 17-year-old - described as a “bright student” who went off the rails - Norfolk police moved to...
Navy is using Special Boat Service snipers to intercept cocaine shipments heading to Europe from producers in Colombia and Bolivia, it emerged last night.A team of special forces soldiers was on board a Lynx helicopter on Saturday – also carrying Prince William – that spotted and stopped a smuggling vessel north-east of Barbados. The boat was en route to Europe from Latin America. The Prince was among a team dispatched from his ship, HMS Iron Duke, which intercepted the 50ft speedboat, known as a "go-fast". American coastguards and British sailors...
