Injured Colombian Soldiers Run Marathon
eynaldo Torres, left, a blind Colombian Soldier, ran in the Nov. 1 New York City Marathon with the help of Colombian Army Col. Luis Vargas, liaison officer at the U.S. Southern Command. Torres was left blind after suffering combat wounds from an improvised explosive device. He was among 11 Colombian [ … ]
Trafficking in Gold and Precious Stones
Organized criminal groups have become deeply involved in illicit trafficking of wildlife, precious stones and minerals, human organs and other contraband. This black market trade provides a source of profit in addition to the narcotrafficking and weapons trades.
Leadership Program Held for Noncommissioned Officers in Colombia
Fifteen Colombian noncommissioned officers took a leadership course offered by the Inter-American Air Forces Academy in their home country late in 2009. It was the fifth time in two years that the International Noncommissioned Officer Academy course was presented outside its normal location at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
Tri-Border Sex Slaves
Shared border of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay becomes hotbed for forced prostitution
Multinational Training in Chile
Salitre 2009, hosted by the Chilean Air Force, or FACh, helped build cooperative capability to respond to humanitarian crises and promote regional security. It was held Oct. 19-30 at the Cerro Moreno Air Base in Antofagasta, northern Chile. The exercise involved 60 airplanes and 400 participants from the United States, [ … ]
Bullets for Cocaine
The arrests of Syrian Monzer al-Kassar in Spain in 2007 and Russian Viktor Bout in Thailand in 2008 shed light on how easy it is to smuggle weapons into Latin America.
Naval Base Targets Traffickers
Navy boats were on display Dec. 1, in Isla Chapera, Panama, at the inauguration of Panama’s first naval base aimed at fighting regional drug traffic. The base is the first of 11 planned to cut maritime trafficking routes from South America to North America. The base will be operated by [ … ]
Global Narco-Enterprise
Drug trafficking organizations follow the model of transnational businesses while developing criminal links and violence across the region
Reward Offered for Militants
Peru is working on a new approach to counter the violence from the remnants of the Shining Path guerrilla group. Rafael Rey, Peru’s minister of defense, told the news agency EFE that the approach includes new military intelligence and elite forces. It also includes a reward program that could pay [ … ]
Breaking the Criminal’s Bank
Colombia’s Extinction of Dominion over Assets Law Serves as a Model for Other Governments
Transformation in Communications
A new fiber-optic cable is set to increase Guyana’s bandwidth capacity, reported the Web site Caribbean Net News. The cable is set to increase Internet capacity by 3,000 times and will bring national development opportunities including e-governance, e-health, e-learning and e-security, among others, said officials from the Guyana Telephone and [ … ]
Parallels in Narcoterrorism
The FARC in Colombia and the Taliban in Afghanistan fund violence through the drugs they once disdained