Panama closed 2022 accomplishing a major feat in the fight against narcotrafficking with the seizure of 128.6 tons of drugs in different operations throughout the year, Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo told the National Assembly in January. “Due to its geographic location Panama is easily connected to all ports in Europe, [ … ]
In late December 2022, the U.S. Embassy in Chile, the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR), and its international arm ONR Global launched a project to encourage students, particularly girls and gender non-conforming students, to develop skills in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and the Arts (STEAM). The initiative will [ … ]
After almost two years of inter-guerrilla conflict between the National Liberation Army (ELN) and factions of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Colombia and Venezuela’s borderlands remain war-torn and an epicenter of the drug trade in the Americas. Inconsistencies in official data for Venezuela’s drug seizures in 2022, [ … ]
The Peruvian National Police (PNP) has been dealing a forceful and systematic blow to the Tren de Aragua, Venezuela’s most powerful transnational criminal organization, and a threat to security in the region. The criminal group that originated in Venezuela’s Aragua state claims Tocorón prison, in Aragua, as its headquarters, where [ … ]
Peru became the first country in South America to expressly recognize wildlife trafficking as part of a law against organized crime, said Oceana Peru, a branch of the international organization for ocean conservation. “The approval of the November [2022] initiative, which had been under discussion since 2018, is an important [ … ]
On January 11, the Iranian Navy announced plans to expand military operations to the Panama Canal later in the year to strengthen its presence in international waters, state-run The Tehran Times reported. According to experts, the move is a sign that the Islamic country seeks to strengthen ties with its [ … ]
Eight of the 10 companies responsible for nearly 25 percent of known illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing are from China. So says a recent report by the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC), a global network of civil society, governments, and experts. According to the study, China and its state-owned companies [ … ]
In the midst of bloody disputes between local gangs in cahoots with large international mafias, Ecuador is positioning itself as a hub for cocaine trafficking to the United States and Europe, the Ecuadorian daily El Tiempo reported. “The boom in violence in Ecuador converges with the impact of COVID-19, the [ … ]
The government of El Salvador has activated phase five of its Territorial Control Plan security strategy, called Extraction, deploying police and military forces to surround cities and contain gang activity. “In the first place, we must understand that the extraction phase implies an earlier intelligence phase to go to specific [ … ]
On Jan. 6, U.S. Central Command forces intercepted a stateless dhow in the Gulf of Oman smuggling more than 2,000 AK-47 assault rifles while transiting international waters from Iran to Yemen. The vessel was sailing on a route historically used to traffic weapons to the Houthis in Yemen. A team [ … ]
Peruvian law enforcement agencies are working to monitor, act, and dismantle dissident groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), present along the Peruvian border area, Peruvian Navy Admiral Jorge Moscoso Flores, former head of the Peruvian Armed Forces’ Joint Command, told Diálogo on December 18, 2022. In November, [ … ]
The Honduran government has launched the National Integral Plan against Extortion and Related Crimes, declaring a state of emergency and announcing the deployment of security forces to combat crime, extortion, and narcotrafficking carried out by gangs and other criminal organizations. “This measure is necessary and timely to detain crime perpetrators [ … ]
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