Get the latest security and defense stories from across the Americas.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) 7/23/2009 — Rio drug traffickers are operating makeshift medical clinics in the slums they control so wounded gang members don't have to risk arrest by seeking treatment at hospitals, police said Thursday.
Bogotá, July 26 (EFE).- FARC’s military chief a.k.a.“Mono Jojoy,” may be surrounded today as a result of pressure from Colombian troops, which have inflicted forty casualties on the guerilla group in the last two weeks, in bombings and engagements in areas of the Llanos Orientales, in the east central region of the country.
Experts from fifteen countries met in the Chilean city of Viña del Mar within the framework of the OAS’s Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission, aiming at unifying procedures to combat drug trafficking at sea.
Washington, July 20 (EFE).- The United States is offering a total of fifty million dollars as a reward for information leading to the capture of ten members of the Mexican Gulf cartel and its armed wing, known as “The Zetas,” the State Department announced today.
Morelia (Mexico), July 20 (EFE).- The Mexican army today began to deploy 2,500 soldiers in the state of Michoacán in response to attacks by the cartel of ‘The Family,’ which have resulted in fifteen police officers dead in recent days.
Rome, July 21 (EFE).- The Italian police today dismantled a drug-trafficking ring between South America and Italy through Spain, controlled by the ’Ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, in an operation in which around forty individuals were arrested, police sources told EFE today.
Bogotá, July 16 (EFE).- Olivia Solarte, the mother of a police officer kidnapped by the FARC ten years ago, completed a march of more than 550 kilometers asking for the release of her son, Superintendent Jorge Trujillo Solarte, in Bolívar Square in central Bogotá today.
Bogotá, July 17 (EFE).- The Colombian army confiscated 1.7 tons of cocaine and arrested eight paramilitaries who were transporting the consignment along a road in the eastern part of the country today, regional military spokespersons announced.
Washington, July 17 (EFE).- Today FARC guerrilla Gerardo Antonio Aguilar Ramírez, alias “Cesar,” one of the “jailers” of Ingrid Betancourt and three Americans rescued in July 2008, pleaded “not guilty” to the drug-trafficking charges of which he is accused in the United States.
SAN JOSE, 14 July 2009 (AFP) - Vessels of the Costa Rican Coast Guard Service and the United States Navy captured a boat carrying four Colombians and nearly 1,300 kilos of cocaine on the high seas on Tuesday, the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Security announced.
Around 20 people, including four government employees, have been arrested in Panama for allegedly belonging to a ring that smuggled Dominicans into the United States and Europe using false Panamanian passports, prosecutors said.
BOGOTA, 12 July 2009 (AFP) - The Colombian guerrilla group FARC arranged to purchase about twenty latest-generation Russian anti-aircraft missiles through contacts in Venezuela, where the government has promised to cooperate in the investigation, the daily El Tiempo reported on Sunday, citing official sources.
