Forensic technicians unload from a van to the morgue, some of the 15 corpses found earlier on May 9 in two abandoned vehicles on the highway to Chapala. (HECTOR GUERRERO/AFP/Getty Images)
Mexican authorities report 20 dismembered bodies found in the state of Jalisco, presumed to be the latest victims of the country’s escalating drug war.
What was once taboo has now got presidents talking in public and writing charged commentaries. They’re trying to frame the new drugs debate in terms that Washington — which firmly stands by the drug war solution — will understand: supply and demand.
LIMA — Peru is set to overtake Colombia as the world's top grower of coca — the plant used to make cocaine and crack. So far, the Andean country's government is staying the course in the US-backed war on drugs. GlobalPost talks to the government's former anti-drug czar who tried to change that.
Imagine a post-drug war world. After decades of brutal violence, huge costs and corrupting cartels, the Americas are trying to picture it. They produce and ship the bulk of the cocaine that enters the US, the world's top user. Now leaders are discussing alternatives to the war on drugs, such as decriminalizing or legally regulating parts of the drug trade. The taboo is broken. 'Legalize it' is gaining ground.
Violence related to Mexico's vicious drug war has pushed violence south. Today, 90 percent of South American cocaine destined for the US passes through Central America.
Narco technology: from submarines to torpedoes (AFP Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)
On the streets of American cities, a drug torpedo can refer to a cocktail of marijuana and crack cocaine. But on the seas off Mexico and Central America, it can now mean a real torpedo, which is used to smuggle cocaine, cystal meth or bundles of dollar bills passed the U.S. or Mexican navy.
Drug agents follow the money (Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)
The Justice Department defended the Drug Enforcement Administration’s controversial money laundering stings, pointing out they have been used since 1984 to successfully bring down dozens of major gangsters. Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Ronald Weich described the DEA’s operations in a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa of California, details of which were published Friday by the Houston Chronicle. Weich said that Congress gave authority for the DEA to set up bank accounts to entrap the money of narcotics traffickers and transfer money to the gangsters in 1984 under President Ronald Reagan, who beefed up the war on drugs.
Agents have been using financial entrapment since 1984
The Justice Department defended the Drug Enforcement Administration’s controversial money laundering stings, pointing out they have been used since 1984 to successfully bring down dozens of major gangsters. Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs Ronald Weich described the DEA’s operations in a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa of California, details of which were published Friday by the Houston Chronicle. Weich said that Congress gave authority for the DEA to set up bank accounts to entrap the money of narcotics traffickers and transfer money to the gangsters in 1984 under President Ronald Reagan, who beefed up the war on drugs.
Mexican soldiers fighting the war on drugs (Hector Guerrero/AFP/Getty Images)
Accusations of police or soldiers in Mexico torturing and wrongfully imprisoning suspects are so common that they rarely make news. But it does make a splash when the alleged victim of the abuse is American. Shohn Huckabee, a 24-year old from El Paso, was released from prison after almost two years when the U.S. Justice Department determined that he had been tortured in Mexican custody.
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