DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Mexican president refutes DEA estimates of cartel strength
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The comments come in response to testimony from U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Chief Anne Milgram on Mexican cartels as part of a hearing in the U.S. Congress. Speaking at a press conference, Lopez Obrador questioned her figures and urged the DEA to share more details. The pushback from Lopez Obrador is the latest in ongoing tensions between the Mexican government and the DEA. His government dropped the case against Mexico's former Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos, who the DEA alleged colluded with drug lords. Lopez Obrador accused the DEA of fabricating the case.

Persons: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Anne Milgram, Milgram, Lopez Obrador, Salvador Cienfuegos, Sarah Kinosian, Alistair Bell, Richard Chang Organizations: Mexico Presidency, REUTERS, REUTERS MEXICO CITY, U.S, . Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S . Congress, Jalisco New Generation, U.S ., DEA, Mexico's, Defense, Thomson Locations: Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico, REUTERS MEXICO, United, Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco, Sinaloa, CJNG

MEXICO CITY, July 18 (Reuters) - Precursor chemicals used by Mexican cartels to make the deadly opioid fentanyl do not come from China, its embassy in Mexico said on Tuesday, rejecting U.S. officials' accusations. China had denied the illegal trafficking of fentanyl to Mexico in an April statement, though it did not address precursor chemicals. The embassy on Tuesday said China was "actively coordinating and strengthening" supervision of drug-making substances with Mexico. The U.S. embassy in Mexico and Mexico's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Last week, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned 10 people with suspected ties to the Sinaloa Cartel's fentanyl network, as well as a company accused of importing chemicals from China.

Persons: Joe Biden's, Mexico Ken Salazar, Salazar, Kylie Madry, Isabel Woodford, Robert Birsel Organizations: MEXICO CITY, U.S . Drug, Administration, U.S . Treasury, Thomson Locations: MEXICO, China, Mexico, U.S, United States, Canada, The U.S, Sinaloa

☆ How El Chapo’s sons built a fentanyl empire poisoning America
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +23 min

Headed by Iván, El Chapo’s oldest son, the siblings have emerged as key figures in the Sinaloa Cartel, U.S. and Mexican anti-narcotics officials said. But he was killed in 2008 in Culiacán in a hail of bullets amid infighting between warring factions of the Sinaloa Cartel. The agency in April placed Iván on the list of its 10 Most Wanted Fugitives, joining Jesús Alfredo and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, a Sinaloa Cartel legend and El Chapo’s alleged former business partner. They also kidnapped eight soldiers and surrounded military housing where wives and children of Mexican soldiers lived, Mexican officials said. Despite that blow to the Sinaloa Cartel, fentanyl keeps flowing north.

April 14 (Reuters) - The United States has charged leaders of the Mexico-based Sinaloa Cartel with running a fentanyl trafficking operation fueled by Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical companies, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Friday. Federal prosecutors unsealed three separate indictments charging more than two dozen defendants based in Mexico, China and Guatemala, eight of whom are in custody. Among those awaiting extradition is Ovidio Guzman Lopez, one of El Chapo's sons, who was arrested in Mexico earlier this year. Prosecutors also charged four owners of Chinese companies that allegedly provided precursor chemicals to the cartel. "The PRC government must stop the unchecked flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals that are coming out of China," he said, referring to the People's Republic of China.

☆ Mexican officials to hold talks in U.S. on fentanyl smuggling -president
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The meeting's agenda will include other topics, including arms trafficking, the president said, without providing details on which U.S. officials would participate. U.S. officials say almost all fentanyl on U.S. streets is mass produced by powerful crime groups on Mexican soil, a claim Lopez Obrador denies. Lopez Obrador on Monday repeated that no fentanyl is synthesized inside Mexico, a claim the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) disputes. "In Mexico fentanyl is not produced, the raw material for fentanyl is not produced. Who is producing it?," Lopez Obrador said during a regular news conference Monday.

☆ Italian drugs cartels conceal payments via Chinese shadow banks
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Emilio Parodi | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +10 min

[1/3] Seized drugs are seen following an investigation on drugs cartels operating in Italy increasingly using shadow networks of unlicensed Chinese money brokers to launder their proceeds in this handout photo obtained by Reuters on April 4, 2023. Carabinieri/Handout via REUTERSMILAN, April 6 (Reuters) - Drugs cartels operating in Italy are increasingly using shadow networks of unlicensed Chinese money brokers to conceal cross-border payments, according to Italian judicial and law enforcement authorities. U.S. authorities have said Chinese “money brokers” represent one of the most worrisome new threats in their war on drugs, as a Reuters investigation in 2020 found. Chinese authorities have previously vowed to crackdown on underground banking. One of the first probes to come to light involving use of Chinese money brokers by Italian mobsters was linked to the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta group, one of the largest crime gangs in the world.

[1/6] Pills are pictured at a fentanyl pill manufacturing center and a methamphetamine lab seized by the Mexican Army, in Culiacan, in Sinaloa state, Mexico February 14, 2023. Reuters GraphicsThe hiked up figures are not credible, say two former senior law enforcement figures in Mexico and the United States, as well as two serving Mexican security sources. The description of the drugs the Mexicans say they seized in the labs also raises questions about the accuracy of the lab data, said two of the security sources. Laboratory busts, often in hard-to-reach mountainous areas, have historically been a key metric for how active Mexican security forces have been in targeting drug trafficking groups. In 2022, FGR reported 18 lab raids by all security agencies, compared to the army's count of 492 raids.

☆ Mexican president says more fentanyl enters the U.S. and Canada than Mexico
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

However, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a news conference it was not Mexico that was responsible for the introduction of most fentanyl into the United States. "I maintain that more fentanyl reaches the United States and Canada directly than reaches Mexico," he said. Lopez Obrador, who has bristled at suggestions the U.S. could intervene in Mexico, said Mexican officials had explained to him that only blue fentanyl pills turned up in Mexico. "Over in the United States they've got all colors and flavors," the president said. Asked whether there were fentanyl production labs in the country, Lopez Obrador said "yes" but underlined that the raw materials used to make the drug were coming from Asia.

☆ International drug bust nets $677 mln of cocaine bound for Australia
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

SYDNEY, March 4 (Reuters) - A joint U.S. and Australian law enforcement operation busted an international drug ring after intercepting 2.4 tonnes of cocaine aboard a vessel off the coast of South America that had been bound for Australia. Western Australian police substituted the cargo with identically packed fake cocaine and dropped it roughly 40 nautical miles west of state capital Perth on Dec. 28. Three suspected members of the "Australian arm of a drug syndicate" with 1.2 tonnes of fake cocaine were arrested on Dec. 30, after allegedly making three trips out through rough seas to collect the packages. Hailing the success of "Operation Beech" Western Australia police commissioner Col Blanch in a statement: "The operation sends a message to international drug traffickers – your deadly drugs are not welcome here." ($1 = 1.4775 Australian dollars)Reporting by Lewis Jackson; Editing by Simon Cameron-MooreOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ A major investigation in Arizona yielded $13 million worth of drugs, including 30 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Aditi Bharade | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

About 30 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl were found during an Arizona police investigation. A picture of the seized drugs was also released by the authorities. The seized drugs included 4.5 million fake prescription pills laced with fentanyl, 145 pounds of fentanyl powder, 304 pounds of cocaine, 3,100 pounds of methamphetamine, and 77 pounds of heroin. Currently, it is one of the top substances leading to lethal drug overdose in the United States. Last year, the DEA in Arizona seized over $22 million in fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills and about 1,100 pounds of fentanyl powder, the press release said.

☆ Binance Hires Gemini Executive as Chief Compliance Officer
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Mengqi Sun | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +2 min

Binance said Noah Perlman has joined as its chief compliance officer from rival Gemini Trust Co., as the cryptocurrency exchange continues to beef up its legal and compliance team amid regulatory scrutiny. Mr. Perlman joined Binance last month after serving as Gemini’s chief operating officer for more than two years. He joined Gemini as its chief compliance officer in 2019. Mr. Perlman’s appointment ends a monthslong search for a compliance chief at Binance, which over the past year or so has been bolstering its compliance team head count. Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao, known as CZ, said on Twitter in September that the exchange planned to hire a few hundred more compliance people.

☆ Spanish police seize cocaine worth $114 million from cattle ship
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Borja Suarez | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MADRID, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Spanish police seized 4.5 tonnes of cocaine with an estimated street value of 105 million euros ($114 million) after raiding a cattle ship off the Canary Islands earlier this week, a statement said on Saturday. "International organisations are reinventing themselves to transport drugs from Latin America to Europe, using livestock to make the control and localisation more difficult," the Spanish police statement said. Police arrested 28 crew members on the Togo-flagged Orion V, which had been trailed from Colombia in an operation by Spanish authorities, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Togo police. Officers unloaded dozens of boxes containing the cocaine on the port side in Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria. ($1 = 0.9202 euros)Additional reporting by Graham Keeley and Miguel Gutierrez Editing by Helen PopperOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Senator calls for probe of mass surveillance tool used by U.S. law enforcement
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Law enforcement agencies have routinely accessed the vast trove of money transfer records without court oversight, Wyden said. The TRAC database was created as part of a 2014 money laundering settlement between the Arizona attorney general's office and Western Union (WU.N). The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, DHS and Arizona attorney general's office have all asked for data from money transfer companies and directed them to send data to TRAC, Wyden said. Western Union, MoneyGram International (MGI.O), Viamericas Corp, and Euronet Worldwide (EEFT.O) are among the companies that have shared customer data with TRAC in bulk, he added. Wyden announced in March that HSI issued custom summonses, a type of subpoena, for millions of money transfer records between Mexican residents and people living in four U.S. states.

☆ Romania extradites suspected Hell's Angels leader to U.S. on drug charges
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

BUCHAREST, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Romania has extradited the suspected leader of the country's Hell's Angels chapter to the United States to face charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and complicity in attempted murder, police said on Monday. Romanian media identified the man as the biker club's country branch leader, Marius Lazar, who is wanted for being a member of an international group of drug traffickers and for negotiating the attempted killing of two rivals. [1/3] Marius Lazar, former Hells Angels Motorcycle Club leader in Romania, is escorted by law enforcement officers while being extradited to the U.S., in Otopeni, Ilfov, Romania, January 16, 2023. Marshals with face coverings as he was led to a plane, according to a Reuters witness. Romanian police began investigating Hell's Angels members in 2020, they said, working with U.S.

Mexican security forces captured Guzman, the 32-year-old son of jailed kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, in the early hours of Thursday morning, prompting hours of unrest and shootouts with gang members, the minister said. THE EXTRADITION QUESTIONThe United States has sought Guzman's extradition for years. Guzman, known by the nickname "The Mouse," has been charged in the United States with conspiracy to traffic cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States. Surging flows of the synthetic opioid fentanyl into the United States, where it has fueled record overdose deaths, have heightened pressure to capture Guzman. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration considers the Sinaloa Cartel, along with one other gang, to be responsible for most of the fentanyl inside the United Sates.

☆ Why is Ovidio Guzmán one of Mexico’s most wanted men?
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

MEXICO CITY — Mexican security forces on Thursday arrested cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán, son of incarcerated kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, the country’s defense minister said. Guzmán, known by nickname as “The Mouse,” became a high-level leader in the Sinaloa Cartel after his father’s arrest in 2016 and extradition in 2017. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador months later said he personally ordered Guzmán’s release to protect the population. While López Obrador took office in 2018 promising to trade a hard-on-crime security approach for one that tackles the root causes of violence, homicides are near record levels. Guzmán’s arrest Thursday could signal the government is willing and able to stand up to them.

☆ Explainer: Why Ovidio Guzman is one of Mexico's most wanted men
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Brendan O'Boyle | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

REUTERS/Raquel CunhaMEXICO CITY, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Mexican security forces on Thursday arrested cartel leader Ovidio Guzman, son of incarcerated kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the country's defense minister said. Guzman's detention in Culiacan, the capital of the northwestern state of Sinaloa, the heartland of Mexico's drug trade, follows his short-lived detention in 2019. Guzman, known by nickname "The Mouse," became a high-level leader in the Sinaloa Cartel after his father's arrest in 2016 and extradition in 2017. WHAT DOES GUZMAN'S ARREST MEAN FOR THE GOVERNMENT? Guzman's arrest Thursday could signal the government is willing and able to stand up to them.

☆ DEA Alleges Online Pharmacy Truepill Wrongfully Filled Stimulant Prescriptions
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Jennifer Calfas | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said an investigation found Truepill Inc., an online pharmacy company, filled illegitimate prescriptions for stimulants such as Adderall to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. The DEA said prescriptions from Truepill, which at one time was a preferred pharmacy provider for telehealth company Cerebral Inc., were unlawful because they were either written by prescribers without state licenses or surpassed 90-day supply limits.

These psychiatric drugs are regulated by the federal government as controlled substances that have high potential for abuse and addiction but are not opioids. The impact on independent pharmacies' prescriptions of psychiatric drugs from the widening crackdown on opioids has not been previously reported. It is dedicated to mitigating the abuse of controlled substances without interfering in good-faith clinical decisions made by doctors, she said. "Pharmaceutical distributors must walk a legal and ethical tightrope between providing access to necessary medications and acting to prevent diversion of controlled substances," Esposito said in a written statement. The FDA, the HHS agency that administers the list of controlled substances, did not respond to a request for comment.

WASHINGTON, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Thursday's release of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner in exchange for a convicted Russian arms dealer has resurfaced an old question: Do prisoner swaps do more harm than good? The details of Griner's release highlight the painful trade-offs confronting the Biden administration. In one such case in 2016, North Korea detained American college student Otto Warmbier during a dispute with the international community over that country's missile launches. Many of the families argue that the U.S. should be willing negotiate and discount the argument that prisoner swaps lead more countries to grab Americans. Those hard choices meant Washington could either leave Whelan in Russian custody or else return empty-handed after months of negotiations.

[1/3] Suspected Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is escorted by members of a special police unit after a hearing at a criminal court in Bangkok October 5, 2010. "Everyone will forget about Griner tomorrow," Russian state television host Yevgeny Popov wrote on Telegram on Thursday. "Bout's life is only beginning." Bout arrived in Moscow late on Thursday after Russia and the United States swapped the arms dealer for Griner at Abu Dhabi airport. U.S. anger at Bout's release has been widely covered in the Russian media, with the pro-Kremlin tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets claiming that Department of Defense officials were "disturbed" by the exchange, citing U.S. media reports.

☆ Who is Viktor Bout, the Russian arms dealer swapped for Griner?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Felix Light | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

[1/2] Suspected Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout is escorted by members of a special police unit after a hearing at a criminal court in Bangkok October 5, 2010. Russia got the jailed arms dealer back from the United States on Thursday after exchanging imprisoned U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner for him at Abu Dhabi airport. His notoriety was such that his life helped inspire a Hollywood film, 2005’s Lord of War, starring Nicolas Cage as Yuri Orlov, an arms dealer loosely based on Bout. For some experts, the Russian state's continued interest in Bout, plus his skills and connections in the international arms trade, hint strongly at Russian intelligence ties. “His case has become totemic for the Russian intelligence services, who are keen to show that they don’t abandon their own people,” Galeotti added.

☆ 49 arrested as police bust European cocaine ‘super cartel'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-28 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Europol said 49 suspects have been arrested during the investigation, with the latest series of raids across Europe and the United Arab Emirates taking place between Nov. 8-19. The Netherlands was the country where most of the arrests were made, with 14 suspects arrested in 2021. Dutch authorities said one of the suspects arrested in Dubai allegedly imported thousands of kilos of cocaine into the Netherlands in 2020 and 2021. A 40-year-old Dutch-Bosnian citizen was also arrested in Dubai following an investigation based on intercepted Sky messages, according to Dutch police. He is suspected of importing into Europe cocaine and raw materials for the production of amphetamines.

☆ Who is Viktor Bout, the arms dealer who could be swapped for Griner?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Felix Light | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Russia wants the jailed arms dealer back in Moscow and is discussing a prisoner swap with the United States that could see him exchanged for Americans imprisoned in Russia including basketball star Brittney Griner. Reed was ultimately freed in return for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot jailed in the United States on drug trafficking charges. For some experts, the Russian state's continued interest in Bout, plus his skills and connections in the international arms trade, hint strongly at Russian intelligence ties. In interviews, Bout has said he attended Moscow's Military Institute of Foreign Languages, which serves as a training ground for military intelligence officers. “His case has become totemic for the Russian intelligence services, who are keen to show that they don’t abandon their own people,” Galeotti added.

Search resuls for: ". Drug Enforcement Administration"

24 mentions found