German customs have confiscated a record 4.5 metric tons (5 short tons) of cocaine in a shipping container in Hamburg, with a street value of nearly €1 billion (US$ 1.1 billion). The drugs were discovered two weeks ago during a routine check, resulting in the largest cocaine shipment ever seized in Germany.
Brazil seized 25.3 tons of cocaine bound for Europe and Africa in the first half of 2019, up more than 90 percent on the same period last year, officials said on Monday. Nearly half of the drugs were found at Santos port in southern Brazil, not far from where police recently arrested two men suspected of belonging to Italian mafia 'Ndrangheta'.
Uruguayan navy, coast guard and customs have uncovered a major operation to smuggle cocaine “bricks” hidden in wool bales, in a container, from the port of Montevideo to Antwerp, Belgium. The volume discovered according to the Navy report amounts to 417 kilos of high quality cocaine hydrochloride and is considered one of the largest recent successes in the fight against the narcotics gangs.
Bolivia passed a controversial measure on Wednesday to expand production of coca, the raw material for cocaine. Leftist president Evo Morales dismissed warnings that an increase in coca crops would fuel the illegal drug trade.
A wanted Colombian drug lord who had a $5-million price on his head from the United States has been killed in a military operation, authorities said Friday. Victor Megateo Navarro, a former guerrilla fighter accused of running a cocaine supply route along the Colombian-Venezuelan border, was first reported killed in August.
With more arrests and airline workers suspected, Venezuela's top police official said that the smuggling of 1.5 tons of cocaine in 31 suitcases on an Air France flight from Caracas to Paris has led to nine arrests on two continents.
The global war on drugs has failed and international policy requires radical reform to remove outmoded, unscientific thinking, according to a major new report from the London School of Economics and Political Science which has been endorsed by President Santos of Colombia.
Brazil is the world's largest market for crack and the second for overall cocaine use, researchers from the Federal University of Sao Paulo (UNIFESP) said on Wednesday.
Peru has temporarily halted the eradication of coca plants used to make cocaine as it works to redesign its anti-drug programs, the country's interior ministry announced this week.
Argentina’s Coast Guard reported that a total of 444 kilos of cocaine were seized on Saturday, after being found on a sailing boat manned by a Spanish crew, close to the main port of the Olivos. The vessel was heading for Piriápolis, in neighbouring Uruguay.