#drug-trade

#drug-trade

Among the people working in the drug business in Brazil's favelas, there are those who once dreamed of being an airline pilot, an astronaut, a teacher or a writer but, as they say around here, took the wrong path. Now, their dream is a house of their own and a stable source of income away from crime. A luxury car or motorbike are also on their wish list.

Crime is flourishing in the Americas, particularly violent crime. The murder rate remains very high, at more than 20 per 100,000 inhabitants. The expansion of the drug trade, which is stronger than ever, has nourished the criminal landscape from the once-tranquil Uruguay to the perpetually troubled Guatemala. Armed groups born from the drug trade are seeking new businesses, left and right, top and bottom.

The family of a Colombian fisherman killed in a US airstrike in the Caribbean has filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) accusing the US administration of conducting an extrajudicial killing in breach of international law, according to US and British media outlets. It is the first legal challenge brought against airstrikes mandated by the Trump administration off the coasts of Central and South America, in which at least 83 people have died. Washington says its actions aim

"It's funny: the money [that] they have is all in the ether," she says. "It's never really in their hands. They're always in debt or in credit, or they're owed, or they owe money - vast amounts of it. And of course, some of it does end up in their hands, and they'll spend it like mad on items that you wouldn't think of ever buying in your lifetime.

Iraqi and Lebanese intelligence agencies coordinated to discover and destroy one of Lebanon's largest drug factories making the highly addictive amphetamine Captagon.

The United States won't be able to solve the fentanyl crisis without help from its greatest rival. China is the world's largest supplier of the chemicals that drug smugglers use to produce the opioid.