#drug-trafficking

#drug-trafficking

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday on his social media account X that the U.S. military had launched three extrajudicial attacks on four vessels sailing in the Pacific on Monday. Fourteen people were killed in the operation, and there was one survivor. Hegseth claimed, without providing evidence, that the vessels were transporting drugs and that their crew members, killed in the operation, belonged to designated terrorist organizations. He did not specify which organizations.

A massive methamphetamine drug haul worth approximately $63 million was seized in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa on Saturday, and six Iranian nationals were taken into custody by authorities. The Kenyan Navy intercepted the consignment some 630 kilometers (391 miles) off the coast of Mombasa in the Indian Ocean and escorted the vessel safely to port under armed guard.

Despite allegedly flushing an unknown quantity of methamphetamine and heroin down his toilet during a police raid, a local resident has been charged with being a drug dealer, court records show. The 51-year-old San Leandro resident was charged with possessing heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and marijuana for sale, and with being a prohibited person in possession of ammunition, court records show.

The United States' campaign of extrajudicial military attacks against alleged drug trafficking speedboats continues unabated. On Friday, the Pentagon announced a new strike against one of these vessels in international waters in the Caribbean, in which six people were killed. It is the first such strike in the Caribbean since Washington confirmed two attacks in the Pacific on Wednesday, which also brought the U.S. military campaign against the cartels in the Americas to those waters.

SOLEDAD Three California prisoners with alleged ties to organized crime are suspected of murdering an Aryan Brotherhood member at Salinas Valley State Prison, authorities announced Thursday. Todd Fox Morgan, 57, of Santa Clara County, was killed with improvised weapons by Todd Givens, 56, Ray Waldron, 51, and Robert England, 61, on a prison yard a little before 10 a.m. Thursday, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

The Central Intelligence Agency is providing the bulk of the intelligence used to carry out the controversial lethal air strikes by the Trump administration against small, fast-going boats in the Caribbean Sea suspected of carrying drugs from Venezuela, according to three sources familiar with the operations. Experts say the agency's central role means much of the evidence used to select which alleged smugglers to kill on the open sea will almost certainly remain secret.

Donald Trump has escalated tensions between Washington and one of its closest Latin American allies, declaring the US will slash assistance to Colombia and enact tariffs on its exports because its president, Gustavo Petro, does nothing to stop drug production. Trump referred to Petro as an illegal drug leader in a post on the Truth Social platform and warned that Petro better close up drug operations or the United States will close them up for him, and it won't be done nicely.

On President Donald Trump's orders, the U.S. military last month began carrying out a series of strikes in the Caribbean, blowing up boats suspected of moving drugs and killing a total of at least 27 people so far. (Multiple news outlets reported that a strike yesterday was believed to be the first one to leave survivors.) Although Trump has called the dead "narcoterrorists," his administration has not provided good evidence to support that characterization.

"For them to pick to this building to operate an illegal safe house, storage house, distribution center - We are not playing," said Kaz Daughtry, deputy mayor for public safety.