By Steven S. Dudley The Conversation In October 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that pursuing the Mara Salvatrucha, a Salvadoran gang also known as MS-13, was “a priority for our Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces.” “Drugs are…
LatinaLista — The Mexican drug war and its fallout has inspired dozens of movies, documentaries and TV shows over the years and it would be easy to think they are all the same. Yet, the latest entry into this…
Frontera NorteSur Despite recurrent pronouncements of death by some U.S. and Mexican officials, high-profile organized crime groups continue operating and shedding blood south of the border. Tijuana, where control of both the local and export drug business is…
By Lynne Anderson Juvenile Justice Information Exchange Lt. Tanya Smith of the Holly Springs, Ga., police department has worked a lot of crime scenes over the years, but nothing prepared her for a moment in August 2013 that haunts…
By Josh Burton Cronkite News Service NOGALES, Ariz. – When the Border Patrol stops Arizona youths smuggling drugs through the port of entry here on behalf of cartels, Eric Cantu and other agents often find out those kids have…
By Ángela Meléndez InfoSur Hoy QUITO, Ecuador – The dreams that many families in Ecuador have for their 14-year-old children are being turned into nightmares by drugs. That’s the average age young people start using drugs in Ecuador, according…
By Kathleen B. Lowenstein The MexPatriate Between 2007 and 2012, poppies surpassed marijuana as the most widely grown illegal plant in Mexico. In fact, by the end of last year the authorities estimated that poppies occupied 40% more land…
By Anna-Claire Bevan LatinaLista When Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina first came to power just over a year ago, he promised to govern the country with a mano dura, an iron fist. After years of Mexican drug cartels muscling…
By: Audris Ponce, Beatriz Ramirez and Lawrence Barajas The Venture With all of the pressure to succeed in class and their social life, college students have turned to the drug Adderall to stay focused enough to get good grades….
By Geoffrey Ramsey InSight: Organized Crime in the Americas Reporters Without Borders has said that the biggest threat to press freedom in Honduras is powerful landowner Miguel Facusse Barjum, though the accusations do not stop there — Facusse has…
By Alexander Frye Council on Hemispheric Affairs At last month’s meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Bolivian President Evo Morales made headlines by dramatically brandishing a coca leaf he had apparently smuggled into the…
by Dina Gonzalez Global Press Institute Although paco, a drug derived from cocaine, has a reputation of being a lower-class drug, it has extended to affect middle-class families as well. Families of people addicted to the popular street drug…
By Slyvia Longmire Mexico’s Drug War A little over a year ago (maybe more, maybe less…my memory is like a sieve), I was asked to serve on the Board of Advisers for an organization out of Stanford University called…
LatinaLista — The Associated Press reports that Mexico has passed a new law that makes it legal for people to be in possession of small amounts of drugs: marijuana – 5 grams (about 4 joints); cocaine – 1/2 a…
LatinaLista — The way Robert Renteria’s life was going as a kid — poverty, domestic violence, drugs, gangs — it wasn’t surprising that people thought Renteria had a one-way ticket to nowhere. Robert Renteria Yet, he surprised everyone by…
