By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The Secret Service, which normally tries to stay in the background and garner as little attention as possible, is causing an international stir. CBS News reports that a dozen Secret Service agents were sent home from Colombia before the President arrived Friday for the Summit of Americas. The New York Times…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com The third and final defendant in a DEA operation targeting three Colombian drug runners tied to a Colombian drug cartel has been sentenced in Seattle, reports the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Hector Fabio Zapata was slapped with 30 years in prison on Monday, the last to face sentencing in the cocaine-trafficking probe. Like…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com The feds in Miami are taking aim at some big guys in the drug world. Authorities filed charges against Daniel Barrera-Barrera, an international drug smuggler with alleged ties to terrorist groups in Columbia, reports the Miami Herald. The report calls Barrera-Barrera, 42, one of Columbia’s most-wanted, and says he “maintains a partnership with…
By Lisa Sweetingham LA Weekly William C. Rempel, who for 36 years worked as an investigative reporter and editor at the L.A. Times, has written the book At the Devil’s Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel, which came out last month. The insider in question is Jorge Salcedo,…
By Jim Popkin WIRED The clatter of helicopter blades echoed across the jungles of northwestern Ecuador. Antinarcotics commandos in three choppers peered at the mangroves below, scanning for any sign of activity. The police had received a tip that a gang of Colombian drug smugglers had set up a clandestine work site here, in a…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com These days the lion’s share of news involving drug cartel violence seems to focus on Mexico. But the problem hasn’t exactly vanished in Colombia. The publication Colombia Reports wrote that the DEA has uncovered a plot to assassinate Ana Margarita Duran, head of Colombia’s drug control agency UNAIM. The report cited…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — One of the things Colombian drug lords hated most back in the day — getting extradited to the U.S. — is now happening with the Mexican cartel members with more frequency since they took over the distribution networks in the U.S. The Justice Department on Tuesday announced that 15…
By The Washington Post Editorial Page WASHINGTON — SECRETARY OF STATE Hillary Rodham Clinton caused a stir last week by suggesting that Mexico’s drug-trafficking gangs were beginning to resemble an insurgency, like that which has plagued Colombia. She’s right in the sense that the cartels have come to effectively control parts of the country, where…
