drug cartels

President Donald Trump says the U.S. has carried out a strike in the southern Caribbean against a drug-carrying vessel that departed from Venezuela. The president offered scant details on the operation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday on X that the vessel was being operated by a “designated narco-terrorist organization."

The Republican Florida senator's remarks were made during a visit Wednesday to Doral to highlight recent legislative victories and ongoing efforts nationally and statewide to combat the country’s fentanyl crisis.

The news release from the Drug Enforcement Administration trumpeted a “bold bilateral initiative” with the Mexican government to crack down on cartels that smuggle drugs across the southern border. But Tuesday morning, a day after the DEA’s announcement, President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico said she had no idea what U.S. officials were talking about.

The United States is deploying three guided-missile destroyers to the waters off Venezuela as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to combat threats from Latin American drug cartels. That's according to a U.S. official briefed on the planning.

Just a decade ago, the era of U.S. wars, coup plots and military interventions in Latin America seemed to be ebbing when the Obama administration declared that the Monroe Doctrine, which long asserted U.S. military supremacy in the Americas, was dead.

The president has ordered the Pentagon to use the armed forces to carry out what in the past was considered law enforcement.

The move against a half-dozen organizations followed an executive order from President Trump that said the United States would ensure their “total elimination.”

Miami-Dade Councilman Christian Cevallos tells The South Florida Roundup the gang violence in Ecuador that suddenly grabbed headlines had been building up for several years. A lack of democratic institutions and the demand in the U.S. and Europe for cocaine are key factors.

Mexico's defense secretary said the military had captured Ovidio Guzmán, a son of the notorious former Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, on Thursday in a pre-dawn operation in Sinaloa.

Mexico's president is appealing to the country's citizens not to accept holiday handouts and gifts from drug gangs. Videos posted online showed garish pickup trucks handing out loads of gifts while bystanders described the drivers as members of the Jalisco drug cartel.

A handcuffed Juan Orlando Hernández left Honduras on an airplane with agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to face legal proceedings in New York City.

Avocado exports are the latest victim of the drug cartel turf battles and extortion of avocado growers. The U.S. government has suspended all imports after a plant safety inspector was threatened.