drug trafficking

A U.S. judge pressed the Trump administration Thursday about its basis for barring Venezuela's government from paying former President Nicolás Maduro's legal fees in the drug trafficking case that has put him behind bars in New York.

The recent killing of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the leader of the Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) has once again brought global attention to drug-related violence in Mexico. His death at the hands of the Mexican security forces triggered a wave of retaliatory violence that affected several states. This situation will undoubtedly occur again.

Cartels are not sustained by spectacle alone. They endure because someone moves the money, launders the profits, manages the assets, cultivates legitimate fronts and binds networks of loyalty through family. In the case of CJNG, that figure was not only El Mencho. It was also, allegedly, his wife Rosalinda González Valencia.

After the former Honduran president was pardoned, ICE dropped its detainer on him, and he was whisked away to a luxury hotel in New York City.

Despite dozens of lethal U.S. military strikes on suspected narco-boats, drug flows continue, allies are alarmed, and Caribbean fishermen say their livelihoods are under threat.

NPR interviews with current and former officials reveal more of the backstory around the military's strikes in the Caribbean.

The Associated Press learned the identities of four men who were among the more than 60 people killed since the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs.

The Trump administration says the U.S. military has killed at least 69 people in strikes against alleged drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the U.S. military has killed four people in a strike against a boat that was allegedly carrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The announcement on Wednesday comes as the Trump administration continues its divisive campaign against drug cartels in the waters off South America.

The Trump administration asserted without providing any evidence that the boats were carrying illegal drugs. Fourteen boats that the administration alleged were being operated by drug traffickers have been struck, killing 43 people.

Over the decades, the U.S. government has sent billions of dollars in aid to Colombia to help the country stamp out its cocaine industry. Now President Donald Trump is threatening to cut off aid to Colombia, jeopardizing the longtime antidrug cooperation and other security arrangements, including what analysts say is a covert CIA presence in the country.

The strikes were launched Monday and announced on social media Tuesday. This is the first time multiple strikes have been announced in a single day. They mark a continued escalation in the pace of the strikes, which began in early September and had been spaced weeks apart.