The area planted with coca leaf in Colombia has fallen by 25% according to the UN—but experts fear armed narco networks are moving into illegal gold and emerald mining.
A court in Trujillo, Peru, issued a ruling absolving former National Police colonel Elidio Espinoza, who was charged with running a secret "death squad" within the force.
A court in Lima issued an order of “preventative detention” against ex-lawmaker Nancy Obregón, on suspicion of narco-trafficking and “collaboration with terrorism.”
Murders in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas jumped more than 90% and kidnapping reports more than doubled over last year to the highest rate in the country.
Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s pledge to reduce gangland violence is looking dubious as nearly 30 are killed in Michoacán fighting between narco-gunmen and federales.
Indefinite strikes brought Drummond’s coal mining operations to a halt in Colombia, putting further pressure on the country’s economy amid a growing wave of labor actions.
Mexican naval forces captured Miguel Angel Treviño Morales AKA “Z-40,” head of the notorious Zetas cartel—but his younger brother, “Z-42,” is poised to be the new boss.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) announced a new peace initiative in Burma’s conflicted Shan State aimed at facilitating poppy eradication.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) finds that Afghanistan continues to remain the world’s top opium cultivator, accounting for 75% of global illicit production.
Colombia's federation of cattle ranchers rejected the recent agrarian deal with the FARC, charging that it could lead to Venezuela-style expropriations of private property.
The archaeologists who unearthed a priceless pre-Inca burial chamber at Huarmey, Peru, were in a race with outlaw tomb-raiders who operate with impunity.
At least 10 people were killed when elite troops from the Special Operations Battalion (BOPE) of Brazil’s Military Police raided Nova Holanda favela in Rio de Janeiro.
