Criminology and Psychology

Three days into the job, he is killed by 25 gunmen. This happened hours after the a smuggling tunnel was discovered running from Tecate, Mexico to the United States. No ties have actually been made to the tunnel and the Police Chiefs' murder, but one can draw logical conclusions that is the reason, the owner of the tunnel lost not only the tunnel but 5 million in marij More..uana stored there.

Four crewmen from a semisubmarine captured in June pleaded guilty today to federal drug charges.The crewmen were aboard the third semisub interdicted this year. The 50- to 60-foot vessel was spotted June 16 by a Marine patrol unit in the eastern Pacific northwest of the Ecuador-Colombia border.By the time the Coast Guard arrived, the sub's crew members were in the water and the vessel was sinking, a federal prosecutor has said. Crew members later told investigators they were instructed to scuttle the vessel after they spotted an airplane circling overhead. Guardsmen managed to get some bales of cocaine out of the sub before it slipped into the sea.Crew members told agents the vessel had 6 to 8 tons of cocaine onboard that was to be delivered to a Mexican fishing vessel 700 miles off the coast of Colombia, according to plea agreements signed by the four defendants.One of the crew members told agents he was paid 40 million pesos, or about $23,500; another said he was paid 30 million

Daniel Barerra,aka The Madman.The Madman Barerra has become one of the two powerful drugs traffickers in the country, moving multi-ton shipments of cocaine every month. He has made alliances with the powerful Marxist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), which supply him with much of the coca base he processes into cocaine. Barerra is known to move through the eastern plains of Colombia and into Venezuela, where he often bases himself, out of reach of the Colombian security forces and the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela does not cooperate with the US anti-drug agencies and the Colombian drug lords like Barerra have taken advantage of this to not only turn Venezuela into one of the principal transit nations for cocaine bound for Europe, but to live there beyond the reach of Colombian and international law enforcement agencies. "We can categorically state that this seizure of 10 and a half tons of cocaine is a might

Cambodian court has sentenced a Taiwanese man to 22 years in jail for trying to smuggle heroin out of the country.Judge Chhay Kong at Phnom Penh Municipal Court says he sentenced Liao Ichun after finding him guilty of trying to smuggle 240 grams of the drug into Taiwan.A number of Taiwanese nationals have been detained and jailed for trying to smuggle heroin through the airport in the Cambodian capital over the past year.Although drug arrests have increased, Cambodia is becoming an increasingly popular trafficking point for methamphetamine and heroin, particularly since Thailand toughened its stance on illegal drugs in 2002.

Europe is being flooded by smuggled Russian-made cigarettes worth at least $1 billion a year, an international investigation has discovered. * * * The new underground smoking trade involves only one brand, Jin Ling, which is turning up in more cities and countries across Europe every month. Jin Ling, virtually unknown to the authorities three years ago, has grown so rapidly that law enforcement officials say it now rivals Marlboro as the top smuggled brand being seized in the European Union. * * * It is only sold illegally — smuggled by gangs who hope to pocket immense profits by selling unlicensed, untaxed cigarettes on black markets across Europe. * * * The scale and striking growth of Jin Ling smuggling has marked it as a major new development in organized crime, prompting European customs agencies to respond by launching “Operation Baltic” early in 2008. * * * German customs and police investigators believe that Jin Ling is being distributed and sold through organized crime network

Anchorage resident Bret W. Hendren, 46, was charged with helping the leader of a drug- trafficking outfit, Thomas Ranes, conceal the source of $93,000 in cash by using it as a down payment on a motor home and trailer, prosecutors said. Ranes gave Hendren the cash in $5,000 increments; in one case the cash smelled of marijuana, prosecutors said. Prosecutors say Hendren took a total of about $150,000 in cash from Ranes, who is serving a 30-year sentence for his role in the operation. Hendren is facing up to 20 years in prison at his sentencing Feb. 3.

Danielle Haylor, 29, from Squirrel Close, Langley Green, denies attempting to supply the Class A drug to convicted armed robber Tim Cole.She also denies possessing 23 tablets of diazepam, a Class C drug better known as Valium, which is illegal without a prescription.Prosecutors say she posted a book to Cole in Lewes Prison, with 3.17g heroin hidden inside the spine, in January last year.A jury at Hove Trial Centre was told that the heroin was 40 per cent pure, and there was enough for more than 30 doses, costing £10 each.Interviewed by police, Haylor told them she had sent CDs, clothes and books to Cole in jail, but denied sending him any drugs.In a transcript of the interview, read out by prosecutor Walton Hornsby and DC Nick Jones, Haylor said that on two occasions she had sent Cole a package from a friend of his.She denied touching or even seeing the contents, but said she thought she was sending him more books.Haylor said she had visited Cole in prison, both at Highdown and Lewes.A

Drug agents from the Guyana Police Force are anxiously waiting to examine the bodily contents of a female American to confirm that she did ingest cocaine in an attempt to smuggle the drug to her home country.The 23-year old woman was nabbed at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri on Tuesday while she was an outgoing passenger to New York.According to a senior police official, an x-ray showed a foreign substance which is suspected to be cocaine in the woman’s stomach.The American is at present a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital where she is being closely monitored.The official said that acting on information and the fact that the women fitted a particular profile, she was intercepted before she boarded the aircraft.The official told this newspaper that the woman disclosed that she had stayed at a Roxanne Burnham Gardens address after arriving in Guyana.Investigators are hopeful that the foreign object is excreted as soon as possible since if it is indeed cocaine and

Fifteen Afghans may face the death penalty in the United Arab Emirates for smuggling 202 kg (445 lb) of heroin hidden in the fuel tanks of trucks, newspapers reported on Thursday.Prosecutors in the emirate of Sharjah sought the death penalty against the group who are accused of smuggling the drugs worth $10.9 million into the Gulf Arab state, the daily Khaleej Times said.Three of the suspects, who operated a business importing fruits and food as a cover, are still at large.

Customs officers at the Haditha border crossing in Qurayat foiled an attempt to smuggle nearly one-and-a-half million Captagon pills into the country during the Eid Al-Fitr holidays. Zayed bin Atallah Al-Zayed, the director of Haditha Customs, said the crossing point witnessed heavy traffic during the holidays with more than 35,000 vehicles carrying about 110,000 passengers leaving the Kingdom and 38,000 vehicles with some 150,000 passengers arriving from neighboring countries. “Our officers deployed in full force to meet the pressure, which is normal this time of the year. We also managed to inspect all cargo trucks and passenger baggage without causing any disruption in the traffic movement,” said Al-Zayed.

Tel Aviv post office clerk and her husband were detained Monday night, along with another individual, on suspicion of importing three kgs of cocaine from Peru to Israel, and their custody was extended by seven days. Ten days ago, German customs authorities discovered the package, en route from Peru, containing the drugs, which were hidden among dozens of children's toys. Advertisement The German officials noticed that the package was destined for Israel, and notified their Israeli counterparts. Israeli customs authorities transferred the package to the Israel Police's Tel Aviv District narcotics unit, which later returned it to customs. The package was allowed to reach its destination at the Hayarkon post office, and on Sunday, say police, it was picked up by Shaul Dudlazek, 37, of Kfar Harutzim, at the window of postal clerk Marina Dollinger, 45, of Bat Yam. Detectives from Tel Aviv police's elite unit for handling organized crime followed Dudlazek to a gas station in Ra&

When the pilot of a Colombian drug-smuggling plane landed at a clandestine airstrip in the vast Amazon rainforest, his every move was being watched from high up in the sky.Guided by a high-tech spy-plane circling thousands of feet above the clouds, Brazilian police arrested the pilot minutes later and confiscated 300 kg of cocaine. Police hope the bust, which took place several weeks ago, will soon allow it to lock up an entire international drug gang.In the face of growing international pressure to better preserve the Amazon, Brazil is increasingly betting on intelligence and technology in its uphill battle to tackle illegal activities.

Four people have been charged with drug trafficking offences after £1.2 million worth of cocaine was seized during a raid on a cruise ship. Customs officers swooped on P and O’s luxury ship Arcadia as it docked in Southampton at 6.30am yesterday and arrested seven people. Four of those arrested had a total of 30 kilos of cocaine strapped to their bodies, it was discovered. Four have now been charged with attempting to smuggle drugs. They are expected to appear before Southampton Magistrates Court today. Three others have been released on bail pending further investigations. The operation, which took place at the docks throughout the day, involved teams of customs investigators and UK Border Agency detection officers. A spokesman for HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said the seized cocaine weighed about 66lb and had an estimated street value of up to £1.2m. She said the seven arrested were from Birmingham and Manchester.

Cocaine with an estimated street value of €161,000, has been seized by customs officers at Dublin Airport.The drugs were discovered when officers stopped a 44-year-old Dutch man and searched his bags.The 2.3kg package of the drugs was concealed in the back support of a haversack, compressed in plastic packaging.The man had arrived on a flight from Amsterdam having previously travelled from Quito in Ecuador.He was arrested and handed over to the Garda Drugs Unit in Santry for questioning and is due to appear in Dublin District Court later.

Suspected Russian arms dealer detained in Thailand said his arrest and trial had been arranged by the United States because he refused to become an American spy. Viktor Bout, 41, was arrested in March in Bangkok during a joint police operation led by agents from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The second hearing in his case in a Thai court started on Friday. In an interview published Friday in Kommersant, a Russian business daily, Bout said Washington fabricated charges against him after he had refused to work as an informant. "I was approached by some recruiters, especially in South Africa, who said it would be good if I shared with them information about the situation in one country or another and offered me a lot of perks. But I was not interested and I refused," Kommersant quoted him as saying. "They attempted to recruit me because we worked with Libyans and ... some other countries that the Americans had an interest in. And after I refused, the UN s

man is due to appear in court on Monday after police seized £50,000 worth of cocaine in Fife. Fife Constabulary said the 21-year-old man, from Glenrothes, was arrested in Inverkeithing on Friday after being caught with the drugs. He is expected to appear at Dunfermline Sheriff Court. A spokesman for the force said the arrest was part of its commitment to Fife residents that it would target drug dealing.

Three drug smugglers were killed and a policeman was wounded in a shootout with Saudi police in the southern province of Asir, according to an official spokesman of the Drug Combating Department.Maj. Ibrahim Abu Hulayel said on Thursday that one of the smugglers killed in the shooting was the gang leader. He said the incident took place on Wednesday after police surrounded a house in Asir province where suspected smugglers were hiding. He said that police confiscated 71 kg of hashish that remained after the smugglers set fire to their stash. “The smugglers were trying to escape from police after setting fire to the drugs,” Abu Hulayel said, and added that a police officer sustained deep wounds to his chest and hand. Police have arrested three African members of the gang. “Two of them received slight wounds during the gun battle and have been taken to hospital for treatment,” he added. Last week, border guards in the southern region of Najran foiled an attempt to smuggle 1,205 kilogram

Federal authorities Wednesday announced indictments against the alleged leaders of six drug distribution rings charged with transporting cocaine and methamphetamine for one of Mexico's largest drug cartelsThirty-five people face smuggling and conspiracy charges in what authorities described as a trafficking network based in the Imperial Valley. About $20 million in drugs and cash were seized during the 18-month investigation, according to federal prosecutors.They said the alleged traffickers are linked to the Sina- loa cartel, which has long controlled a trafficking corridor through the Baja Cali- fornia capital of Mexicali into Calexico, a small town in the Imperial Valley.The rings allegedly smuggled the drugs hidden inside compartments of cars. The cash proceeds, sometimes bundled in plastic bags labeled $10,000, were shipped back to Mexico also hidden in cars, authorities said.Seizures of bulk cash shipments triggered the investigation, as agents with the Drug Enforcement Admin

Cocaine with an estimated street value of $7 million was seizedat the Freeport Container Port, marking the second time in less than a month that a big drug bust has been made at that facility.According to police reports late yesterday, acting on information they received, a team of Bahamian and Inter-national Law Enforcement personnel – with the assistance of Container Port agents – conducted a search of a container and discovered the large quantity of cocaine concealed inside a compartment of a machine.The drugs, weighing over 650 pounds was en route to the United States, but has now been flown to New Providence for further investigation. In September three and a half million dollars in cocaine was seized at the Container port shortly after it arrived on island. Acting on a tip, the Drug Enforce-ment Unit inspected a 40-foot metal container that had just been off-loaded onto the storage bay and found three large black duffle bags with the drugs concealed among a shipment of sugar.The

Three suspects from mainland province Liaoning who allegedly sold illicit drugs to prostitutes in Macau were apprehended by the Judiciary Police (PJ) yesterday. The narcotics division received a report on Sunday that drug activity would be conducted near a hotel in Nape. Police surveillance was in place afterwards and until midnight the "target" was sighted and then was followed by police to a hotel lobby, PJ spokesman Chan Kin Hong said. Mr Chan said the man, surnamed Sun, 27, might have noticed he was being followed and thus dropped some tissue papers on the floor before police caught him. It was found that the tissue papers wrapped two grams of "ice" and 15 pills of "yaba", which police said came from the mainland and had a street value of 5,000 patacas. Police raided an apartment in Nape later where another suspect, surnamed Li, 41, was arrested and a large quantity of drug consumption and packaging apparatus were seized, Mr Chan said. Sun told police

Organised Crime Brigade (ECO) in collaboration with the Central Operative Unit (UCO) smashed what a Guardia Civil spokesman called ;one of the most important crime networks in Spain; last week. In an operation dubbed Centry-Paris, 44 people were arrested in Malaga, Algeciras, Melilla, Granada, Jaen and Alicante. Fourteen were arrested in Malaga city, five in Marbella, two in Benalmadena, one in Torremolinos, one in Cartama and one in Estepona. However, it was the vast amounts of money they spent on clothes and jewellery in Avenue Montaigne in Paris and on luxury cars in Germany that gave them away, the Guardia spokesman said. Another 11 accomplices were arrested and more than three tons of hashish were seized. The Guardia spokesman said the network had been completely dismantled, from the people who bought the drug in Morocco to those who distributed it to several European countries. Those arrested included 34 Spaniards, 13 Moroccans, four Frenchmen, two Dutchmen, one Palestinian and o

14 men and one woman were arrested last week. One of the men, Robert Rosier, is the apartment manager. Police say he was likely just using the drugs, but some of the suspects were living with him. All the suspects except Rosier are from Honduras.Officers from the Davis Metro Narcotics Strike Force began investigating the group about three months ago. Undercover officers also bought heroin from them. Typically, investigations like this can take a year. But police say there have been three overdoses in Davis County in the past month, so they wanted to move quickly to shut this group down. Neighbors are glad because they suspected something was going on. Kathleen Tilley said she and others saw "cars coming and going and stopping for a few minutes and then coming back out, and people that we never see around here." "Some of the drug use was becoming very apparent, meaning people were using kind of out in the open. Even during our surveillance, it was becoming a problem for n

13 people have been questioned by the drug squad in connection with four separate cases. Theses incidents started on Saturday with a raid on a bar in Birkirkara after reports were received that drugs were being sold within the bar itself. When the police arrived, the barman, a 33-year-old man from Floriana, was seen trying to dispose of a capsule containing around 10 grams of cocaine. The barman and a 39-year-old woman from Zejtun, were both arrested. The second raid happened on Sunday afternoon on the Floriana granaries. Nine men between the ages of 19 and 27 were arrested during an organised party, after they were found to be carrying cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy. Two of these men are being accused of drug trafficking. On Wednesday, a 32-year-old Libyan man was arrested in connection with the discovery of 3.4 kilograms of heroin at the airport on September 17. One Maltese woman and three more Libyan men had already been arrested in connection to the event. The final incident occurre

Customs investigators in Victoria have arrested and charged two men and one woman with importing a commercial quantity of border-controlled precursor chemicals. A 23-year-old man, 18-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman, all from Brunswick in Melbourne, were arrested on Monday in Shepparton.Investigations began on 21 September 2008 when Customs officers at the Sydney international mail centre detected a package from Canada containing 160 medicine bottles labelled as 'caffeine'. Further examination of the package allegedly identified approximately 112,000 tablets that tested positive for ephedrine, a precursor used to manufacture methamphetamine. Customs investigators, with the assistance of officers from Shepparton police, executed Customs search and seizure warrants at two residential premises in the Shepparton area on Monday. The 23-year-old man was arrested by Customs, remanded in custody overnight and released on bail yesterday. The 18-year-old man and 20-year-old woman we

"We found ten pouches of suspected drugs inside one of his bags." Dubai A court has confirmed a 10 year jail sentence for a South African visitor who handed over a bag containing cocaine to a policeman at Dubai airport. The Dubai Court of Appeal upheld the initial verdict, ten years in jail and a Dh50,000 fine, for the 39-year-old, M.V., who earlier pleaded guilty to smuggling cocaine which he admitted he intended to send to Switzerland. He will be deported after serving his sentence. Records show an Emirati policeman initially thought the South African was joking when he approached the counter at Dubai International Airport to hand over the drugs."He said he was carrying cocaine and wanted to hand it over," the 22-year-old policeman testified. "I informed my supervisor who took him to a search room. The Public Prosecution charged the South African with smuggling and possessing approximately 4.3kg of cocaine with the intention of exporting it from the country.

Drug mules are playing a 'game of chance' with their lives as they swallow liquid cocaine to try to make some quick money.Narcotics police on the island are on the lookout for smugglers who could be heading to the island after gulping down scores of homemade drug capsules.Seeing "nothing but dollar signs", the mules can swallow up to a kilo of liquid cocaine - which has a street value in Bermuda of about $30,000. They line their stomachs with liquid cocaine pellets stashed inside latex, even though the tiniest of tears can cause the liquid drug to seep out and kill them.This form of drug smuggling - known as body packing - is on the increase across the world and overdoses and deaths are not uncommon. Narcotics officer Sergeant Hayden Small spoke to the Bermuda Sun about the police service's "growing concern" and suggested swallowers could already be getting onto the island.Sgt. Small, who has specialized in narcotics for 12 years, said: "These swall