A massacre on a palm oil farm in Rigores, Honduras, killed 20 people, intensifying fears among campesinos in the Bajo Aguán valley. The incident is part of a 30-year land conflict exacerbated by drug trafficking and new government laws that critics say criminalize land defenders and prioritize agribusiness.
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada García, 76, a co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, was sentenced to life in a US federal court in Brooklyn after a plea deal for drug trafficking. He was also ordered to forfeit $15bn from drug trade profits.
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, received a life sentence without parole in a US court for drug trafficking and racketeering. He apologized for the harm caused and urged future generations to choose a different path.
Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) disclosed conducting three state-authorized foreign cyber operations last year, targeting fentanyl brokers, violent extremist recruiters, and a ransomware-as-a-service gang to disrupt their operations and protect national security.
Colombia's presidential runoff winner inherits a nation shaped by paramilitary violence. Candidates Iván Cepeda and Abelardo de la Espriella have intertwined histories with these criminal forces, advocating opposing strategies for crime and peace.
Italian police have dismantled an underground bank used by drug traffickers, moving hundreds of millions of euros over three years. The network, run by a Chinese national from Prato, facilitated anonymous financial flows for organized crime, including Albanian and Italian mafia groups, and also operated an illegal immigration network.
US prosecutors have indicted Sinaloa Governor Rubén Rocha Moya, a member of President Claudia Sheinbaum's MORENA party, accusing him of conspiring with the Sinaloa Cartel to import massive quantities of narcotics into the United States. The indictment, released in New York on Wednesday, also charges nine other current and former Mexican officials including a senator, mayor and high-ranking policeman. Rocha is accused of protecting the Los Chapitos faction of the cartel. The Mexican government says the US request lacks sufficient evidence.
U.S. military forces conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing three men the Pentagon says were trafficking drugs. No U.S. personnel were harmed. The strike is part of an aggressive anti-cartel campaign that has killed at least 178 people since early September.
