Word: cartelizing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...said you can't fight city hall? For more than a decade, the drug barons of the Medellin cartel have been using murder and corruption in an attempt to cow or co-opt elected officials of this pleasant, bustling Colombian city of 2 million people and turn it into the world capital of the cocaine business. In the process, Medellin, known locally as the "city of eternal spring" for its mild mountain climate, has become the city of eternal violence. More than 3,000 people were murdered there last year, a homicide rate about five times . as high...
Jaramillo, an outspoken critic of the cartel as well as of Washington's drug policies, leaves office this week to make way for the first freely elected mayor in the city's history. Some 12 million Colombians went to the polls on March 13 to elect the mayors of nearly 1,000 cities and towns. The exercise in democracy -- until now the country's mayors have been appointed by Bogota -- is designed in part to give cities like Medellin new powers to fight such menaces as organized crime and drugs. Some feel that an administration with a direct mandate...
Pablo Escobar Gaviria, generally acknowledged to be head of the Mafia, as the cartel is known locally, became something of a local philanthropist, building a zoo, soccer fields and an entire suburb of low-cost houses that is still called Barrio Escobar. In the manner of feudal serfs, residents in Barrio Escobar refer to their benefactor with cap-doffing deference and slip the Spanish honorific Don in front of his name...
While drug-related violence once touched mostly those in the business, no one is safe today. Basuco, a crude, habit-forming derivative of coca paste, was introduced into the local market by the cartel in 1984, when it had excess low-grade Colombian coca paste on its hands. Now there are thousands of addicts in the city, many of them knife-wielding street criminals who will kill for the price of a fix, less than a dollar. "Ten years ago you could stroll the city streets after dark," recalls Gomez. "That's suicidal...
...which have received official American aid for years. The President claimed that the Bahamas, Colombia and Mexico have made progress against drugs, even though the Bahamas is widely known as a money- laundering and transshipment point for drug dealers, Colombia has made no visible headway against its notorious Medellin cartel and Mexico is the base of ever growing drug-smuggling traffic across the porous U.S. border...