Word: cartels
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...Jose and took 19 magistrates and five assistants hostage. Initially the kidnappers tried to pass themselves off as Colombians, demanded $20 million, safe passage to a South American country and the release of prisoners from local jails, which fueled suspicion that they belonged to a Colombian drug cartel. Not so. They all turned out to be Costa Ricans. After four days of negotiations, they bagged $150,000 in ransom and released their hostages, only to be captured by authorities, who tricked them into giving up their arms in exchange for the promise of safe passage to Guatemala. In a note...
...response by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to growing signs that Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar Gaviria, a fugitive since July, is living in terror and squirming for a deal. Escobar's nemesis is a mysterious paramilitary group called Pepes, which may be a faction of the Medellin cartel that has turned on its longtime boss. Recently Pepes has launched a Mafia-style vendetta, even bombing the home of Escobar's mother. Said a DEA official: "He's facing his own medicine...
...diamond rush may be a dream come true for the garimpeiros, but it has turned into a nightmare for De Beers. The South African group, through its London-based cartel, the Central Selling Organization, controls 80% of the world's rough-diamond trade. In the past 17 months, largely illicit diamonds from Angola and elsewhere have been flooding the market, threatening to provoke a price collapse and forcing De Beers to spend so far upwards of $200 million to keep the gems out of circulation by buying them...
...SMART BOMB DOWN THE SMOKESTACK of the financial part of the Cali cartel's operations," said U.S. Deputy Attorney General George Terwilliger. ! The Desert Storm terminology seemed at odds with the central metaphor of Operation Green Ice, the international drug bust that broke up the complex financial infrastructure of Colombia's premier cocaine cartel. But the effect was at least as impressive. Law-enforcement officials from the U.S. and seven other nations coordinated an assault of unprecedented depth and scope on Cali's network of money managers and distributors. At week's end, more than 165 people had been arrested...
...first time, Italian, Spanish and British police joined their counterparts in the Drug Enforcement Administration in undercover storefront stings that penetrated the cartel's money-moving operations in Europe. In Rome, authorities arrested 30 people, including one member apiece from each of Italy's most legendary -- and lethal -- organized crime groups: the Mafia, Camorra and 'Ndrangheta. The arrests underscored the existence of a dangerous alliance between the Cali cartel, which controls 80% to 90% of the world cocaine production, and Italy's formidable organized crime groups. "Money is the life blood of a drug organization, and our efforts to dismantle...