MEXICO CITY – Armed with rocket-propelled grenades to bring down an army helicopter and with ties to gangs as far afield as Asia, the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel and its shadowy boss have grown into Mexico's newest menace.
MEXICO CITY — Gunmen shot down a Mexican military helicopter Friday in the western state of Jalisco, killing three soldiers, and set fire to buses, blocked roads and attacked banks and gas stations in a sharp escalation of anti-government violence.
Michele Leonhart, who has served at the helm of the DEA since 2007, has come under heavy criticism on Capitol Hill since an inspector general report last month documented a series of episodes in which agents hired prostitutes. Agents were also found to have had sex parties with some women hired by Colombian drug cartels.
Pentagon officials insisted the proposal would not involve the permanent deployment of U.S. troops, a sensitive political issue in a region where U.S. forces historically sided with authoritarian regimes.
Araya is the 16th drug smuggler nabbed at Juan Santamaría International Airport so far this year. He was the second Costa Rican arrested with drugs; the other suspected smugglers were all foreign nationals.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Carl Mark Force and Shaun Bridges kept a large amount of the Bitcoin from undercover transactions made as part of efforts in 2013 to find evidence against Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht, or "Dread Pirate Roberts."
Coast Guard vessels from both countries detained two fishing boats transporting drugs and another transporting fuel barrels, suspected of supplying smuggling boats.
Two journalists were murdered in the city of Mazatenango on March 10 and a third on March 13 in the nearby town of Chicacao. Guatemalan Interior Minister Mauricio López said Monday that the recent crimes could be related to a drug trafficking ring that operates in the area.
