Free Republic

Lehigh County Commissioner Zachary Cole Borghi was arrested on charges that he allegedly bought and sold cocaine from his home and his job inside Bethlehem City Hall, the district attorney's office announced Wednesday. Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan said more than 100 new charges filed against Borghi were born out of a 2025 drug investigation involving the county's 12th Investigating Grand Jury. Court documents show Borghi became the subject of a drug trafficking investigation in May of 2024. According to Holihan, Borghi played a minor role in that initial grand jury investigation, which involved more than 40 other defendants....

The U.S. military said it carried out a strike Wednesday on a boat accused of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea, killing four people, as the Trump administration pushes forward with a monthslong campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America while waging a war against Iran. The latest attack brings the number of people who have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military to at least 163 since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in early September. As with most of the military’s statements on the dozens of strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean and...

A California-born American citizen is reportedly rising to lead Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel, and his U.S. citizenship could shield him from the intelligence tools that helped take down his predecessor. Juan Carlos Valencia González, 41, began consolidating control of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel shortly after Mexican special forces killed his stepfather, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, in early March, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Two senior commanders reportedly stood aside rather than contest his takeover, keeping the organization intact, WSJ reported. Valencia González was born in Santa Ana, California. His biological father, Armando Valencia Cornelio, founded the...

ransomnote: According to Fox News, Campo was indicted, arrested, plead not guilty and is in custody.RealRobert@Real_RobNHere it is:The Kenyan administration’s ties to the Mexican cartel.Paul Campo, an Obama-era DEA official, laundered approximately $12,000,000 and participated in narcotics trafficking, aiding and abetting one of the most notorious Mexican cartels, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (also known as Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, or CJNG), responsible for countless deaths through violence and drug trafficking in the United States and Mexico.Campo served during the Kenyan administration as Obama’s Deputy Chief of the DEA’s Office of Financial Operations.

Homeless individuals were allegedly bribed with cash, cigarettes, and marijuana in exchange for signing voter registration forms and ballot petitions — often using fake addresses Independent investigative journalist James O’Keefe and his team at O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) have released explosive undercover footage documenting what appears to be widespread voter registration and petition fraud on Los Angeles’ Skid Row, where homeless individuals were allegedly bribed with cash, cigarettes, and marijuana in exchange for signing voter registration forms and ballot petitions — often using fake addresses. The investigation, titled “CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS FRAUD CASH FOR BALLOTS PART I,” captured at least 28...

Five Mexican nationals were indicted on federal drug trafficking and weapons charges this week after authorities discovered a clandestine methamphetamine lab in Northern California, leading to the seizure of nearly 3,000 pounds of the drug, officials said. The Department of Justice said a federal grand jury returned a 10-count indictment Thursday against Luis Reyna Carrillo, 33, Mariana Vanessa Mendoza Camacho, 33, Juan Jesus Manriquez Diaz, 31, Alvaro Rosales, 44, and Manuel Juan Madrid Perez, 38, charging them with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine and multiple drug trafficking and gun offenses. "These illegal aliens allegedly operated a secret lab on...

In 2017, I took Cipro for just five days to treat a simple UTI. Since then, my quality of life has been steadily deteriorating. Over the past seven years, my condition has worsened to the point where I can barely walk, and I will soon need a wheelchair.

Kuwaiti authorities arrested 14 Kuwaiti citizens and two Lebanese nationals belonging to a Hezbollah cell, seizing weapons, narcotics, and terror paraphernalia.

Seventeen alleged drug traffickers are facing charges after authorities say they ran a sprawling methamphetamine pipeline that pumped hundreds of pounds of the drug every month across Northern California. Prosecutors in Placer County announced Thursday that the suspects were charged with crimes including conspiracy and transporting large quantities of methamphetamine for sale after an eight-month undercover probe dubbed “Operation Meltdown.” The investigation began in July 2025 when an undercover detective bought several pounds of meth from a suspected dealer in North Auburn, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office. What started as a single case quickly snowballed into what investigators...

Takeshi Ebisawa of Japan, Leader Within the Yakuza Transnational Organized Crime Syndicate, Allegedly Trafficked Nuclear Materials, Including Uranium and Weapons-Grade PlutoniumDamian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York; Matthew G. Olsen, the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s National Security Division; and Anne Milgram, the Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”), announced the issuance today of a Superseding Indictment charging TAKESHI EBISAWA with conspiring with a network of associates to traffic nuclear materials from Burma to other countries. In the course of this conspiracy, EBISAWA and his confederates showed samples of nuclear...

The global order is no fan of Iran. Atlantic writer and former National Endowment for Democracy board member Anne Applebaum has consistently named Iran, alongside Russia and China, as one of the three greatest autocracies threatening the world. Senator Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a speaker at the Council on Foreign Relations, drew an explicit parallel during the 2022 Mahsa Amini massacres, declaring, “Just as we stood together with the people of Ukraine during their revolution of dignity, the United States must continue standing with the people of Iran.” One might think that these...

Kratom pills and drinks have been openly sold across California for years, but a recent crackdown by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration is shutting down the sale of the popular painkillers, resulting in over 3,300 products seized in three weeks and $5 million worth of product taken off shelves.

On Los Angeles streets, tents aren’t just signs of homelessness — they’re where gangs openly deal drugs and collecting rent. Whether its RV rows choking Compton Boulevard, Skid Row’s packed tent maze or the once-quiet pockets of the Westside, encampments have morphed into open-air drug markets. This isn’t chaos — it’s control. Gangs blend into the population, hiding in plain sight, running street commerce behind tarps and inside RVs while City Hall looks the other way. Nowhere is it clearer than Compton Boulevard, where more than 100 RVs sit bumper-to-bumper, windows blacked out. Outreach workers and residents say many are...

New York University Abu Dhabi creates oral LED alternative designed to regulate appetiteAn enterprising team of scientists in Abu Dhabi have harnessed cutting-edge technology in a long-term quest to provide patients with a "holy grail" alternative to hugely popular weight-loss drugs. The researchers from New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) have developed a tiny ingestible device that emits light and, in doing so, could stimulate nerve cells or neurons in the gut, potentially altering which nutrients are absorbed or affecting whether a person feels hungry. Dr Khalil Ramadi, an assistant professor of bioengineering at NYUAD, who heads the team...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The Albuquerque Police Department’s Impact Task Force seized five guns and a variety of drugs following a reported road rage incident involving a white Ford F150. Officers responded Tuesday when a victim reported a man threatened him with a handgun. Police say the suspect, Francisco Solis, was identified through APD’s Real Time Crime Center. Police say Solis admitted involvement but claimed he pointed pliers, not a gun. He was arrested and charged aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Detectives searched Solis’ residence, and say they seized the following items: 5 handguns, to include one matching the description...

Yunqing Jian, 33, first entered the country on a fraudulently obtained F1 student visa, the FBI says Fusarium graminearum creates "head blight," a disease of wheat, barley, maize and rice, and "is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year," according to the Department of Justice. It is also toxic to humans, and can cause vomiting, liver damage and "reproductive defects in humans and livestock." The affidavit, which said Jian has been attempting to smuggle the pathogen into the U.S. since she began post-doctoral studies funded by China in 2022, also accuses Jian of asking a third...

An alleged Sinaloa Cartel leader has been charged with narcoterrorism and drug trafficking, and a reward of up to $5 million each is being offered for information leading to his capture, as well as the arrest of his brother, federal prosecutors in San Diego said Thursday. Narcoterrorism is a new charge and term that stems from the Trump administration's designation of some cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, including the Sinaloa Cartel. Mexico has also worked with this administration to send some people to the U.S. for prosecution. Rene Arzate-Garcia, also known as "La Rana," is described by prosecutors in court...

Drug lords have been killed or captured, and cartels have splintered or collapsed, only to see more violent ones replace them and the illicit trade expand. So, 60years of war on drugs, what has actually worked? ...The Sinaloa Cartel, after all, did not go away after its chief, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, was captured and extradited to the United States. ...Rather than simply going after kingpins like Mr. Oseguera, the authorities need to take a holistic approach to dismantle these groups more completely, analysts say. The Mexican government has to use a combination...

TAPALPA, Mexico (AP) — A day after the Mexican army killed the country’s most powerful drug lord, the picturesque town where it happened was a study in contrasts. Children whose classes had been suspended by the outbreak of violence played in cobblestone streets and tourist shops were open on Tapalpa’s main plaza Monday. But gunshots also rang out, and just outside the town a dead man lay on the road next to a Jeep sprayed with bullets. Meanwhile, heavily armed Mexican security forces kept up their battle with cartel gunmen following the killing that sparked a surge in violence and...

Californians have been trapped in Mexico as cartel violence engulfed a popular tourist city and spilled towards the US border. Americans in Puerto Vallarta were urged to stay indoors as narco gangs went on a bloody rampage after leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes was killed in a military raid on Sunday. Carnage spread up the west coast of the country through Sunday, with reports of attacks getting closer to the States in Baja California while gunfire erupted at Guadalajara International Airport. Cars and businesses were also set on fire further across the country...