Free Republic

Russia has begun evacuating its citizens from Venezuela, a sudden move that analysts say signals a major shift in Moscow's stance toward dictator Nicolás Maduro's embattled regime — and comes as U.S. military pressure on Caracas steadily intensifies, La Derecha Diario reported. The Association of Tour Operators of Russia confirmed that flights are being organized to remove Russians from Venezuela. The announcement, circulated widely by Russian media, sparked immediate speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for instability or distancing itself from Maduro after years of backing the socialist strongman. The evacuation order comes at an unusual moment. Russian...

...we continue our travels through Guinea-Bissau, a country that just weeks ago experienced a deadly coup attempt that aimed to kill the president, prime minister, cabinet, and army officials, and succeeded in killing almost a dozen people before it was stopped. The president describes the coup attempt as an attack on democracy, and the officials say that it was led by a convicted drug baron...Before European colonial times, Guinea-Bissau and the Bissagos Islands in particular... were central to trade between Africa and Europe... but today, it's the drug trade that they are essential to.The islands are famous for having huge...

An illegal immigrant from Mexico who previously served nearly two decades in federal prison, was indicted Tuesday after allegedly conspiring to move tens of millions of dollars in methamphetamine in the Atlanta area, leading authorities to seize nearly 1,600 pounds of the stimulant drug hidden in blackberry shipments. Gerardo Solorio-Alvarado, 44, of Mexico, was charged with conspiracy and possession with the intent to distribute methamphetamine. He previously served 17 years in prison after being convicted of felony possession with the intent to distribute methamphetamine and possession of a gun in a drug trafficking crime.

The United States has designated the Cartel de los Soles (Spanish for Cartel of the Suns) - a group it alleges is headed by Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, and senior figures in his government - as a foreign terrorist organisation. Labelling an organisation as a terrorist group gives US law enforcement and military agencies broader powers to target and dismantle it. In recent months, the US has been ramping up pressure on Maduro, saying his government is illegitimate following last year's election, which was widely dismissed as rigged. The designation gives it another way to turn up the heat. But...

Federal prosecutors have announced the indictment and arrest of 20 individuals, most of them sworn law enforcement officers, in the Mississippi Delta region for allegedly conspiring with Mexican drug cartels to smuggle narcotics into the United States. U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner for the Northern District of Mississippi made the announcement at a press conference on Thursday. “We’re here today to talk about some incredibly serious allegations that mark a monumental betrayal of public trust, to announce the indictment and arrest of 20 individuals, most of them law enforcement officers in the Mississippi Delta region. The indictments generally allege the taking...

U.S. Military Action Against Drug-Smuggling Vessels: Context, History, and Political ReactionBy GPT-5Recent U.S. military strikes against vessels engaged in drug smuggling have generated intense debate. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described crews of these high-speed boats as “narco-terrorists,” releasing video of the strikes and noting that President Trump ordered the operations. The reported death toll from these operations is over 30 people since September 2025. Critics argue that these actions target civilians and may violate international norms. Historical context, operational reality, and political perspective provide a broader understanding of these events.Military vs. Law EnforcementIt is important to distinguish law enforcement from...

Venezuela on Friday accused the United States of waging an “undeclared war” in the Caribbean and called for a UN investigation of American strikes that killed over a dozen alleged drug traffickers on boats in recent weeks. Washington has deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 fighters sent to Puerto Rico in what it calls an anti-drug operation. “It is an undeclared war, and you can already see how people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, have been executed in the Caribbean Sea. Executed without the right to a defence,” Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez...

The U.S. Coast Guard has seized more than 240,000 pounds of cocaine since the start of the Trump administration on Jan. 20, enough to kill the combined population of California, Texas, and New York, according to the Department of Homeland Security. President Donald Trump “is keeping his promise to Make America Safe Again. The Coast Guard’s tremendous work has guaranteed that these illicit drugs will never infiltrate America’s communities and take innocent lives,” Abigail Jackson, White House spokeswoman, told The Daily Signal. “The Trump administration will never stop fighting to protect Americans from the scourge of dangerous drugs,” Jackson said....

Judge Boasberg blocks Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Tren de Aragua, despite intelligence linking the gang to Venezuela’s government and acts of sabotage in the U.S. As President Trump fulfills his campaign promise to deport criminal illegal aliens, a blatantly corrupt judge is trying to stop him. Judge James Boasberg, Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, has abandoned all pretense to fairness. I will leave it to others to focus on his conflicts of interest (the FISA Court, his wife, his daughter) and his double standard of justice. This article...

BREAKING: President Donald Trump says U.S. shot out a "drug-carrying boat" coming from Venezuela, says more details coming soon.pic.twitter.com/nBGLjiDaQv— AZ Intel (@AZ_Intel_) September 2, 2025

The U.S. Coast Guard achieved a milestone with the offload of a record 76,140 pounds of illicit narcotics, valued at $473 million, at Port Everglades on Monday. This marks the largest quantity of drugs offloaded in Coast Guard history. Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton’s crew offloaded approximately 61,740 pounds of cocaine and 14,400 pounds of marijuana, preventing an estimated 23 million potential lethal doses from reaching the United States.

Russell Bentley, a self-described “Donbass Cowboy,” joined Russian forces soon after they created a proxy state in eastern Ukraine in 2014. He quickly became one of Russian propaganda’s favorite Americans, receiving a Russian passport and a gig with state-run Sputnik TV. On April 8, the 64-year-old Austin native better known under his call sign “Texas” was detained by Russian soldiers in the city of Donetsk, occupied by Russia for the past decade, according to his wife. Eleven days later, he turned up dead. He is the latest in a string of figures involved in Russia’s 2014 takeover of parts of...

BREAKING: President Trump and SecDef Pete Hegseth just sent out 3 United States Navy destroyers, joined by an attack submarine, near Venezuela to crack down on the cartels. The gloves are finally coming off.

Now that Republicans have narrow control of the House of Representatives, the GOP is investigating the Biden administration with gusto. Still, Republicans seem not to have noticed one major foreign policy scandal that's hiding in plain sight. As I recently reported , the rising scandal surrounding retired FBI senior official Charles McGonigal is perhaps the worst in the bureau’s history. Multiple sources have told me that McGonigal, while still serving with the FBI as head of counterintelligence in New York, shook down Balkan business people, most of them Albanian, in an audacious political corruption scheme worth many millions of dollars....

The trial of two Iranians and six others, who tried to smuggle 2.2 tons of cocaine to the island, exposed networks spanning the Middle East and Venezuela. JNS Staff. July 9, 2025 / JNS) An Irish court on July 4 sentenced two Iranian nationals in connection with a transnational drug trafficking operation involving more than 2.2 tons of cocaine, as authorities investigate suspected links to Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, Irish media reported. The men—Soheil Jelveh, 51, a former captain of the cargo vessel MV Matthew, and Saied Hassani, 39, a senior officer with significant maritime experience—received sentences of 17.5...

An even better question: Why are Hezbollah leaders still meeting in Beirut?The Israelis launched another massive attack on a building complex "on the outskirts of Beirut," the New York Times reports this morning. This apparently refers to Dahiyeh, the suburb controlled by Hamas Hezbollah [corrected], and where Israelis killed longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah a few days ago. Reportedly, Nasrallah's presumed successor had gathered with what's left of Hezbollah's command, and ... well ...Israel bombed a meeting of Hezbollah’s senior leadership around midnight on Thursday, a gathering that included Hashem Safieddine, the presumed successor of Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s longtime...

The nearly 3,000-foot passage was equipped with lighting, ventilation systems and tracks to move narcotics ... U.S. Border Patrol agents recently discovered and disabled a nearly 3,000-foot-long narcotics smuggling tunnel sitting beneath the US-Mexico border. Agents found the tunnel — which linked Tijuana and San Diego — in early April while it was actively under construction. The underground passageway ran under part of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry and had a projected exit point near or inside a commercial warehouse space in San Diego ... Upon entering the "highly sophisticated" tunnel, authorities were met with barricades seemingly placed to...

The first RICO racketeering charges against members and associates of the migrant terrorist group Tren de Aragua were filed this week in New York. A statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said that the case is part of "Operation Take Back America," which it said is a "nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Justice Department to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime." According to the statement, the charges filed...

As the proposed implementation of a pilot cross-border trucking program draws near, another international trade corridor project is drawing heat from local residents in Texas. The March 18 New York Times reported on the reactions of residents of the West Texas towns of Marfa and Alpine to a hearing held by the Texas Department of Transportation on the development of an official trade corridor, La Entrada al Pacifico, or “Gateway to the Pacific.” It would link the port of Topolobampo in Mexico’s Sinaloa state through Chihuahua to the U.S. market, via the border crossing at Presidio, Texas, and the oil...

Thanks to oil, Venezuela was once the wealthiest country in the region — before becoming the continent’s poorest, ravaged by corruption and feckless economic policy. And amid the economic decline, high-ranking government officials became conspicuously wealthy. But how? According to U.S. indictments, former government officials, and regional experts, officials linked to the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and members of Maduro’s government built a massive drug syndicate — while most of the country increasingly struggled to find food to eat, or medicine to care for the sick. “Venezuela was a narco state several years ago, but it has become darker and...