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One of the world's biggest drug lords, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, has been arrested by US federal agents in El Paso, Texas. Zambada, 76, founded the criminal organisation with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is currently jailed in the US. Arrested with Zambada on Thursday was Guzman's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, said the US justice department. In February, Zambada was charged by US prosecutors with a conspiracy to make and distribute fentanyl, a drug more powerful than heroin that has been blamed for the US opioid crisis. In a written statement on Thursday evening, US...

Cambridge suspect faces federal charges An alleged meth and fentanyl kingpin of a “sprawling” Greater Boston empire was arrested and charged following an investigation which indicated he could have produced millions of counterfeit pills — partially funded through Paycheck Protection Program loan fraud. Schuyler Oppenheimer, 33, of Cambridge, who allegedly conducted illicit trade with Chinese suppliers under the name “Michael Sylvain,” was arrested last week and charged in federal court in Boston with possession of 500 grams and more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine and two counts of wire fraud. The drug charge carries...

A synthetic opioid described as 'fentanyl on steroids' was seized in a Florida drug bust, according to police. West Palm Beach police confiscated $1.6 million worth of N-Desethyl Isotonitazene - known as ISO - during a raid, reported WPBF. Authorities discovered the deadly drug in powder, pill and brick form while executing search warrants on a home and a storage unit earlier in July. '[The substances] came back as 50 times more potent than normal fentanyl that we normally deal with,' Lt. Joe Herb said. 'Fentanyl is normally very dangerous. Now, we're talking about 50 times stronger.' Police said the...

Opioids, like morphine, are effective painkillers but have led to widespread addiction and serious side effects like respiratory depression, notably seen in the U.S. opioid crisis that claimed nearly 645,000 lives from 1999 to 2021. Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have identified a potential alternative, aniquinazolin B, from the marine fungus Aspergillus nidulans, which binds to opioid receptors and could replace opioids with fewer undesirable effects, after rigorous testing including over 750,000 calculations per substance using the MOGON supercomputer. Researchers at Mainz University have discovered a natural compound that could potentially serve as a long-term alternative to opioids and...

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It’s been six months since three Kansas City Chiefs fans were found dead in a friend’s backyard after gathering to watch their favorite football team play, but the victims’ families are apparently no closer to getting answers about the tragic incident. This week “the families of those three dead men have few answers, and they say their questions are being ignored,” local news outlet WDAF-TV reported. The frozen bodies of David Harrington, 37, Ricky Johnson, 38, and Clayton McGeeney, 36, were found Jan. 9 in the backyard of a home rented by their friend Jordan Willis. They had gathered at...

Sean Burroughs, a 2000 Olympic gold medalist, Little League World Series winner and former first round MLB pick, died Thursday, the California-based Long Beach Little League organization announced Friday. He was 43. Burroughs died of a cardiac arrest, his mother, Debbie, told the Southern California News Group via text, the San Bernardino Sun reported. According to Doug Wittman, Long Beach Little League president, Burroughs was found unresponsive next to his vehicle at the Long Beach complex after dropping his son off for a game Thursday, The Sun reported.

Even as Mexican-made fentanyl continues to flood into the United States, Mexico’s efforts to seize the drug have declined dramatically, according to figures released Tuesday by the Defense Department. Figures for the first half of 2024 show that Mexican federal forces seized only 286 pounds (130 kilograms) of fentanyl nationwide between January and June, down 94% from the 5,135 pounds (2,329 kilograms) seized in 2023. The synthetic opioid has been blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths annually in the United States, and U.S. officials have tried to step up efforts to seize it as it comes over the border, often...

Mexican drug cartels are inundating American communities with the world’s deadliest drug in record-busting numbers, and it’s only getting worse. Fat Man and Little Boy killed perhaps 236,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Spanish Flu killed some 675,000 Americans from 1918–1920. And 1.2 million U.S. soldiers died fighting from World War I to the War on Terror. Yet in the span of a single month, our country imported enough ultra-deadly fentanyl to kill between 54 and 127 million Americans—and that’s just the stuff we caught. For reference, that’s easily enough to kill the combined populations of California, Texas,...

HONOLULU (KHON2) -- Drug cartels from Mexico are operating in Hawaii, making and pushing deadly drugs including methamphetamines and fentanyl. New tougher penalties akin to murder charges are aiming to take them down. Authorities told KHON2 that the big cartels are ramping up business not just south of the border but right here in our island state. The top federal law enforcement official in Hawaii warns of the dangers not just to drug users, but to drug pushers once caught. Authorities have seen a big shift in recent years to Hawaii’s most dangerous drugs methamphetamine and fentanyl especially coming mostly...

The Supreme Court decided on Friday that cities can enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outdoors, even in West Coast areas where shelter space is lacking. The case is the most significant to come before the high court in decades on the issue and comes as a rising number of people in the US are without a permanent place to live. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the high court reversed a ruling by a San Francisco-based appeals court that found outdoor sleeping bans amount to cruel and unusual punishment. The majority found that the 8th Amendment prohibition does...

In Atlanta to promote the Biden administration’s efforts to quell the import of illegal drugs into the U.S., Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced new sanctions against members of a Mexican drug cartel accused of trafficking fentanyl, cocaine, meth and migrants through the southern border. Included in the sanctions are eight members of the La Nueva Familia Michoacana drug cartel, a notoriously violent group that wars for territorial control with a slate of other Mexican cartels. Also Thursday, Yellen issued an advisory to banks to help them identify and report suspicious transactions related to the sale an purchase of chemicals and...

On Friday’s broadcast of WBUR’s “Here and Now,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reacted to reports raising the possibility that the Chinese Communist Party directly subsidizes the makers of precursor chemicals for fentanyl — a claim backed by a report by the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party — by stating that “we have seen the PRC take some very helpful steps.” And “there have been helpful developments with China.” But “We would like to see more steps and we would like to see the support sustained.” Co-host Scott Tong asked,...

Fentanyl gets manufactured by Mexican drug cartels and then transported over the US border where it eventually results in tens of thousands of overdose deaths per year. But the precursor chemicals used to produce all of that fentanyl isn't produced in Mexico. It comes from China. Not only has China brushed off repeated US demands that it crack down on the sale of these chemicals, but we learned a few months ago that China's government is still subsidizing them. This comes from a House committee report that looked into it.As part of our investigation, the Select Committee obtained materials showing...

Maine’s taxpayer-funded “harm reduction” specialists call it “boofing” or “booty dumping,” but those are just pleasant euphemisms referring to the practice of sticking heroin, fentanyl, or meth up your butt. Maine Access Points, a taxpayer-funded nonprofit based in Bangor, as well as the city of Portland’s city-run needle distribution center are both offering extensive how-to guides and — even anal injection kits — to help drug users squirt narcotics into their anuses. In Portland, the “Portland Public Health Boofing Kit” comes with a needleless syringe and an informational flyer explaining the proper technique for putting drugs up your butt.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this week that 5.8 million fentanyl-laced pills have been confiscated throughout California since January by the state’s Counterdrug Task Force in collaboration with local and federal law enforcement agencies. As state officials celebrate consistently increasing confiscations of the synthetic opioid, though, experts say that the seizures will likely not affect the illicit drug market significantly. Over the last three years, the number of fentanyl-laced pills confiscated statewide has increased dramatically. In 2021, only 1.5 million pills were seized statewide. That number jumped almost sevenfold to 10.3 million pills seized in 2022, and then more than doubled...

The head of Mexico's detective service has acknowledged the country is “the champion” of fentanyl production, which appears to run counter to past statements by President Andrés Manuel López ObradorThe head of Mexico’s detective service acknowledged Tuesday that the country is “the champion” of fentanyl production, something that appears to run counter to past statements by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. López Obrador has hotly denied in the past that any fentanyl is produced in Mexico, saying Mexican cartels only press it into pills or add finishing touches. But Felipe de Jesus Gallo, the head of Mexico’s Criminal Investigation Agency,...

Three months after the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned a Chinese mafia leader for fentanyl trafficking, he received an award in Beijing.Peter Schweizer in March 2022. (NTD)In March 2021, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Overseas United Working Committee recognized Wan Kuok Koi, also known as “Broken Tooth,” as a “patriotic businessman” and the “chief representative” of all international Hongmen associations. Hongmen is synonymous with triads, or Chinese transnational organized crime syndicates, to many Chinese.The awarding entity is a CCP United Front organization and a platform under the China Association for Science and Technology. It also pushes China’s flagship infrastructure...

Last year 70,000 Americans lost their lives to Communist China’s genocidal fentanyl offensive. To put that into perspective, we have already lost more innocent Americans to China’s unconventional warfare than we lost soldiers to Hitler in the entire course of World War II. Similarly, if one were to consider the 1,000,000 American deaths caused by COVID19, a biological weapon made in China’s military lab in Wuhan, one would begin to get an idea of the scope of China’s unconventional warfare efforts to bring America to its knees.If one were to add the complicity of the Biden White House in insuring...