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Juan Orlando Hernández, 55, once a US ally in the ‘war on drugs’, found guilty on three counts and faces 40 years in prisonThe former president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernández has been convicted of cocaine trafficking, securing a place in infamy for the one-time US ally in the war on drugs.Hernández is the first former head of state to be found guilty of...

Europe has been ‘negligent,’ as an acceptance of cocaine and cannabis leads to corruption, violence, and misery, says AboutalebThe mayor of a city on the frontline of the illegal drug trade has said that a “negligent” attitude to recreational drug use, including an acceptance of cocaine as the middle-class narcotic of choice, has led to violence and corruption in Europe’s poorest neighbourhoods.As the Netherlands...

Juan Orlando Hernández stands trial in a New York courtroom on Monday accused of taking millions in bribes from drug traffickersFive years after he was lavished with praise by Donald Trump for “stopping drugs at a level that has never happened” – and two years after he was extradited in shackles to the US – the former Honduras president Juan Orlando Hernández is to...

People forced to bring overdose-reversal drug naloxone from US, as critics accuse Mexican government of creating shortageEvery day, people cross the US-Mexico border with drugs – but not all of them are going north. Some head in the opposite direction with a hidden cargo of naloxone, a life-saving medicine that can reverse an opioid overdose but is so restricted as to be practically inaccessible...

Just a few years ago it was one of the most peaceful countries in Latin America. But last week drug gangs stormed a live TV broadcast and unleashed a wave of terror. Tom Phillips reportsCompared with its fellow Latin American countries Colombia and Mexico – which for decades have been destabilised by violent drug gangs – Ecuador was calm and peaceful. But a wave...

After criminals storm TV station and take prison guards hostage, Daniel Noboa pledges to stop his country becoming a narco-stateEcuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has denied that his government is embarking on an indiscriminate campaign to hunt down and kill gang members, as the South American country continues to reel from a week of chaos and deadly violence that he has classified as a war.In...

Daniel Noboa designates nearly two dozen gangs as terrorist groups after wave of violence across countryEcuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, said on Wednesday that his country was “at war” with drug gangs who are holding more than 130 prison staff hostage and who briefly captured a TV station live on air, in a wave of violence that has left city streets deserted.At least 10 people...

Ecuador’s president has declared a state of “internal armed conflict”. How did the country find itself in the grip of armed gangs?• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First EditionGood morning. At about 2pm local time yesterday, a live news broadcast on an Ecuadorian TV channel was interrupted by a group of masked men carrying guns, grenades, and dynamite. The intruders pointed guns...

Huge manhunt under way after Adolfo Macías of Los Choneros disappears from cell and guards taken hostage amid prison riotsEcuador has declared a state of emergency after one of the country’s most dangerous criminals vanished from his cell and prison guards were overpowered and taken hostage amid riots at prisons across the country.A huge manhunt was under way on Monday as thousands of soldiers...