Security forces captured an alleged leader of the FARC's 48th Front in northern Ecuador, an area that has long been a key center of logistics for the rebels' Southern Bloc.

The discovery of an American diplomatic vehicle transporting weapons and ammunition in Bolivia has added yet another layer of tension to relations between the governments of Bolivia and the United States.

As President Evo Morales defended the traditional use of coca leaves on the international stage, Bolivia is putting seized coca to legal uses instead of destroying it.

In recent years, officials have expressed increasing concern about the influence of Central American street gangs, known as “maras,” in South America; but while street gangs are on the rise in the region, they are a different beast.

A Bolivian anti-drug official has claimed that 70 percent of crimes registered in the country are tied to drug trafficking, a claim that seems difficult to support.

Three of Colombia’s most powerful neo-paramilitary criminal bands have reportedly made a non-aggression pact and defined their respective territories in parts of the country’s troubled north and west, marking a new chapter for drug trafficking.

After months of negotiation, Bolivia has agreed to work with Brazil and the US to track coca cultivation, in an apparent policy shift for the government of Evo Morales.

Bolivia has announced plans to eradicate all coca that is illicitly grown in the country, leaving only 20,000 that can legally be cultivated for traditional uses.

The Ecuadorian military reported detecting a semi-submersible drug trafficking vessel off the country’s Pacific Coast, though it was scuttled before officials could inspect its contents.

Starting January 1, Bolivia will no longer answer to a major United Nations (UN) drug treaty. The withdrawal is a protest against the UN's classification of the coca leaf as an illegal substance, but it is unlikely to prompt a major revision of the treaty.