Chief of the U.S. Southern Command, General Douglas M. Fraser, started a two-day visit to Honduras on Tuesday. He will meet local authorities, including Defense Ministry representatives, to discuss security and the drug trade, which has grown steadily in the country in recent years. It is not known if the general will meet Honduran President Porfirio Lobo, reported EFE.
- The Mexican government said that the Zetas drug trafficking organization is behind the murder of at least 116 people whose bodies were found this month in mass graves in the town of San Fernando, northeast Mexico. The victims are thought to be Mexican citizens kidnapped from local buses. Seventeen people have been arrested in connection with the graves.
- Four foreigners were caught in the Viru Viru International Airport in the department of Santa Cruz, Bolivia, accused of trafficking drugs. Prosecutor Alvaro Torre was quoted by newspaper La Razon as saying that the individuals are suspected of being involved involved in an operation to transport drugs from Bolivia to Europe.
- The counter-narcotics unit in Guayaquil, a city on Ecuador’s Pacific coast, announced today that a ton of cocaine was found hidden in pineapples which were being shipped to Belgium. National Narcotics Director General Edmundo Mera said that four people were arrested in the operation. Meanwhile on Saturday, in a private port in Guayaquil, authorities seized nearly 300 kilos of cocaine inside a cargo of bananas that was bound for Spain. The two finds show how much of an important transit zone for drug trafficking Ecuador is becoming.