Drones hit a guerrilla camp in southern Apure on October 30 and the army that operates them has published no toll: 19 dead by one count, around 20 by another, nine bodies in a morgue in San Fernando. Five years after an operation that ended with the force withdrawn and 12 soldiers hostage, the target changed, the method changed, and the only record is the one a human rights group wrote.
Recent discoveries of methamphetamine laboratories in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Mozambique have fueled concerns that Africa is becoming a significant production hub for synthetic drugs. In Nigeria, an operation in Ogun State led to the arrest of 10 suspects, including three Mexican nationals whom the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) said had been brought into the country to help manufacture the drug. The agency’s chairman, Mohamed Buba Marwa, said officers seized more than 2.4 metric tons of methamphetamine, precursor chemicals and other materials with an estimated international market value of about $363 million.
A strike against alleged members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Venezuela’s Apure state, near the Colombian border, had US intelligence and drone support, according to four US officials quoted by the New York Times. The operation took place last Friday, and a senior Venezuelan military officer confirmed the attack. Fundaredes, the first organization to raise the alarm, counted 23 dead and an undetermined number of wounded in the bombing of an ELN base used as a cocaine distribution center, based on testimony from survivors and local residents that the Times collected. Local reporters with Alianza Rebelde Investiga identified eight of the dead — including two Colombians and four Mexicans — using information from the morgue, the hospital and the San Fernando de Apure cemetery. Venezuelan authorities counted 19 dead in the operation so far, a lower toll than Fundaredes’. The attack came after the United States forcibly removed Nicolás Maduro and Venezuela’s government came under the control of an administration aligned with Donald Trump, according to Infobae, in a New York Times text.
Colombia’s president, Abelardo de la Espriella, ordered on Thursday the temporary militarization of Cúcuta, on the border with Venezuela, amid a wave of violence and killings by illegal groups, a city that in recent days saw the murder of a mayoral hopeful and a bombing that left four police officers wounded.
Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan more than quadrupled this year compared with 2025 to an estimated 43,300 hectares, according to Reuters, based on satellite imagery analyzed by the UN, and rose to more than 43,000 hectares in 2026, with traders’ income from opium estimated at around 525 million dollars, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Agence France-Presse (AFP) identified major construction work near the runway of Taura air base, in Ecuador, about 20 American military flights between June and mid-October and documents mentioning the presence of United States troops. The expansion comes less than a year after Ecuadorians rejected the installation of foreign military bases in the country in a referendum.
A bombing by the Colombian Armed Forces against a Clan del Golfo structure in the department of Chocó left at least six dead and one captured, according to a preliminary toll confirmed by President Abelardo de la Espriella, who said the toll so far is six killed and one captured, “but there are more”.
Alvin Hellerstein, the US federal judge handling the case against Venezuela’s ousted president Nicolás Maduro, has died at 92, the federal court for the Southern District of New York confirmed, according to Le Monde. Maduro’s trial had been due to open on July 1, 2027. Hellerstein was one of the oldest US federal judges, and questions had been raised about whether he was the right judge to preside over what could be a prolonged trial of Maduro on drug-trafficking charges, according to the South China Morning Post.
US Southern Command (Southcom) said it killed five “narcoterrorists” in a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific on Tuesday, saying that “confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in drug trafficking,” according to G1. At least 235 people have been killed in strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific, according to an AFP tally cited by G1. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on the United States to halt the strikes and cited the “extrajudicial execution of people on board these vessels”, regardless of the alleged criminal conduct against them.
Argentina declared five criminal groups and guerrilla organizations from Latin America as terrorist organizations, including Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, according to the Associated Press (AP). The resolution also covers the Nueva Familia Michoacana, also of Mexico, and Ecuador's Los Tiguerones. AP notes that the move follows the security policy of the United States, Argentina's main ally in the region.
Federal prosecutors in Mexico charged former Chihuahua attorney general César Jáuregui Moreno with treason for allowing US agents to join a raid on a suspected drug lab in April without federal authorization, the BBC reported. Attorney General Ernestina Godoy Ramos said Jáuregui had allowed foreign agents to carry out activities reserved for Mexican authorities and had failed to share information; he denies the allegations and was arrested on the weekend, with a court hearing scheduled for Saturday. The case came to light after two US agents said to have worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) died in a car crash in Chihuahua along with two Mexican law enforcement officers, on April 19.
The Pentagon will send hundreds of troops to Latin America, according to The New York Times, in a report published Wednesday (14) and cited by G1. The first members of a battalion of about 600 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division have begun moving to a jungle training center in Panama. The expansion also includes transferring MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drones from Africa to Colombia and Ecuador and creating a new command structure for Western Hemisphere operations based in Miami.
Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters put forward six proposals to strengthen cooperation among Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states in combating illicit drugs and related crimes, according to the Tehran Times. The proposals include strengthening the regional early warning system on synthetic drugs and new psychoactive substances and cooperation in countering chemical precursors used in the illicit manufacturing of narcotic drugs.
At least 600 US troops will take part in training and exercises with local forces in Panama, Colombia and Honduras, the New York Times reported, as cited by G1. US drones were redirected from Africa to Ecuador and Colombia and are to be used in operations against drug trafficking, according to G1.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Thursday (15), in an interview with TV Globo, that the First Command of the Capital (PCC) and the Red Command (CV) terrorize Brazilian communities, but rejected framing the gangs as terrorist organizations in the terms backed by the US government, according to Brasil 247. Lula said he handed US President Donald Trump a written proposal for cooperation against organized crime and drug trafficking based on the experience of the Federal Police.
Lula's special advisor for international affairs, Celso Amorim, said that the “Shield of the Americas” launched by President Donald Trump seeks to impose a “siege” and “absolute domination” on Brazil under the “false” argument of fighting organized crime, according to G1. The coalition brings together presidents of Latin American countries most aligned with Trump, such as Javier Milei, of Argentina, Abelardo de la Espriella, of Colombia, and Nayib Bukele, of El Salvador, according to G1. Aides close to Lula say the measure was “very serious” and represents a “gateway” to military actions in the region, as happened in Venezuela and Colombia, according to G1.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum announced that the country is investigating a viral video said to show mercenaries chanting drug cartel slogans in Ukraine, according to Al Jazeera.
The United States sent MQ-9 Reaper drones to South America, The New York Times revealed on Tuesday, in a text by G1, for anti-narcotics operations in the region. According to officials heard by the newspaper, the drones were redirected from Africa to Colombia and Ecuador, with no details on how many were sent to each country.
Ecuador received two MQ-9A Reaper drones in the last week of September, which arrived in Guayaquil aboard a C-5M Super Galaxy, according to Infodefensa. The two aircraft are already deployed at Taura Air Base, in Guayas province, for persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions against drug trafficking and organized crime. Colombia agreed with the United States to receive three MQ-9A Reaper drones on loan, according to Colombia One, for surveillance and intelligence against drug trafficking and armed groups.
The US Southern Command killed four people in a strike on a suspected drug-trafficking vessel in the Caribbean on Sunday, according to the Times of India. The command said confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking and called the dead narco-terrorists. According to US media cited by TASS, more than 230 people have been killed in US strikes on boats allegedly used by drug traffickers since such attacks began last fall.
Police in Bolivia arrested Attorney General Roger Mariaca and 13 other people accused of protecting drug traffickers days after the United States imposed visa restrictions on Mariaca over corruption allegations, according to The Washington Post. The US State Department said Mariaca received “bribes to facilitate drug trafficking and help violent criminals evade justice”, according to CBS News/AFP.
Colombia has extradited Geovany Andres Rojas, accused of leading an organisation formed by previous members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), to the United States. Rojas, also known as “the Spider”, was flown to California and will face drug trafficking and terrorism charges. According to Reuters, in a text republished by the website WIMZ, three police sources said it is the first extradition of a top commander under President Abelardo de la Espriella.
The countries of the Americas Shield signed on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, a joint declaration designating 24 organisations as “transnational narcoterrorist organisations” and “shared threats”, according to CNN Brasil, G1 and Veja. The text announces asset freezes and immigration and visa restrictions on members, associates and supporters of the groups, as well as criminal liability for those who knowingly provide material support, including logistics. The list includes Brazil’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Comando Vermelho (CV), Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), Tren de Aragua, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Sinaloa Cartel, according to CNN Brasil. The declaration was signed by Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the United States, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago. The signatories declared their intention to ask the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) for a consultation meeting to create a consultative body under Articles 6 and 13 of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio Treaty), according to CNN Brasil. The push came from US President Donald Trump, and Brazil’s government disputes the designation of the factions as terrorists, according to G1. The Americas Shield was founded in March 2026 on Trump’s initiative and, until this Tuesday, gathered governments aligned with Washington in Latin America, according to Veja.
US president Donald Trump said on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, at the 81st United Nations (UN) General Assembly that drug cartels are “the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere” and argued they should be “killed, exiled or detained as enemy combatants without the possibility of release”, according to Reuters. He spoke ahead of a meeting with leaders and foreign ministers from the Shield of the Americas, an anti-cartel coalition launched by his administration in March and made up of Latin American governments aligned with Washington; Brazil and Mexico are not part of it. Trump cited the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and the oil deal with the interim government as proof that Washington “will no longer permit threats to America to gain a foothold anywhere in the Western Hemisphere” and that it will use its “unmatched military might” if necessary, and said Mexico “must reclaim control of its soil from the enemies of humanity”. G1 reported that he asked members of the coalition to formally designate drug factions as “common threats to stability” and to impose sanctions. Since late 2025, the United States has carried out dozens of strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific that, according to human rights groups, have killed more than 220 people and amount to extrajudicial killings.
A report by the United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, Ben Saul, says the United States campaign of strikes on vessels suspected of drug trafficking cost US$4.7 billion by mid-2026 and did not reduce the flow of cocaine into the country: border seizures have remained steady and most of the drug arrives in shipping containers, which are rarely inspected, according to Al Jazeera. The document, published on Monday, September 21, says the 68 strikes recorded between September 2025 and August 2026 killed at least 223 people and that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe they constitute crimes against humanity of murder, according to BBC News. The report also argues that drug trafficking does not meet the legal threshold of an “armed attack” that would justify self-defence, and that less lethal alternatives such as maritime interception were available, according to ABC News. Washington maintains the operation is part of an armed conflict with designated “terrorist” organisations and is meant to keep drugs out of the country.