Tag: cocaine

England’s £10BILLION annual cocaine habit: Users snorted almost 130 tonnes of the Class A drug in a YEAR according to official study that analysed sewage to find hotspots

Cocaine users in England are hoovering up almost £10billion-worth of the drug a year, a new study has suggested.

Home Office analysis of the amount of six narcotics detectable in the water supply suggest that the South American stimulant is by far the most-used Class A.

It estimated that between August 2024 and July 2025 cocaine with a market value of £9.8million, weighing 132,000kg or 129 tonnes, was used by people in England.

The data also showed where cocaine use was the highest, with Liverpool, Sunderland and Scotland topping the list.

In an additional worrying sign, the horse tranquiliser ketamine was the second most prevalent drug discovered by market value, with estimated use of 30,800kg worth £0.9billion.

Again, Liverpool was a hotspot of use, along with Brighton, Portsmouth, Norfolk and Bristol.

The Home Office’s Wastewater Analysis for Narcotics Detection (WAND) programme found that between 2021 and 2025, the biggest leap in drug use was MDMA, the main ingredient in ecstasy, up 232 per cent.

This was followed by ketamine (229 per cent) methamphetamine (61% per cent) and cocaine (26 per cent).

However it also found that heroin use had fallen 40 per cent in the same time period. 

Wand analysed the water at 50 treatment plants in England and Scotland, allowing it for the first time to estimate drug use on a national scale. 

It measures metabolites, by-products of drug use that are excreted in urine.

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Coast Guard Confiscates Over $33 Million of Cocaine in Major Bust

The U.S. Coast Guard has made a drug bust valued at more than $33 million as part of an interdiction effort launched by the Trump administration last year.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Escanaba seized 4,510 pounds of cocaine, worth $33.9 million, while on an Easter Sunday patrol in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, according to a Department of Homeland Security news release.

A U.S. patrol aircraft alerted the Escanaba after it spotted a suspected narco-terrorist vessel, and the crew started throwing suspected contraband overboard.

An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter was launched after the contact off the coast of Ecuador.

The release said that the cutter “deployed its over-the-horizon cutter pursuit boat crew and relaunched the helicopter aircrew to recover the contraband.”

The action was part of Operation Pacific Viper.

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“Cocaine Mills”: Trump Puts Three More Latin American Countries On Notice

President Trump soon after the overnight into early Saturday brief invasion of Venezuela and nabbing of President Nicolas Maduro – now in US custody on American soil – put more Latin American countries on notice, calling them essentially “cocaine mills” which ship ‘poison’ into the United States.

The not-so-veiled warnings and threats were issued to the governments of Mexico, Colombia, and Cuba – the latter which has been a Washington enemy stretching many decades back into the height of the Cold War.

In the comments, Trump again called Maduro as a “narco-terrorist” while fielding a question about the implications for neighboring countries, before linking the Venezuelan leader to his ally Colombian President Gustavo Petro.

“He has cocaine mills, he has factories where he makes cocaine and they’re sending it into the United States” Trump said of the Colombian leader, adding, “he does have to watch his ass.” 

And on Cuba, the warning was more veiled, as he described his administration is “going to be something we’ll end up talking about” as Washington suppose wants to “help the people” of this “failing nation” akin to Venezuela. 

“It’s very similar in the sense that we want to help the people in Cuba, but we also want to help the people who were forced out of Cuba and are living in this country,” he continued, in reference to Trump’s own significant support base among Cuban-Americans.

Among the more interesting and somewhat post-Venezuela regime change remarks by Trump were aimed just south of the border. Trump again put Left wing, or perhaps more accurately center-left Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo on notice.

Trump described that the drug cartels are basically running the country, and that “something’s going to have to be done with Mexico” and that the government is “frightened” of them.

“They’re running Mexico. I’ve asked her numerous times: ‘Would you like us to take out the cartels?’ ‘No, no, no, Mr. President, no, no, no, please.’ So we have to do something,” he said in a phone interview with Fox.

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World Health Organization Won’t Ease Coca Leaf Ban, Even As Review Found Prohibition Is More Dangerous Than The Plant

The World Health Organization had a historic opportunity to ease a strict global ban on the coca leaf—a prohibition, campaigners said, with “racist and colonial” roots. But the agency has chosen not to do so.

The WHO’s own expert review had detailed in September how millions of people across the Andes consume the coca leaf daily as part of a longstanding cultural practice without any significant negative effects—and that, conversely, coca control strategies are associated with substantial public health harms.

And yet on December 2, the WHO’s Expert Committee on Drug Dependence (ECDD) recommended that the plant be kept in Schedule I of United Nations drug treaties—the most restrictive category of control—because coca leaves can relatively easily be converted into cocaine.

“The simplicity of extracting cocaine from coca leaf and its high yield and profitability are well known,” the ECDD wrote. “The Committee also reviewed evidence of a marked increase in coca leaf cultivation and in the production of cocaine-related substances, in the context of significant, increasing public health concern about cocaine use. In that context, the Committee considered that reducing or removing existing international controls on coca leaf could pose an especially serious risk to public health.”

The committee noted that a 34 percent year-on-year increase in cocaine production was reported in 2023, with some countries reporting historically high levels. But reform advocates emphasize that coca is not cocaine. They insist that the WHO’s review acknowledged both the plant’s medical potential and the lack of evidence of problematic coca leaf use anywhere in the world—two key criteria a drug must satisfy to be placed in a less restrictive schedule.

“It’s unacceptable for humanity to demonize a sacred medicinal plant,” Jaison Perez Villafaña, a wisdom keeper or mamo from Colombia’s Arhuaco community, told Filter. “It was more of a political decision than a scientific one. The coca leaf (el ayu) is not itself to blame for being converted into cocaine by humans with economic interests.”

The ECDD said it recognized that “coca leaf has an important cultural and therapeutic significance for Indigenous peoples and other communities and that there are exemptions for traditional use of coca leaf in certain national frameworks.” A coalition of Indigenous coca leaf producers and consumers wrote to the WHO in October urging the UN body to “clearly differentiate” between traditional coca use and issues associated with cocaine.

Steve Rolles, senior policy analyst at Transform Drug Policy Foundation, called the WHO’s suggestion that keeping coca in Schedule 1 would restrict cocaine production “ridiculous,” saying the decision exposed “the moral and scientific bankruptcy pervading the entire system” of global drug control.

“Whilst we may expect decisions like this to emerge from political bodies subsumed within entrenched ‘war on drugs’ narratives, there was a hope that the more objective, scientific, and nominally independent corners of the UN would maintain a degree of pragmatism and principle—even if their recommendations were later rejected by UN political entities,” he wrote on LinkedIn.

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Gov Healey’s Drug Lord Deputy Director

Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s deputy director, LaMar Cook, has been running a massive drug operation under her nose. Authorities seized eight kilograms of cocaine that were being delivered to a state government office building. The Massachusetts State Police seized multiple packages totaling 21 kilograms of cocaine.

Authorities arrested Cook during a traffic stop for a “controlled delivery operation” after intercepting the eight kilos of cocaine destined for the Springfield State Office Building. “As the Western Massachusetts Director for Governor Maura Healey, I serve as a key liaison between the state government and the western region of Massachusetts,” the LinkedIn bio for the suspected cocaine trafficker reads. “In this role, I effectively manage and coordinate government initiatives and policies in 4 counties.”

“The governor’s office has been made aware of the arrest of an employee, Lamar Cook. The conduct that occurred here is unacceptable and represents a major breach of the public trust,” Healey’s office said, as the governor has failed to comment on the incident at the time of this writing.

Cook was booked and received a $25,000 bond—a slap on the wrist. Trafficking 200 grams or more of cocaine results in a mandatory minimum sentence of 12 years, for the average person, with a maximum sentence of 20 years. The mandatory fine begins at $50,000 and extends to a maximum of $500,000.

The investigation is ongoing. It is absolutely abhorrent that such a blatant violation of public trust and human welfare would occur within the government. Cook obviously used his influence to expand his drug trafficking ring. Governor Healey will be under investigation to see if she knew or was involved in any form. At best, she wholly failed in her supervisory obligations.

Over 10,000 people overdosed on drugs in the state of Massachusetts from January 2020 to December 2023; cocaine was responsible for 46.1% of all overdoses. How can the current administration battle such a prevalent public health crisis when the drug lords are in neighboring offices?

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Belgium’s descent into a narco state: How cartels have taken control, with machine-gun street battles killing kids as young as 11 and so much cocaine flowing that police incinerators can’t destroy it all

At 21, Zakaria El Kasmioui was already the boss of a young criminal gang that generated an estimated £25 million by importing tonnes of cocaine through the port of Antwerp – the drugs gateway of Europe.

At 29, the kingpin appears on Belgium’s ‘Most Wanted’ list and has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, but he is believed to have evaded capture by relocating to a luxury skyscraper in Dubai where he continues to expand his collection of Rolex watches and Louboutin trainers.

Kasmioui, who goes by the deceptive nickname ‘Piwi’ (meaning ‘idiot’), is but one part of Belgium’s spiralling cocaine problem, where drug lords preside over mafia-like gangs and rival the police and judiciary for control of the country.

The situation is so alarming that a senior investigative judge broke her silence, warning that her nation was rapidly evolving into a ‘narco-state’ because of the ‘billion-dollar’ black market industry.

‘We are facing an organised threat that is undermining our institutions,’ wrote the terrified judge in her 1,000-word anonymous open letter, pleading for ‘a government that takes responsibility for protecting its own foundations’. 

The whistleblower paints a grim picture of state corruption, revealing how drug cartels have infiltrated every fibre of Belgium society – from customs personnel to police forces and employees of the justice system in prisons and courts. 

Not only that, but senior officials have been forced to live under permanent police protection because of threats from gangsters, who are using Snapchat to order home bomb attacks and kidnappings for a few hundred euros apiece.

Without immediate action, more innocent civilians – who have nothing to do with the criminal underworld – risk getting wrapped up in the violence, with Brussels alone recording 92 shootings last year, killing nine and injuring 48.

In 2023, cocaine seizures in Europe hit a record for the seventh consecutive year, with 419 metric tonnes confiscated by authorities. 

Belgium led the way with 123 tonnes – 116 tonnes in Antwerp alone – followed by Spain (118 tonnes) and the Netherlands (59 tonnes), as the three countries with major ports accounted for 72 percent of the total amount grabbed by agents.

However, seizures likely represent only 10-20 percent of the total amount of the drug in circulation, and gangs fully anticipate that a proportion of their deliveries will be discovered. 

Still, the profits are huge, with demand for the substance showing no signs of faltering – its street price has held steady at around €50 per gram for the past decade.

And as rival gangs compete to cash in on the £11 billion trade, their bloody turf wars are spilling out on to the streets.

On Thursday, the dismembered body of Tijn, a 25-year-old man who had gone missing from Alkmaar in September, was discovered at a holiday home in Belgium.

Reports in local media suggest his death was linked to a drugs dispute – the latest incident in a string of gruesome cases which have been plaguing the western European country for years.

In 2022, 46-year-old Yacine El M’Rabet was tortured to death in Brussels for reportedly stealing cocaine from his bosses Michaël Pindeville and Ahmed El Battouti.

He was discovered on the side of the street after reportedly having been burned on his genitals with an iron and with a homemade blowtorch, doused with ammonia, and beaten with a gas canister and a metal bar, which was also used to rape him.

That same year, Dutch media reported that a 17-year-old had his earlobe cut off, tendons in his hand severed, and a piece of one of his toes removed after he was suspected of having tipped off another gang about the location of 300kg of cocaine in East Flanders.

In a particularly hideous case, an 11-year-old girl was shot dead in Antwerp in 2023 after being caught up in the crossfire of warring drug traffickers.

The child, who was from the Merksem district, was having dinner with her family when the house they live in was shot at.

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MS law enforcement officers, deputies indicted in drug conspiracy

Twenty people, including more than a dozen former or current Mississippi law enforcement officers and deputies, were charged in connection with a drug trafficking conspiracy on Thursday, according to the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Northern District of Mississippi.

According to court documents, Brandon Addison, Javery Howard, Milton Gaston, Truron Grayson, Bruce Williams, Sean Williams, Dexture Franklin, Wendell Johnson, Marcus Nolan, Aasahn Roach, Jeremy Sallis, Torio Chaz Wiseman, Pierre Lakes, Derrik Wallace, Marquivious Bankhead, Chaka Gaines, Martavis Moore, Jamario Sanford, Marvin Flowers, and Dequarian Smith are all charged with drug distribution.

The indictment showed that several defendants included in the indictment had local addresses, including one with a Southaven address, three in Memphis, and one in Horn Lake.

They said that 14 of these people were Mississippi local law enforcement officials. Two were Mississippi Sheriffs: Milton Gaston of Washington County and Bruce Williams of Humphreys County. And 12 are officers.

The attorney’s office said that if they are convicted, a federal district court judge will determine the sentence.

According to court documents, the defendants were employed by an FBI member who posed as a member of a Mexican drug cartel to protect the transportation of drugs through the Mississippi Delta counties along Highway 61 and would eventually go into Memphis.

“I think you can probably characterize this as a sting, but again the original complaints that began the investigation were from drug dealers,” said Clay Joiner, United States Attorney of Northern District of Mississippi.

Drug dealers, who officials said complained about having to pay bribes. The highest was more than $30,000.

Officials said each defendant thought they were transporting 25 kilograms of cocaine or other drugs.  

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Aide to Mass Gov. Healey charged in cocaine trafficking scheme allegedly linked to state office building

An aide to Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy was arrested for cocaine trafficking after investigators intercepted packages with the drug slated to be delivered to a state office building where he worked, prosecutors said. 

LaMar Cook, 45, of Springfield, pleaded not guilty during his arraignment Wednesday and was ordered held without bail pending a court hearing, Boston.com reported. 

In addition to the drug charge, Cook is also charged with illegally owning a firearm and ammunition. 

Cook served as deputy director of Healey’s Western Massachusetts office, according to an archived staff directory. A spokesperson for the governor’s office said state officials fired Cook “effectively immediately” after learning of his arrest Tuesday, Boston.com reported. 

“The conduct that occurred here is unacceptable and represents a major breach of the public trust,” the spokesperson said. “This criminal investigation is ongoing, and our administration will work with law enforcement to assist them in their work.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to Healy’s office. 

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New Information on Biden White House Cocaine Scandal Revealed

New information about the Biden White House cocaine scandal was revealed this week.

A baggy of cocaine was discovered in the West Wing after Hunter Biden visited the White House in early July 2023.

The Secret Service closed its investigation into the Biden White House cocaine scandal without conducting any interviews.

No suspect was identified.

According to CNN, the baggy of cocaine was “found in a blind spot for surveillance cameras.”

The White House initially said there were no fingerprints, DNA samples, or leads.

However, it was later revealed that there was a partial DNA hit and then-Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle tried to make it disappear (the cocaine was ultimately destroyed).

The Secret Service also tied promotions to what people knew about the cocaine scandal.

Dan Bongino previously revealed that there were promotions handed out to a number of people to silence them about what they know about the efforts to make the cocaine evidence go away.

On Tuesday, RealClearPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree reported that a Secret Service Agent was actually placed on administrative leave for creating cocaine commemorative coins as an act of rebellion to the leadership’s cover-up.

The officer created coins that read, “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

“The Secret Service Uniformed Division officers who guard the White House were so pissed off that they were forced to be part of a cocaine cover-up in 2023, as several Secret Service sources referred to it, that one officer made a “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” commemorative challenge coin about the ordeal to lighten the mood and improve morale within the ranks, according to the photos below and several Secret Service sources,” Susan Crabtree reported.

“The officer was punished (placed on administrative leave for an unknown amount of time) for making and distributing the unauthorized coin. The coin’s distribution took place within weeks of the USSS closing the case in 11 days,” she said.

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Hegseth Announces 4th Deadly Strike On ‘Narco-Terrorist’ Boat Off Venezuela

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth announced Friday another military strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat off Venezuela which killed four people.

This marks at least the fourth such attack, and after President Trump formally notified Congress this week that the US was entering a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels. Hegseth made clear on social media, “These strikes will continue until the attacks on the American people are over!!!!”

Hegseth affirmed in a social media post that he had directed the latest strike on Trump’s orders, and released overhead drone video of the attack.

“The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics – headed to America to poison our people,” Hegseth said on X.

“Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were narco-terrorists, and they were operating on a known narco-trafficking transit route,” he added.

Trump’s rationale for the attacks in the aforementioned memo states the cartels are “non-state armed groups” whose actions smuggling drugs “constitute an armed attack against the United States”.

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