International

U.S. officials discuss fentanyl and migration in Mexico

Photo: Reuters

October 5 |

Senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, were in Mexico on Wednesday for talks with Mexican officials on drug trafficking and a humanitarian crisis on the U.S. southern border.

Blinken will be joined by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. The U.S. delegation will meet with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Rosa Icela Rodriguez, Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection.

The meeting comes at a time of growing tension between the two nations. The United States is in the midst of an opioid addiction epidemic that claims more than 100,000 lives each year. Most of the deaths are attributable to fentanyl, a potent narcotic trafficked across the border by Mexico-based drug cartels.

At the same time, the southern border of the United States faces a daily flood of migrants, often in the thousands, who use Mexico as a jumping-off point for their efforts to enter the United States, either illegally or to seek asylum as refugees.

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The dual problem has led some U.S. political leaders to call for aggressive action, with several Republican candidates for the presidential nomination advocating military intervention.

Fentanyl charges
In an indication of the global nature of the fentanyl problem, Garland held a press conference at the Justice Department on Tuesday and announced that charges had been filed against eight Chinese companies and 12 individuals for their role in selling fentanyl precursors – the chemical compounds. from which the drug is synthesized – to buyers in Mexico.

It was the second time since June that the United States has brought charges against Chinese companies supplying fentanyl precursors to criminal organizations in Mexico.

“We know who is responsible for poisoning the American people with fentanyl,” Garland said. “And we know that this global fentanyl supply chain, which ends in the deaths of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China.”

As of August of this year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seized more than 25,500 pounds of fentanyl entering the U.S., nearly double the amount seized in the same period last year. The amount of fentanyl seized in the US has increased by 800% since 2019, according to the Department of Homeland Security, with most of it coming from Mexico.

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Unlike other drugs, such as cocaine and marijuana, whose raw materials must be grown on acres of farmland, fentanyl labs are small and easy to hide. And because the drug is so potent (50 times more potent than heroin), it is also easier to transport.

In addition, the United States and Mexico are looking for ways to cooperate on the issue of human migration. In recent years, the flow of economic migrants and asylum seekers through Mexico to the U.S. border has become a flood.

After plummeting to fewer than 500,000 during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, attempts to cross the southern border, whether legally or illegally, have skyrocketed in recent years. In 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials encountered 1.7 million people attempting to cross the southern land border. That number increased to 2.4 million in 2022, and the numbers for 2023 are on track to be even higher.

Mexican resistance
Among other actions, U.S. officials are expected to ask their Mexican counterparts to deploy more law enforcement personnel to interdict shipments of fentanyl precursors and shut down laboratories where the drug is produced.

The reception is likely to be cool. The Mexican government, including López Obrador, has openly criticized U.S. politicians who campaign on drug and immigration issues, accusing them of making their country a scapegoat for the United States’ own problem.

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López Obrador has referred to the opioid epidemic in the United States as a result of “social decadence.”

International

Peruvian presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra dies in campaign road accident

Presidential candidate Napoleón Becerra, representing the Partido de los Trabajadores y Emprendedores (PTE) in Peru, died in a traffic accident while traveling to a campaign event, local authorities confirmed Sunday.

Becerra, who also served as president of the centrist political party, ranked among the lowest in opinion polls in a crowded field of more than 30 candidates competing in the presidential election scheduled for April 12.

Recent surveys place Rafael López Aliaga at the top of voter preferences.

The accident occurred near the town of Ayacucho, in southern Peru, when the vehicle carrying the candidate overturned for reasons that remain under investigation.

“The candidate Becerra has died,” Balvin Huamani, mayor of the district of Pilpichaca, told RPP radio.

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According to Huamani, he personally transported the 61-year-old candidate to a local health center, where doctors confirmed his death.

The Jurado Nacional de Elecciones (JNE) expressed condolences over Becerra’s passing and wished a speedy recovery to the three people who were traveling with him and were injured in the crash.

International

Noboa intensifies anti-cartel crackdown as violence persists in Ecuador

A close ally of Washington, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has pursued a hardline security strategy against cocaine cartels for more than two years, yet homicide, disappearance and extortion rates remain high across the country.

Between Sunday night and the morning of March 31, Ecuador’s armed forces will launch a “very strong offensive” with “advisory support” from the United States, Interior Minister John Reimberg announced Tuesday.

The government has kept details of the operation confidential and has not confirmed whether U.S. troops will be deployed on Ecuadorian soil, as has occurred at times during Noboa’s administration.

As part of the security measures, residents in the coastal provinces of Guayas, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, and El Oro will be subject to a nightly curfew from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. local time for the next two weeks.

“We are in a war,” Reimberg said, urging citizens to remain indoors. “Do not take risks. Stay home and allow the security forces and our allies to do the work that must be done.”

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Although Ecuador does not produce cocaine, it has become a major departure point for drugs heading to the United States. Meanwhile, the violence associated with trafficking has increasingly affected the local population.

Bordering the world’s largest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, Ecuador has gone from being considered a relatively peaceful country to recording one of the highest homicide rates in Latin America—52 killings per 100,000 inhabitants—according to the **Observatory of Organized Crime.

International

Peruvian presidential candidate proposes death penalty amid crime surge

Peru is facing an unprecedented surge in crime ahead of its presidential election scheduled for April 12, with violence fueled by extortion networks and a wave of contract killings linked to organized crime.

Police data show that 2,200 homicides tied to organized crime were recorded in 2025, while extortion complaints increased by 19%, underscoring the growing security crisis in the South American nation.

Amid this backdrop, presidential candidate Álvarez has proposed reinstating the death penalty if elected, arguing that extreme measures are needed to curb the violence.

To implement the proposal, Álvarez said Peru would withdraw from the American Convention on Human Rights—also known as the Pact of San José—which the country signed in 1978. The agreement prevents member states that have abolished capital punishment from reinstating it.

Currently, Peruvian law only allows the death penalty in cases of treason during wartime.

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“We have to leave the Pact of San José and apply the death penalty in Peru because those miserable criminals don’t deserve to live,” Álvarez told AFP during a campaign stop at a market in Callao, the port city neighboring Lima.

“An iron fist against those criminals,” he added, proposing to declare hitmen as military targets.

During the campaign event, Álvarez walked through stalls selling vegetables, groceries, and fish, greeting vendors while musicians played cumbia music nearby.

The 62-year-old candidate, who spent more than four decades working in television as a comedian, is a newcomer to politics and is running for president under the País para Todos party.

Polls place him fifth in voter preference with nearly 4% support in a fragmented race featuring 36 candidates.