Honduras: Ex-president’s son indicted
The son of former Honduras president Porfirio Lobo has been accused of conspiring to traffic cocaine into the United States. Fabio Porfirio Lobo was captured by authorities in Haiti with support from the Drug Enforcement Agency, and extradited to the New York City where he will stand trial in federal court. Fabio has reported ties with one of Honduras’ most prominent drug trafficking organizations, the Cachiros. He could face life in prison if convicted and given the maximum sentence.
Brazil: Italian mob boss arrested 30 years later
An organized crime lord who had been a fugitive for more than three decades was finally apprehended in a joint effort between Brazilian police and Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) according to a statement. Pasquale Scotti, 56, had already been convicted in absentia by Italian courts in 1991 of crimes including illegal possession of firearms, extortion and the killing of 20 people in the 1980s. Arrested following a shoot out in 1983, he escaped shortly after from a Naples hospital where he was being treated for his wounds and fled to Brazil where he lived under a false identity. Italian authorities are currently in the process of extraditing Scotti.
Mexico: Human rights inquiry launched in wake of killings
The National Human Rights Commission is currently investigating the death of 42 people who are believed to have been killed in a confrontation with federal police in the southwestern Mexican state of Michoacán. The 42 have been described as gang members, and are said to have fired on police first, igniting a three-hour long firefight resulting in the killings. According to reports there were no wounded survivors and only three arrests were made. The ratio of those dead to those wounded in the battle drew parallels to a similar incident last year in which 22 people were executed after a confrontation with the army.