Olympic Village subcontractor had ties to yakuza gang, Tokyo police say
A construction company with suspected ties to a yakuza gang participated as a subcontractor in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic athletes village project.
Gunmen kill five people in 'targeted' attack at Mexico bus station
Gunmen attacked a bus station in Mexico Monday, killing five people and wounding one in Cuernavaca, a picturesque colonial city popular with tourists, authorities said. The security commission for the state of Morelos, of which Cuernavaca is the capital, said the gunmen staged a "targeted" ...
Homicide retrial to resume of Salvadoran rape victim who delivered stillborn son
The retrial of a Salvadoran woman convicted of aggravated homicide after having a stillbirth was scheduled to resume on Thursday, offering a possibility to overturn her 30-year sentence in a country that bans abortion in all circumstances. In February, the Supreme Court had ordered Evelyn ...
Young Central Americans seeking asylum in U.S. easy prey for MS13 gang
Young Central American asylum-seekers fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries are increasingly falling prey to the notorious MS13 gang in the United States, authorities say. The youngsters, most of them from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, are proving to be easy targets for ...
Mexico auctions narco safe houses, ranches and luxury flats with grisly histories
Houses with swimming pools and escape tunnels, a ranch surrounded by hectares of land and a luxury apartment with a grisly history were among the 27 properties Mexico had seized from drug traffickers and others were auctioned on Sunday. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ...
Japan's gang members are running out of places to hide
Membership in organized crime syndicates has been decreasing about 10 percent each year since 2011, according to National Police Agency statistics. The reasons for the decline in membership are complex but we should give credit to the police for using every means at their disposal ...
Brazil police kill 11 heavily armed suspects out of 25 who tried to blow up two banks' ATMs
Police in Sao Paulo state shot and killed 11 assailants who were preparing to blow up automated bank teller machines simultaneously at two branches early on Thursday, authorities said. Sao Paulo state's Public Security Secretariat said in a statement that about 25 suspects were involved ...
Weary of gang violence and poverty, Salvadorans vote for president and change
Polls opened Sunday in El Salvador's presidential elections amid heavy security as voters look for change in a country beset by gang violence and widespread poverty. Nayib Bukele, the 37-year-old former mayor of San Salvador, is the front-runner in a race that could upend the ...
Brazilian troops deployed to stop violence by criminal gangs in northern city of Fortaleza
A special deployment of Brazilian troops was fanning out in the northern city of Fortaleza on Saturday with orders to stop days of violent attacks by criminal gangs against banks, buses and shops, officials said. By the end of the weekend, 300 soldiers should be ...
'Hundreds' of Aussie convictions in doubt after mob lawyer named as informant
Hundreds of criminal convictions — including those meted out to some of Australia's most notorious gangland figures — hang in the balance, after their defense lawyer was revealed as a police informant Monday. Court documents disclosed that a high-profile Melbourne barrister had for years been ...
As immigrants head north across U.S. border, American guns go south and dealers said reliant on flow
Among the thousands of immigrants who have been coming across the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months, many are seeking to escape gang and drug violence raging in their homelands. The weapon of choice used to intimidate them? Often an American-made gun. While the flow of ...
Paris police bust knock-off Eiffel Tower network exploiting migrants, bag tons of trinkets
French police have broken up a suspected criminal gang who sold miniature copies of the Eiffel Tower at tourist sites around Paris often using illegal immigrants. The six-week operation also seized more than 20 tons of the trinkets stored in depots outside the capital. Police ...
