15/08 – FBI Announces Results of Nationwide Sex Trafficking Operation. The FBI, working with its state and local partners during two weeks in August, identified and located 84 minor victims of child sex trafficking and child sexual exploitation offenses and located 37 actively missing children during a nationwide enforcement campaign, dubbed “Operation Cross Country.” The FBI-led nationwide initiative focused on identifying and locating victims of sex trafficking and investigating and arresting individuals and criminal enterprises involved in both child sex trafficking and human trafficking.
15/08 – Ecuador blames organised crime for deadly blast in Guayaquil. Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso has declared a state of emergency in the country’s second-largest city of Guayaquil after an explosion blamed on “organised-crime mercenaries” killed at least five people and injured 17 others.
20/08 – MAOC supports the seizure of 500kg in the Atlantic Ocean. A maritime operation carried out at the beginning of August by the Spanish National Police and Customs (DAVA) resulted in the interception of a sailing vessel with 400Kg of Cocaine onboard. The Polish-flagged vessel was intercepted approximately 500 nautical miles west of the Azores Islands, with cocaine being found onboard in its cabinets. The vessel was subsequently towed to the Port of Cadiz.
20/08 – Florida officials seize $12.8 million worth of drugs, arrest 85 in a two-year undercover investigation. Eighty-five suspects were arrested and over $12.8 million in drugs were confiscated in a two-year undercover drug trafficking investigation, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said on Friday. The investigation entitled, “Operation Flying Ice,” stemmed from a September 2020 search warrant in Winter Haven, Florida, that netted just one pound of methamphetamine. From that initial incident, investigators uncovered a methamphetamine trafficking scheme that involved large amounts of methamphetamine being smuggled from California to Florida in checked luggage on domestic flights, according to police.
20/08 – Iranian police bust international cocaine trafficking ring. The Iranian police announced on Saturday that it had smashed an international drug trafficking ring smuggling cocaine from Latin American countries into Iran, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency. The Iranian anti-narcotics police officers arrested two members of the ring, who sought to smuggle more than six kilograms of cocaine worth 413,793 U.S. dollars into the country through Imam Khomeini International Airport south of Tehran, said Colonel Majid Karimi, head of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters.
21/08 – NCB Mumbai bust illicit multi-state codeine cough syrup trafficking racket, seize over 13,000 bottles. An interstate drug cartel trafficking illicit Codeine Based Cough Syrup (CBCS) was busted by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) with the seizure of 13,248 codeine bottles worth Rupees 50 lakhs and the arrest of five drug traffickers, including the kingpin from Mumbai.
