Illegal drug trade

Chemicals seized during Asia’s largest-ever drug bust in Myanmar. 

A massive Asian drug bust has stirred a fentanyl mystery

Global Politics

A recent bust on the Myanmar-China border was too massive to fit inside any room. The police had to spread out their haul in a pasture.

Bags of white powdery fentanyl on a table.

How the deadly drug fentanyl is making its way to the US

Health
Vicente Zambada Niebla takes the witness box, at the trial of accused Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, right, in this courtroom sketch

El Chapo trial shows why a wall won’t stop drugs from crossing the US-Mexico border

Confiscated opium in Iran

Iran’s drug use doubles in six years

Conflict
Recaptured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is escorted by soldiers at the hangar belonging to the office of the Attorney General in Mexico City

Mexico just extradited drug lord ‘El Chapo’ to the US

Justice
Tin of opium

Myanmar’s opium fields grow even as its government calls for complete eradication

Conflict

Myanmar is one of the world’s largest producers of opium, second only to Afghanistan. And while the government has declared a goal of being drug-free by 2019, skepticism abounds among local politicians and officials — as well as the farmers who see growing opium as their only means for prosperity.

A screenshot from Servando "La Tuta" Gomez's 2014 interview with England's Channel 4 News.

Mexico captures its most-wanted drug lord, but Mexicans are still angry

Justice

Mexican police have nabbed “La Tuta,” one of the country’s most powerful cartel leaders. But while authorities celebrate another major arrest, Mexican citizens continued to protest over missing students, violence and corruption in their country.

The World

Remembering Ariel Camacho, the 22-year-old star of Mexico’s narcocorridos

Music

Ariel Camacho, lead singer of the group Los Plebes del Rancho, was killed in a car accident on Wednesday. Just 22 years old, Camacho was already a big name in the world of narcocorridos, Mexico’s musical odes to drug trafficking culture.

The telephone number of a "spice" dealer written on a wall outside a Moscow train station.

Just 10 bucks and a phone call can get you Russia’s dangerous new drug

Health

A new drug called spice is only the latest in a series of synthetic drugs that have flooded the Russian market over the years. Offering a cheap and readily available high, Russian health experts are trying to keep kids away, but keeping up with drug dealers is proving difficult.

Members of a band record a narcocorrido in downtown Culiacan, Mexico.

Mexico’s ‘narco state’ gets a cultural boost from new, more gory pop ballads

Music

Narcocorrido ballads about outlaw drug traffickers have been a staple of Mexican pop music for decades. But now, the songs are getting more violent and seem to reflect the growing influence of drug cartels over the Mexican state.