Catch of the Day – 5 Tons of Coke

1. A joint U.S. Coast Guard, Customs Service and Drug Enforcement Agency operation intercepted a Panamanian freighter en route to Texas that yielded 9,500 pounds, or nearly five tons, of cocaine in 1999. According to the DEA, the cocaine was worth $186 million.

You Say Tomato, I Say Ecstasy – 4.4 Tons of MDMA Pills

2. Australian police and customs officials announced in 2008 that they have seized what is claimed to be the biggest haul—4.4 tons—of Ecstasy or MDMA pills in history. The drugs—hidden in 3,000 cans of tomatoes—were actually discovered in 2007, but the find worth £197 million, or $288 million, was kept secret, and was instead used as a means to track down and arrest the people behind the shipment.

There’s Hash in them Hills! – $300 Million of Hashish

3. Some £200 million or nearly $293 million worth of hashish were found in trenches and bunkers in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2008. The drug cache, which reportedly was meant for use by the Taliban to fuel their war against the West, is so huge it is estimated to have weighed roughly the same as 30 double-decker buses.

More photos of hashish here.

Row Row Row your Blow – 13.8 Tons of Cocaine

4. Colombian authorities claimed in May 2005 that they have confiscated 13.8 tons of cocaine worth $US350 million which were concealed near a jungle riverbank in southern Colombia.

The Deadliest Catch – 40,000lbs of Cocaine

5. In March 2007, the U.S. Coast Guard seized 40,000 pounds of cocaine worth at least $500 million from three ships in what is regarded as the biggest maritime bust in U.S. history.

21 Bump Street – 21 Tons of Cocaine Seized in LA

6. Some 21 tons of cocaine which purportedly belonged to Mexican drug lord Rafael Muñoz Talavera of the Juárez cartel were seized from a Los Angeles warehouse in 1989.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, 27 Tons Seized in Pizarro

7. The Colombian Navy made headlines in 2007 when it announced the seizure of 27 tons of cocaine, the biggest in the nation’s history. Buried in 919 packages of 55 pounds each near the coastal town of Pizarro, the drugs are estimated to have a wholesale value of more than $500 million.

Tranquilandia in the Jungle – 14 Tons of Sr. Pablo Escobar’s Stash

8. A tip from the DEA prompted the Colombian government to raid “Tranquilandia”, a laboratory built in the jungles of Colombia by Medellín Cartel boss Pablo Escobar for large-scale cocaine production. The 1984 operation yielded 14 tons of cocaine, a haul with a street value of more than $1 billion.

Either that or the World Eats Plain Bagels for a Year – 17.5 Tons of Poppy Seeds

9. An anti-drug operation in Afghanistan led by a British cop resulted in the seizure last year of 17.5 tons of poppy seeds from opium plants, which would have grown 30 tons of heroin worth £900 million or $1.3 billion.

Big Bust? Just 2 Doses of Heroin?

10.  In what is regarded as the biggest heroin bust—and most valuable drug bust—ever, San Francisco, California authorities seized 1,080 pounds of heroin. Not much in size compared to those tons of cocaine busts, but drug war officials pegged the total street value of the cache at $2.7 billion to $4 billion. With an average dose of heroin being around 300mg that’s enough for every citizen of San Francisco to do heroin twice… all 808,000 people. Not Good.

Despite the successful dismantling of the biggest drug cartels, the killing or arrest of the most powerful drug lords and drug busts worth billions, the drug business continues to thrive. This is partly because demand never waned, and partly due to the fact that drug lords continue to produce and transport their merchandise in certain countries with near-impunity. Unlike in some countries where you don’t want to get caught with drugs in, drug lords have practically made these countries their playground, applying a deadly mix of seemingly inexhaustible funds, corruption at the highest levels of government and an unflinching willingness to use brutal violence to tighten their grip on the drug trade and their respective countries.

1. Afghanistan

With the fall of the Taliban in 2001, the drug lords of Afghanistan have slowly worked their way towards becoming the world’s top producer of opium today. More than 90% of the world’s opium is produced in the country, a major part of The Golden Crescent, the name given to Asia’s principal area of illicit opium production covering Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.

It is believed that the opium trade flourishes in Afghanistan because Afghan government officials are said to be involved in at least 70 percent of opium trafficking in the country. Experts even say that more than a dozen provincial governors have a direct hand in the production and distribution of opium. But one of the most serious allegations of Afghan government complicity in the country’s drug trade was made by Thomas Schweich, former U.S. State Department Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

In a New York Times article dated July 27, 2007, Schweich alleges that the government of President Hamid Karzai is protecting opium production. As serious as these allegations are, the US military, in Schweich’s opinion, look the other way and treat the drug trade as not being central to its anti-terrorism operations.

2. Burma (Myanmar)

Burma or Myanmar is a pillar of the so-called Golden Triangle, one of Asia’s two main areas of illicit opium production which also include Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. It is the world’s second largest producer of illicit opium. Run by a military junta, Burma’s government has been on paper trying to eradicate opium production, but its senior officials have been persistently reported to be involved in the drugs trade, and that drug money continues to pour into government coffers.

Historically, the country has been dominated by larger-than life drug lords, the most infamous of them Khun Sa, aka “The Opium King”. Khun Sa produced as much as three quarters of the world’s heroin supply at one point, and was known for his ruthlessness that earned him the DEA sobriquet “Prince of Death”. Although he surrendered to the Burmese government in 1996 after decades at the top of the illegal opium trade, Khun Sa was never extradited to the United States to face drug charges, and reportedly lived a life of luxury in Rangoon until his death in 2007.

Today, the Burmese drug market is dominated by the United Wa State Army. Made up of ethnic fighters who control areas along the country’s eastern border with Thailand, it is said to be the largest drug-producing organization in Southeast Asia, and is believed to be an ally of the country’s ruling military junta.

3. Mexico

You know a country has a very serious drug trade problem when one of its most-wanted drug traffickers makes it to the Forbes list of the richest persons in the world. Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico, was just recently listed by Forbes as the 701st richest person in the world with a net worth estimated at $1 billion.

The Guzman-led Sinaloa cartel is just one of the four major drug cartels wreaking havoc in Mexico, the major transit point for over 90% of America’s cocaine supply. With the dismantling of Colombia’s Medellín and Cali cartels, Mexico’s Sinaloa, Juarez, Tijuana and the Gulf cartels have become the predominant smugglers and wholesale distributors of South American cocaine and Mexico-produced marijuana, methamphetamine and heroin. These cartels have grown increasingly wealthy and powerful over the years, and if their ongoing war against the Mexican and US government is any indication, have become increasingly violent as well.

Since the beginning of 2008, more than 7,000 people have been killed in the drug-fueled violence that has practically turned some parts of Mexico into a virtual war zone. Killing civilians and beheading rivals from other cartels, policemen and soldiers have become commonplace, and the efforts of the US and Mexican governments to put them down hasn’t yielded any significant results just yet. Equipped with grenade launchers, automatic weapons, body armor, Kevlar helmets, these cartels are some of the most sophisticated and dangerous organized criminal groups ever faced by the US government.

4. Colombia

The Medellin and Cali cartels, which have come close to making Colombia a narco-state in the 1990s, may no longer exist, but Colombia remains the world’s top producer of cocaine, with 70% of the world’s coca leaf grown there, and approximately 90% of the world’s cocaine processing market.

For all the successes of Plan Colombia, the US-led counter narcotics operation in the country, Colombia continues its reign at the top of the cocaine trade due to the fact that smaller and more nimble organizations have sprung in the Medellin and Cali cartels’ place, most notably the Norte del Valle Cartel, or North Valley Cartel. Widely considered as one of the most powerful organizations in the illegal drugs trade, it is said to be employing the services of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary organization, to protect its cartel’s drug routes, laboratories and its members and associates.

Other existing players in Colombia’s drug trade include the smaller North Coast Cartel and the Marxist guerrilla group FARC, which has become increasingly involved in the drug trade, controlling farming, production and exportation of cocaine in those areas of Colombia under their control.

5. Peru

Peru is the second biggest producer of cocaine in the world, next only to Colombia. Historically, Peruvian farmers have been growing coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine, since before Spain colonized the country centuries ago. They continue to do so, considering that coca itself is legal, but making cocaine from it is not. Nevertheless, studies show that as much as 90 percent of that coca goes to the production of cocaine, a fact which contributes greatly to the growth of a multibillion-dollar shadow economy in Peru.

Further complicating Peru’s drug problems is the resurgence of a supposedly inactive Shining Path, a Maoist organization whose guerilla war with the government has claimed the lives of more than 70,000, as a major force in the Peruvian drug trade. Taking their cue from Colombia’s FARC and AUC, the group has now fully evolved into an illicit drug enterprise, protecting drug smugglers, extorting taxes from farmers and operating its own cocaine laboratories with an efficiency and ruthlessness that is the unmistakable trademark of an elite drug trafficking organization.

6. Bolivia

Ranking third behind Colombia and Peru in cocaine production is Bolivia, which, according to a recent United Nations report, has allocated 28,900 hectares of its land to coca production in 2007, a figure that is more than double than what Bolivian law allows. This leniency towards coca growing, however, is hardly surprising, considering that the sitting president, Evo Morales, did not only farm coca himself during his youth, but was also head of Bolivia’s coca growers association before he became president.

Last year, Bolivia under Morales has been blacklisted by the United States as a country which resists “international cooperation” on the drug trade, along with Burma and Venezuela. While this move by the US is largely perceived as a retaliatory political move after Morales kicked out the US Ambassador and agents of the DEA from the country, it is not entirely baseless. The production of coca in the country has grown steadily since Morales took office. And while coca itself is legal and an essential component of Bolivian culture, the legal market for the stimulant just could not absorb the ballooning production, resulting in the diversion of a large percentage of the crop to the production of cocaine.

Adding more to Bolivia’s drug woes is the fact that Bolivian drug lords have become more sophisticated and ultimately violent, churning out the illegal drug faster through state of the art laboratories, as well as starting violent turf battles that threaten to turn the country into another Mexico.

Apart from being a top cocaine producer, Bolivia is steadily assuming the role of a major transit point for cocaine shipments from Peru to Brazil.

7. The Bahamas

For such a tiny island nation like The Bahamas, it sure has a thriving illegal drugs trade. A recently released United States narcotics report has revealed that more than a dozen drug-trafficking organizations are operating in this Commonwealth territory. This underlies the central role in drug smuggling that it has assumed over the last two decades, starting with Medellin Cartel cofounder Carlos Lehder’s initiative to use The Bahamas as a transit point for drugs from Colombia into the United States. Lehder, who is currently incarcerated in the US, even went to the extent of commandeering an entire Bahamian island, called Norman’s Cay, and made it his own drug fortress, where 300 kilograms of cocaine would arrive every hour.

While the current Bahamian government is closely cooperating with the US on its war against drugs, it is interesting to note that the island nation was once rocked by serious allegations that involvement in the drug trade reached the highest levels of government, with no less than the late former Prime Minister Sir Lynden Pindling allegedly receiving more than $57 million in drug money in the mid-1980s. Although a royal commission formed to investigate the accusations found no conclusive evidence to implicate Pindling, the scandal further perpetuated the idea that an entire government can be paid off, something that most drug cartels and syndicates around the world have done, and will continue doing, as long as they are in business.

Others, however, have had the misfortune of being caught in countries whose drug laws are quite harsh, and have learned the hard way how serious they are in implementing their drug offense penalties, which range from a lengthy prison term for simple possession of the minutest amount of illegal drugs to public beheadings for convicted drug traffickers. Here are seven countries you don’t want to get caught with drugs in.

1. Singapore

In a country where even vandalism can get one lashed with a meter-long rattan cane, it is expected that drug laws here are pretty strict. Anyone caught with at least 17 ounces of marijuana, or half an ounce of cocaine or heroin will be treated as a drug trafficker, and drug traffickers here get hanged. Between 1991 and 2004, 400 people went to the gallows for drug trafficking in this city-state, a number of them foreign nationals.

2. Malaysia

Singapore’s next –door neighbor is no less harsh when it comes to drugs. Under its laws, a mandatory death penalty is meted against anyone caught with seven ounces of marijuana or a half ounce of heroin, as these are amounts that constitute drug trafficking in this Southeast Asian country. Even those charged with just simple drug possession or use in Malaysia can expect severe punishment, including lengthy prison terms as well as heavy fines.

3. Iran

Iran is one of the most active executioners of drug offenders. Under the Islamic regime, up to 500 drug traffickers are executed every year. More than 10,000 narcotics traffickers and drug users have already been put to death in Iran in the past few decades. Drug possession and use is also punished severely. Getting caught with a few grams of marijuana could get one up to 70 lashes.

4. Indonesia

Some of the toughest anti-drug laws are implemented in Indonesia, where a drug user could get 10-15 years in jail. And as with other countries that use capital punishment for drug offenders, it reserves the maximum penalty for drug dealers, usually dispatched by firing squad.

5. Saudi Arabia

If alcohol is illegal in this Islamic kingdom, you can only imagine how illicit drugs are treated there. As with alcohol, penalties for possession and consumption of illicit drugs are severe, from public flogging to harsh jail sentences. Drug traffickers, meanwhile, get the same penalty as murderers and rapists: a public beheading.

6. China

From January 2005 to May 2006, China has convicted more than 53,000 people for various drug offenses, with more than 22,000 handed down harsh penalties including life imprisonment or the death penalty, even for non-violent drug offenses such as drug smuggling, trafficking, and production. And if there’s a country that beats Saudi Arabia—and the rest of the world for that matter—in sheer number of executions, it’s China. An estimated 470 people were executed in China in 2007, many of them drug offenders.

7. United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates is one of the 20 or so countries which hands down capital punishment against drug offenders. The much scarier aspect of the UAE’s drug laws, however, is the fact that people get arrested there even for just an infinitesimal trace of any drug deemed illicit in the country.

Consider this: a Swiss national was sentenced to four years in prison after customs officials at Dubai airport found three poppy seeds on his clothes, presumably from a bread roll he ate at Heathrow Airport in London before his flight to Dubai!

Then there’s the even crazier case of Keith Andrew Brown, a British national also sentenced to a four-year jail term in Dubai. The reason? Dubai customs officials found 0.003g of cannabis, an amount so negligible it cannot even be seen by the naked eye, stuck to his shoe, in a cigarette Brown presumably stepped on somewhere on the way to Dubai.

Dubai may be one of the most liberal cities in the Middle East, but when it comes to their implementation of drug laws, it borders on the fanatical.