Tag Archives: china

How Coronavirus is Affecting Mexican Drug Cartels

  • Hubei is a major source of fentanyl precursors.
  • China also supplies counterfeit pharmaceuticals.
  • The US restriction of travelers from Mexico has become a major hurdle for Mexican drug traffickers.

The coronavirus epidemic is affecting the global economy in the most serious of ways, and the Mexican government is scrambling to contain its spread. Even though the country has yet to implement a full lockdown, the coronavirus epidemic is taking its toll on the economy. Mexican drug trafficking syndicates have not been spared either. Just like legitimate businesses, they are beginning to feel the pinch.

Limited Supply of Drugs Precursor Ingredients from China

China is a prime manufacturing powerhouse. As the epicenter of the coronavirus scourge, it was the first country in the world to go into lockdown. Since the outbreak, the country’s industries have had to scale back production to allow the epidemic to blow itself out. The result is a decrease in supplies to overseas companies.

Mexican drug cartels typically get precursors for opiates, such as fentanyl and meth, from China. The novel virus has, however, held up the supply chain. According to a recent Vice report, the Sinaloa Cartel, the most dominant cartel in the region has increased narcotics prices as a result.

Methamphetamine prices have been hiked by over five times. According to the investigative report, Mexican drug lord Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada has ordered his dealers to increase the price of meth from $100 a pound to $600. Fentanyl prices have also soared from $35,000 a kilo to $42,000. The raw chemicals are a major export of Hubei province, the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic. The zone was among the first in mainland China to have its factories shut down.

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China has censored the Archive of Our Own, one of the internet’s largest fanfiction websites

China has taken the beloved Hugo-winning site offline amid stringent new internet laws.

The Archive of Our Own (AO3), the Hugo-winning fanfiction website, is the latest casualty of Chinese censorship, amid a continued crackdown in the country on queer content, sexually explicit content, and websites based abroad.

Reports surfaced on February 29 that AO3 was no longer accessible through the national Chinese web, and the site appears to be blocked from view within the country, according to Comparitech, a service that allows users to check whether China has blocked a website. In a tweet confirming the ban, the Organization for Transformative Works, the non-profit group that runs AO3, seemed surprised. It’s unclear whether the OTW was contacted by Chinese authorities before the site was blocked. (Vox has reached out to the OTW for comment.)

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Suspended Milwaukee lawyer faces FBI investigation into alleged international fraud scheme

, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The FBI is investigating a suspected international fraud scheme said to involve a suspended Milwaukee lawyer, $16.2 million from China, an English bank, a man who claims to be an English solicitor and … John Hancock’s signature.

At the center of the probe is veteran Milwaukee lawyer Michael Krill, whose law license was suspended by the state Supreme Court on Wednesday. The court employed a rarely used rule that allows emergency temporary suspensions before the Office of Lawyer Regulation files a formal complaint.

“Krill’s repeated acts of dishonesty, delay and contempt for the judicial process” makes his “continued practice of law … a threat to the public and the administration of justice,” Karl Wyler, an OLR investigator, wrote in a June affidavit urging the immediate suspension.

The FBI and the Racine County Sheriff’s Office are also investigating the 59-year-old attorney. The Racine investigation centers around $300,000 belonging to ex-clients that Krill received but has not turned over despite a court order that he do so.  Since May, Krill has been fined $500 a day for contempt for failing to turn the money over to the clients’ new lawyers, court records show.

Krill was ordered Monday to come up with about $350,000 — the $300,000 in client funds plus the accrued daily contempt fine — in two weeks or spend 30 days in jail.  Krill has repeatedly promised in court to produce the money in 14 days — and he repeated that pledge Monday during a brief hearing before Racine County Circuit Judge David Paulson.

Full Read – http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2017/08/28/suspended-milwaukee-lawyer-faces-fbi-investigation-into-alleged-international-fraud-scheme/595890001/