Global Ganja Report

The US Coast Guard announced the interception of a so-called “narco submarine," while in a joint patrol of Caribbean waters with the Honduran armed forces. On July 13, the crew of the Coast cutter Seneca, interdicted the craft, called a self-propelled semi-submersible or SPSS, off the coast of Honduras near the Nicaraguan border. The Coast Guard says the vessel sank during the interdiction, but that nearly 7.5 tons of cocaine was later recovered. Four crew members—three Colombians and a Honduran—were detained and brought by the Coast Guard to Miami to face federal charges. (La Tribuna, El Heraldo, Tegucigalpa, Aug. 2; CBS Miami, Aug. 1; Notimex, July 30)

A combined unit of the Guatemalan army and national police arrested a presumed leader of the Zetas narco-paramilitary network May 18, who authorities believe to be commander of the assassination squad that carried out this week's grisly massacre of 27 farmworkers at a ranch in the northern jungle department of Petén. The detained man is named as Hugo Álvaro Gómez Vásquez, who also goes by "Comandante Bruja" or simply "La Bruja" (The Witch).

Campesino leaders report a wave of abuses against local indigenous peasants in the Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz since a "state of siege" was declared there in response to the alleged presence of Los Zetas narco-network. Officially, authorities have arrested 22 "traffickers," and confiscated five small planes, 28 vehicles and 239 assault weapons. But the National Indigenous and Campesino Coordinator (CONIC) says army troops have invaded and occupied peasant villages where there has been no sign of drug trafficking.

Costa Rica has granted the US military a six-month window to bring 7,000 Marines, five planes and 46 warships into its territory to help intercept north-bound narcotics. The permission, granted by a 31-8 vote of the Legislative Assembly on July 2, allows the US to use the country's territory through Dec. 31.

Guatemalan police forces, together with army troops and DEA agents, destroyed 319 million opium plants and 250,000 cannabis plants, together valued at an estimated $780 million, in a four-day operation last month in Ixiguan and Tajumulco municipalities of San Marcos department, near the Mexican border. The National Civil Police said San Marcos is a "sanctuary" of opium cultivation. (EFE, Feb. 5)