Coast Guard offloads seized drugs worth $62.5 million

By: The Associated Press via Navy Times April 18, 2019

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The U.S. Coast Guard is offloading marijuana and cocaine with an estimated street value of $62.5 million dollars at Florida’s Port Everglades.

The agency said in a news release that the drugs seized in international waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean will arrive in Fort Lauderdale Thursday morning on the Coast Guard Cutter Bear, which is based in Portsmouth, Virginia.

The stash includes some 14,000 pounds (6350 kilograms) of marijuana and 3,660 pounds (1660 kilograms) of cocaine.

Officials say operation involved two Coast Guard cutters and a Navy ship off the coasts of Mexico and Central and South America.

Source: https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/04/18/coast-guard-offloads-seized-drugs-worth-625-million/

Opioid Takedown

Multiple Medical Professionals Among 60 Charged with Facilitating Illegal Opioid Prescriptions

via FBI - April 17, 2019

PHOTO: FBI Executive Assistant Director Amy Hess is joined by partner agency officials at a press conference in Cincinnati where charges were announced against 60 defendants as a result of a takedown by the Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid (ARPO) Strike Force.

The FBI and Department of Justice today announced criminal charges against 60 defendants—including 53 doctors, pharmacists, nurse practitioners, and other medical professionals who allegedly gave thousands of opioid prescriptions to addicted patients, essentially acting as their patients’ drug dealers. The effort is the largest law enforcement action to date against illegal opioid prescribers, officials said.

The arrests and charges are among the first cases brought against medical providers as part of the Appalachian Regional Prescription Opioid (ARPO) Strike Force, a team of federal investigators and prosecutors who are working to investigate illegal opioid prescription distribution in the areas of the country hardest hit by opioid addiction.

“Using the strike force model, we have now focused our resources on a region of the country which arguably has suffered the most from egregious prescription opioid diversion schemes,” FBI Executive Assistant Director Amy Hess said at news conference today in Cincinnati, where the charges were announced.

MOAR: https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/arpo-strike-force-opioid-takedown-041719

North Korea Calls for Pompeo to be Dropped from Talks

Thursday, 18 April 2019 04:00 PM

North Korea said on Thursday it no longer wanted to deal with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and that he should be replaced in talks by someone more mature, hours after it announced its first weapons test since nuclear talks broke down.

The North's official KCNA news agency quoted senior foreign ministry official Kwon Jong Gun as warning that no one could predict the situation on the Korean peninsula if the United States did not abandon the "root cause" that compelled North Korea to develop nuclear weapons.

The statement came shortly after North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un had overseen the testing of a new tactical guided weapon, which KCNA said had a "peculiar mode of guiding flight" and "a powerful warhead."

It was the North's first weapon test since talks in Vietnam between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump in late February broke down over conflicting demands by North Korea for sanctions relief and by the United States for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/northkorea-wants-pompeo-off/2019/04/18/id/912360/