Guatemalan authorities detained five police officers, four of them from the anti-drugs force, and five government prosecutors accused of being part of a ring that smuggled chemicals into the country to produce synthetic drugs.

A former top police official, jailed for alleged ties to drug traffickers, was reportedly tortured in prison. This could be linked to the ex-cop's feud with one of the most powerful men in the government: Security Minister Genaro Garcia Luna.

A suspect plane carrying over $4 million in cash crashed in northwest Ecuador, killing two Mexican citizens on board, in an indication of the importance of the country as a drug transhipment point and money laundering location.

The discovery of close to 50 mutilated bodies in a northeastern Mexico state, which was quickly blamed on the Zetas criminal syndicate, marks another escalation of the stakes in the country's bloodiest and most public cartel war, and possibly a peek into the near future of how that war will unfold.

Authorities in Jalisco, Mexico have discovered 18 human heads, along with other body parts, in two abandoned vehicles, possibly the Zetas' revenge for attacks by the Sinaloa Cartel in Nuevo Laredo.

Guatemala announced it will deploy nearly 300 members of special operations force the Kaibiles to its northern border with Mexico, even though the unit has a troubled history of ties to the Zetas.

A new report offers an on-the-ground picture of the Border Patrol’s operations in southern Arizona, and their efforts to contain the flood of migrants -- who are increasingly used to carry drugs -- crossing the border from Mexico.

The Spanish judge best known for issuing an arrest warrant against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet has said that Mexico is winning the war against organized crime in Ciudad Juarez. But the statement is best described as rhetoric, rather than an accurate description of Juarez's more complex reality.

The deaths of at least a dozen people in clashes in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, as rival groups linked to the Zetas move into "Chapo Guzman's" home territory, may be evidence that the concept of the "plaza" dominated by a single group is losing its force.

Colombia has seized an estimated $15 million in holdings belonging to a Sinaloa Cartel associate who authorities claim is closely linked to Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, in an illustration of the Mexican group’s ties in the South American country.