Forwarded by Maggie Petito, DWI – 03 December 2025
A variety of news reports* are out concurrently regarding the massive drugs transit schemes to move cocaine, etc. on horrifyingly diseased cattle, etc. illegally flagged tankers. Other tankers ferried sheep and cocaine via the al Kuwait relying on Croatian rackets.
* Drug cartels are using ships packed with disease-ridden cattle to smuggle huge quantities of cocaine to Europe.
Police do not seize the vessels because it is a “logistical nightmare” to deal with the thousands of cows, intelligence sources have told The Telegraph.
The festering and foul-smelling conditions on board, with many of the animals dead or having spent months wallowing in faeces, put officers off searching the ships.
In the gang-controlled ports of Santos and Belem in Brazil, and in Colombia’s Cartagena, up to 10,000 cows at a time are loaded on to the decrepit 200m long ships, according to sources at the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre, Narcotics (MAOC-N).”
Every single part of these reports indicates criminal – racketeering- actions where no justice prevails. Source ports in Colombia and Brazil pack for the uninspected ocean carriers. Near-failed state Lebanon and Egypt, previously linked with Latin America’s Hezbollah cartels, receive the tankers of diseased cattle. No reports on the health of the tanker crew.
Moreover: “The 50-year-old carriers set sail around the Caribbean or South America to collect cocaine packages from smaller ships, typically picking up four to 10 tons, worth up to around £450m. The crew conceal the packages in the ship’s giant grain silos and other hiding places, the sources said. The vessels will fly flags of convenience – where the ship is registered in a country different to its ownership, often in those with less stringent maritime regulations, such as Panama and Tanzania.
The vessels are officially bound for the ports of Beirut in Lebanon or Damietta in Egypt, where sanitation regulations for livestock are less stringent than in Europe. However, the ship’s most lucrative cargo is destined for the major seaports of Antwerp or Rotterdam, Europe’s gateways for cocaine. At some point across the Atlantic, the crew tie the packages of cocaine to inflatables, attach GPS devices, and jettison them overboard where they are then picked up by “go-fast boats” and smuggled to Belgium and the Netherlands.
The method is so effective that in the past 18 years, European police have seized only one livestock vessel carrying cocaine. At least one suspicious livestock ship departs every week from South America towards Europe, The Telegraph understands.
The law enforcement group is made up of 10 member countries, including the UK, and works closely with the National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.”
One must ask: If 10,000 diseased cattle are shipped to Africa or Europe or the Middle East weekly, in three months this is over 100,000 diseased cows entering such zones. What becomes of these animals?
Hats off to Australia: “Meanwhile, last week Australian police disclosed that a livestock ship carrying sheep had been used to try to smuggle £84m of cocaine into the country.
Fishermen found the cocaine tied to a floating drum off the western coast of Lancelin, about 75 miles north of Perth, on Nov 6.
The Western Australia Joint Organised Crime Taskforce alleged the drugs were dropped into the ocean from a livestock carrier, the Al Kuwait, on its way to Fremantle Harbour.”
So-called shadow fleets and rickety tankers moving god-knows-what, under fake flags and no transponders, are the tools of criminal rackets.
Recently Spain suffered an outbreak of swine flu derived from Spain’s large holiday ham sales. Fearing swine flu transmittal, unsafe ham is being banned.
Unsafe, filthy practices permit the spread of the food of addictions and attendant deadly diseases.
It has been penny wise, so some think, yet pound foolish to curtail USDA staff.
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Cocaine cows: How cartels use livestock to smuggle drugs to Europe
Gangs pack narcotics into carriers with dead and dying cattle to deter police from searching on board
Telegraph Max Stephens International Crime Correspondent 02 December 2025
Drug cartels are using ships packed with disease-ridden cattle to smuggle huge quantities of cocaine to Europe.
Police do not seize the vessels because it is a “logistical nightmare” to deal with the thousands of cows, intelligence sources have told The Telegraph.
The festering and foul-smelling conditions on board, with many of the animals dead or having spent months wallowing in faeces, put officers off searching the ships.
In the gang-controlled ports of Santos and Belem in Brazil, and in Colombia’s Cartagena, up to 10,000 cows at a time are loaded on to the decrepit 200m long ships, according to sources at the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre, Narcotics (MAOC-N).
MAOC-N is an EU law enforcement group based in Lisbon that combats drug-trafficking by sea.
The Orion V was intercepted in the Canary Islands carrying 4,500 kilos of cocaine in Jan 2023 Credit: Policia Nacional
The 50-year-old carriers set sail around the Caribbean or South America to collect cocaine packages from smaller ships, typically picking up four to 10 tons, worth up to around £450m. The crew conceal the packages in the ship’s giant grain silos and other hiding places, the sources said.
The vessels will fly flags of convenience – where the ship is registered in a country different to its ownership, often in those with less stringent maritime regulations, such as Panama and Tanzania.
The vessels are officially bound for the ports of Beirut in Lebanon or Damietta in Egypt, where sanitation regulations for livestock are less stringent than in Europe.
However, the ship’s most lucrative cargo is destined for the major seaports of Antwerp or Rotterdam, Europe’s gateways for cocaine.
At some point across the Atlantic, the crew tie the packages of cocaine to inflatables, attach GPS devices, and jettison them overboard where they are then picked up by “go-fast boats” and smuggled to Belgium and the Netherlands.
The method is so effective that in the past 18 years, European police have seized only one livestock vessel carrying cocaine. At least one suspicious livestock ship departs every week from South America towards Europe, The Telegraph understands.
The law enforcement group is made up of 10 member countries, including the UK, and works closely with the National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI.
An intelligence analyst for the MAOC-N told The Telegraph: “You would not want to spend more than one minute on one of these vessels, you can only imagine the smell. The authorities don’t want to have these vessels at their ports.
“Logistically, the countries don’t like to do inspections on board these vessels. The bad guys, they know this and that’s why they are using it.”
When police and customs officers reached the Orion V they faced the terrible stench of dead and dying cows Credit: Policia Nacional
Sniffer dogs are near useless at detecting drugs because they are so put off by the cows and their stench, they added.
The source described the scale of the problem as a “black hole”. Without intelligence detailing exactly where the drugs were onboard, it was almost impossible to meet the threshold for convincing national police authorities to do a seizure.
They said: “You can imagine the cost of such an operation, to get to a port, take all the cattle out, get all the authorities in to do an inspection on a vessel that is very big, a lot of concealment [for drugs]. They [the gangs] are very professional and they know exactly what they can take advantage of.”
On January 24 2023, Spanish police made the first ever seizure of a cattle ship trafficking cocaine in European waters. Armed police intercepted the 100m long Orion V 62 nautical miles south-west of the Canary Islands during its voyage from Colombia to Lebanon.
Officers discovered 4,500kg of cocaine, with a value of around £82m, hidden in packages in cattle food silos. Footage from body-worn police cameras showed officers wading through dung and urine from the 1,750 cows on board.
Packages of drugs, alleged by Australian police to have been carried on a ship full of sheep Credit: Western Australia Police
The vessel, flying a Togolese flag, was towed to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and its 28 crew members, of nine different nationalities, were arrested. Locals in the port city reportedly complained of the rotting smell emanating from the vessel.
Meanwhile, last week Australian police disclosed that a livestock ship carrying sheep had been used to try to smuggle £84m of cocaine into the country.
Fishermen found the cocaine tied to a floating drum off the western coast of Lancelin, about 75 miles north of Perth, on Nov 6.
The Western Australia Joint Organised Crime Taskforce alleged the drugs were dropped into the ocean from a livestock carrier, the Al Kuwait, on its way to Fremantle Harbour.
Police said the drugs were dropped into the ocean from a livestock carrier Credit: Western Australia Police
The day after the drugs were found, police charged the vessel’s chief officer, a 46-year-old Croatian national, with attempting to import a commercial quantity of cocaine. Investigators searched his ship and found a blue drum and ropes similar to those allegedly found with the drugs.
Two men from Sydney, aged 19 and 36, and a 52-year-old Perth man were all allegedly part of the shore party, and responsible for collecting the cocaine and bringing it to shore.
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Trump’s Pardon for Cocaine Juan
A jury found Honduras’s former President guilty. Why set him free?
Wall Street Journal The Editorial Board Dec. 2, 2025
President Trump, like other politicians, sometimes does something unpopular to please his base. But what is the audience for Mr. Trump’s pardon of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández?
He was sentenced in 2024 to 45 years in prison, after a federal jury in New York found him guilty of participating in a conspiracy to traffic 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S.
“The jury heard the testimony of Juan Orlando Hernández, and saw right through his polished demeanor,” Judge P. Kevin Castel told the court during last year’s sentencing. “They saw him for what he was, a two-faced politician, hungry for power, who presented himself as a champion against gangs, murder, crime, and drug trafficking, but secretly protected a select group of drug traffickers.”
Those 400 tons of cocaine, trans-shipped via Honduras, were worth $10 billion in the U.S. “In 2013, El Chapo Guzman, head of the Sinaloa Cartel, paid a $1 million bribe to Hernández and his campaign, delivered directly to Hernández’s brother,” the judge said. While the former Honduran leader wasn’t accused of a direct role in the conspiracy’s killings, “he knew and understood the violence that accompanies drug trafficking, and in facilitating trafficking, he knowingly facilitated the violence.”
That’s the voice of the federal judge who presided over the trial, saw the evidence, and supervised the jury. So why did Mr. Trump decide to set Mr. Hernández free?
“I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a Biden set up,” Mr. Trump told a reporter Sunday on Air Force One. “They basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the President of the country. And they said it was a Biden Administration set up, and I looked at the facts, and I agreed with them.”
Would Mr. Trump care to elaborate for a perplexed public, including Republicans on Capitol Hill? The Trump Administration is saying that illegal drugs are a threat serious enough to justify U.S. military strikes on alleged trafficking boats in the Caribbean, and it’s also trying to push out Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. “Why would we pardon this guy and then go after Maduro for running drugs into the United States?” Sen. Bill Cassidy wrote on social media. “Lock up every drug runner! Don’t understand why he is being pardoned.”
Mr. Hernández pleaded for clemency in a sycophantic letter to Mr. Trump that is dated Oct. 28. “I have found strength from you, Sir, your resilience to get back in that great office notwithstanding the persecution and prosecution you faced, all for what, because you wished to make your country Great Again,” the Honduran wrote. “Like you, I was recklessly attacked by radical leftist forces.”
The White House denied that Mr. Trump saw this fawning message before he announced the pardon late last week, but the letter was reportedly passed along to him by Roger Stone, the Beltway gadfly whom Mr. Trump pardoned in the first term after a conviction for lying to Congress.
Meantime, the results of Sunday’s presidential election in Honduras remain too close to call. Mr. Stone had argued on his blog that a “well-timed pardon” for Mr. Hernández could help to prod the election in a direction favorable to American interests.
What a strange turn of events. Perhaps Mr. Trump thinks he’s playing geopolitical chess, but he has a long record of high susceptibility to flattery, and his pardon without explanation undermines the rule of law and the prosecutors who put Mr. Hernández away. Which convicted criminals will be the next to discover that praising Donald Trump’s magnificence is a get-out-of-jail-free card?
Source: www.drugwatch.org
