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Harris is a prominent election denier and conspiracy theorist who runs a website devoted to baseless 2020 election fraud conspiracies.

Wild and unsubstantiated allegations made in a hearing that dozens of elected officials, including Arizona lawmakers, are secretly on the payroll of a Mexican drug cartel have roiled the state legislature, with Republican lawmakers denouncing the allegations as “disgraceful”. Read more»

National Guard Sgt. Tommy Morga educates parents about how drugs like fentanyl are sold through social media apps such as Snapchat. Although drug dealers operate through many social media platforms, experts are most worried about Snapchat due to the app’s anonymity, disappearing messages and lack of third-party monitoring.

Although drug dealers operate on many social media platforms, experts are most worried about Snapchat due to the app’s anonymity, and an Arizona effort is underway to help inform parents of the dangers of fentanyl and cartels’ use of social media to reach vulnerable youth. Read more»

Of the 3,551 people convicted of human smuggling in fiscal year 2021, the average prison sentence was 15 months.

Laredo is the epicenter of a multibillion-dollar migrant smuggling industry, where coyotes bring people they have led across the Rio Grande to stash houses before their associates load groups of them onto trailers tucked away in the city’s warehouse district. Read more»

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, trailing in the polls for his U.S. Senate campaign after former President Donald Trump endorsed his chief rival, is calling on Gov. Doug Ducey to declare an 'invasion' on the southern border and send the military to secure it. Constitutional experts say Brnovich's plan is 'destructive and radical.'

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is asking Gov. Doug Ducey to declare an “invasion” at the state’s southern border to invoke war powers and send the state’s National Guard troops to fight cartels and human smugglers. Read more»

A Border Patrol agent on a hill in 2018

Selene Marie Camacho was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday after she pleaded guilty in July 2021 telling the court she worked as a courier for a drug smuggling organization, retrieving drugs smuggled into the U.S. on foot. Read more»

A GOP plan to impose stiff prison sentences against those who make and sell fentanyl is more likely to sweep up drug addicts than the dealers it ostensibly seeks to punish, critics said Thursday. Read more»

Avocados ripen on a tree.

As avocados from Mexico have grown increasingly popular on U.S. dinner tables in recent years, so has insecurity in the region in which they are cultivated, leading criminal organizations in Mexico to extortion of legal enterprises as an easy way to make money. Read more»

It’s impossible to overstate just how lawless and dangerous Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich showed himself to be when he issued a flagrantly political legal opinion that all but dares Gov. Doug Ducey to declare a literal war and send troops to the border. Read more»

Army National Guard soldiers, members of an entry identification team, watch the U.S.-Mexico border near Nogales, January 2007.

Arizona AG Brnovich says Gov. Ducey would be on solid constitutional ground if he invoked war powers and sent the Arizona National Guard to the U.S-Mexico border to stop what he says is an "invasion" of drug cartels and criminal gangs. Read more»

Robots used to search drug smuggling tunnels vary in size but are equipped with lights, a camera and the ability to retract their running gear to fit into narrow spaces.

Arizona accounts for more than 9% of drugs that cross the land border into the U.S. from Mexico each year, and technology does some of the dirty work of stemming the flow as Mexican cartels work to stay steps ahead of them. Read more»

Soldiers use electric saws to destroy rifles, handguns and other weapons turned in as part of the guns for cash program in Juarez.

In an effort to reduce gun smuggling, the Mexican government is suing a group of gun manufacturers — including Glock, Barrett Firearms Manufacturing and Colt’s Manufacturing — in the United States, and the first hearing was held last week in Boston. Read more»

Justice for Miroslava demonstration, Ciudad Juárez, March 23, 2019. Members of the journalist community stand in front of the Chihuahua state government offices to denounce the murder of Miroslava Breach Velducea two years earlier and call for justice.

Celeste Gonzalez de Bustamante and Jeannine Relly, journalism professors based at the University of Arizona, spent the last decade collecting dozens of oral histories from journalists working along the U.S.-Mexico border, and in Mexican states hit hard by drug violence. Read more»

Joaquin Archivaldo Guzmán-Loera, otherwise known as 'El Chapo' was extradited to the U.S. and was found guilty by a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York in 2019. His brother Aureliano was indicted by a federal grand jury in Tucson, according to indictments unsealed by federal officials Friday.

Federal officials in Tucson unsealed two indictments against Aureliano Guzmán-Loera — the brother of the notorious drug kingpin known as El Chapo — charging him and other high-ranking members of the Sinaloa Cartel with international drug trafficking. Read more»

Arizona's border with Mexico makes it a top smuggling route for illegal goods, including cigarettes, which cost the state more than $140 million in tax revenue each year.

Arizona is among the worst states for smuggling of illegal goods, along with California, Texas, Florida and eight others being targeted by a new nationwide initiative from Phillip Morris – United to Safeguard America From Illegal Trade. Read more»

'Marijuana isn't the drug that's bringing in revenue for the cartels,' said Jorge García-Robles, author of several texts on Mexico’s history with marijuana. 'The best marijuana in the world is from California. Many people here are importing marijuana and seeds from the United States.'

Sponsors of Expoweed 2021 in Mexico City - which aims to “break stigmas” of marijuana use and “create new paradigms as a society” - hails the cannabis industry’s ability to tackle society’s issues, but understates the history of drug violence as Mexico moves towards legalization. Read more»

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