drug trafficking
HipHopWired Featured Video
OJ da Juiceman, a past member of the XXL Freshmen class, was arrested earlier month in his home state of Georgia and subsequently arrested. Police found drugs and a handgun after pulling over OJ da Juiceman for speeding.
TMZ reports that OJ da Juiceman, 42, was pulled over for speeding in Coweta County, Ga. After giving a brief chase in his 2024 Ford Expedition, OJ, real name Otis Williams Jr., pulled off to the side where the discovery of cocaine and a 9mm handgun was made.
Along with the cocaine and other drugs charges, OJ also faces charges of fleeing cops, firearm possession, and failure to maintain his lane.
OJ was part of the 2010 XXL Freshmen class along with Nipsey Hu$$le, Wiz Khalifa, Pill, J. Cole, Freddie Gibbs, Jay Rock, Fashawn, Donnis, and Big Sean. He was once linked with Gucci Mane and his 1017 Brick Squad imprint before creating his independent label situation.
A court date has yet to be announced.
—
Photo: Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Getty Images / Getty
The former president of Honduras was convicted in a federal court of trafficking tons of cocaine into the United States and aiding local cartels.
On Friday (March 8), a Federal District jury in New York City found former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández guilty of conspiracy to import cocaine, illegally using and carrying machine guns, and possessing machine guns as part of a “cocaine-importation conspiracy.” Also known as JOH, the 55-year-old Hernández was charged with smuggling over 500 tons of cocaine into the United States from Colombia and Venezuela via Honduras since 2004, before his ascension to the presidency. “He paved a cocaine super-highway to the United States,” said federal prosecutors during the trial, stating that he worked with the infamous Sinaloa drug cartel headed by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and enriched himself as the country sank into high levels of corruption and poverty.
Hernández had portrayed himself as a “law and order” candidate with the right-wing Honduras National Party in 2013 on his way to his first term as president. His vows to crack down on traffickers and crime received praise from the Trump administration, but prosecutors aided by a slew of witnesses testified about how much he was allied with the cartels in the country as well as Mexico and other countries who paid him millions. The disgraced politician once said he’d “stuff the drugs right up the noses of the gringos,” according to witnesses, “and they won’t even notice.” It’s the first such prosecution of a foreign politician since the prosecutions of former Panamanian General Manuel Noriega in 1992 and Guatemala’s Alfonso Portillo in 2014 and comes three years after the conviction of his brother, Juan Antonio on similar charges.
Witnesses for the prosecution included Devis Leonel Rivera, head of the powerful Los Cachiros cartel; Fabio Lobo, the son of former president Porfirio Lobo (2010-2014) and Alexander Ardon, a member of Hernández’s former party. Rivera, who admitted to being involved in 78 murders including that of two American journalists, testified that he personally bribed Hernandez with $250,000. “They should have tried to catch us,” he said on the stand, saying that instead “they allied with us.”Outside of the courthouse, many celebrated the verdict with signs in Spanish reading, “No clemency for narcopolitics.” Hernández is scheduled to be sentenced on June 26 and faces life in prison.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Bob Berg / Getty
Two men who were charged with the death of Hip-Hop icon Jam Master Jay were found guilty of his murder in federal court.
On Tuesday afternoon (February 27), a jury found Karl Jordan Jr. and Ronald Washington guilty of the murder of Jason Mizell, better known as Jam Master Jay, the DJ of the legendary Hip-Hop group Run DMC. Jam Master Jay was slain inside a recording studio on Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens on October 30, 2002. Jordan, who is the DJ’s godson, was charged with firing the fatal shot into Mizell’s head. The verdict came after three days of deliberation by the jury, who found both men guilty on all charges, bringing closure to one of the most elusive unresolved murders in Hip-Hop.
“Although it appeared the case would go cold, law enforcement never wavered in its effort to bring justice,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said after the verdict in a statement. “It’s no mystery why it took so long. Witnesses were terrified that they would be retaliated against if they cooperated with law enforcement.” Prosecutors had presented 35 witnesses including Jam Master Jay’s closest friends and one associate who testified to his being involved in cocaine trafficking, and two important individuals in Lydia High and Tony Rincon who witnessed the killing. High worked for Jam Master Jay’s record label and was held at gunpoint by Washington, while Rincon was shot in the leg as the two assailants ambushed him. Both had denied knowing what happened in the past, citing intimidation from Jordan and his family. “Time solved this case,” said prosecutor Mark Misorek.
The murder took place after Jordan and Washington got cut out of a deal that Jam Master Jay had arranged with a dealer in Baltimore, Maryland reportedly worth over $100,000 to distribute cocaine. Both men potentially face 20 years in prison after being convicted. Attorney General Merrick Garland had instructed prosecutors to avoid seeking the death penalty. A third man, Jay Bryant, is set to face trial in 2026. Bryant is believed to be the man who let Jordan and Washington in through a locked fire exit after he came in through the front. When asked if justice came with a price, Jam Master Jay’s cousin Ryan Thompson replied: “Yes. [I have] to answer yes because I didn’t know either until I was told. We wasn’t brought up like that. That’s not how we were raised.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
Guy Philippe, a leader of a rebellion in Haiti and a convicted drug trafficker, was deported from the United States to his homeland this week. Philippe is just one of thousands deported to the troubled nation since President Joe Biden was sworn into office back in 2021.
The Miami Herald reports that Guy Philippe, 55, was deported on Thursday (November 30) from Alexandria, La. along with over a dozen other individuals. Philippe was a former commander in the Haitian police force who led an armed rebellion in 2004 to overthrow President Jean Bertrand Aristide. From there, Philippe got involved in a scheme with Colombian cocaine traffickers, assisting in a money-laundering operation for the group.
In 2017, after dodging capture by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Philippe was sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in the scheme. Philippe pleaded guilty to the charges but claimed innocence.
Philippe’s return to Haiti has been in process since September after he was released from a federal facility and moved into immigration custody. According to the Herald‘s report, Philippe attempted to get his sentence reduced since the sentencing.
The turn of Guy Philippe is a cause of concern for some as the country has yet to rebound from the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Philippe, despite his criminal record in the United States, won a seat in the Haiti Senate in 2016 while campaigning alongside Moïse. Just before he was set to be sworn in, Philippe was arrested and handed over to the DEA.
—
Photo: JAIME RAZURI / Getty
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Bill Oxford / Getty
You know things are bad out on these streets when even Mexican drug cartels are banning the production of fentanyl under the penalty of death.
Sounds like an oxymoron of sorts but according to the Wall Street Journal, that’s exactly what’s going on south of the border. El Chapo’s old Sinaloa Cartel is prohibiting the production and trafficking of fentanyl due to pressure from U.S. law enforcement. Apparently every other drug is fair game, though. The new order was handed down by El Chapo’s four sons (better known as the “Chapitos”) who have taken the reigns of the deadly cartel in place of their locked-down daddy.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The directive from the most powerful faction within the criminal group aims to evade pressure from U.S. law enforcement, operatives say, though some U.S. officials are skeptical that the ban will endure.
The Biden administration is pushing the Mexican government to take more aggressive steps to dismantle the organization, considered by the U.S. to be the top fentanyl trafficking group. U.S. deaths from fentanyl have become an American political issue, with some Republicans, including lawmakers and others running for president, advocating to send the U.S. military into Mexico to fight criminal groups trafficking fentanyl.
For the many people in this northwestern Mexican region who make a living producing and smuggling an opioid that has killed tens of thousands of Americans, the message was clear: stop or die. In June, when the shift away from fentanyl began, three bodies covered with blue pills of the drug appeared on the outskirts of Culiacán.
Opioid and fentanyl was simply killing off too many people in communities that Republicans and company care about. Where was this kind of concern when the crack epidemic hit our neighborhoods like a tidal wave? Just sayin’.
Being that fentanyl production is about to drop like cryptocurrency stock, authorities expect the export of others drugs like cocaine, methamphetamine and heroine to rise in order to make up for the financial loss these cartels will suffer under their new directive. Regardless of how light their pockets will get, no one wants to cross the Chapitos as they’ve taken to spreading their message through banners being hung on billboards and overpasses in Mexico.
“In Sinaloa, the sale, manufacture, transport or any kind of business involving the substance known as fentanyl, including the sale of chemical products for its elaboration, is permanently banned,” the banners read, according to WSJ. “You have been warned. Sincerely yours, the Chapitos.”
Message received and noted.
What do y’all think of the Sinaloa Cartel deciding to fall back from their fentanyl production under the threat from U.S. authorities? Let us know in the comments section below.
HipHopWired Featured Video
A top Mexican official who once helped his country tackle the growing problem of drug gangs has now been convicted of himself helping drug cartels move weight across south of the border.
Raw Story is reporting that on Tuesday (February 21), the former Secretary of Public Security of Mexico, Garcia Luna, was found guilty in a Brooklyn federal court of taking bribes from drug traffickers who he was supposed to be taking off the streets in exchange for protection and information on rivals and authorities. Prosecutors argued that Luna took millions of dollars in bribes from El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel from 2006-2012 when he was tasked to be taking down the now-infamous drug cartel. Luna now faces at least 20 years in prison for his transgression.
“Garcia Luna, who once stood at the pinnacle of law enforcement in Mexico, will now live the rest of his days having been revealed as a traitor to his country and to the honest members of law enforcement who risked their lives to dismantle drug cartels,” said US prosecutor Breon Peace, welcoming the verdict.
A spokesperson for the current Mexican government, which has accused Garcia Luna of stealing more than $200 million of public funds and has demanded his extradition, said in a tweet that “justice has arrived.”
Prosecutors argued that Garcia Luna, who held high-ranking security positions in Mexico from 2001 until 2012, was the cartel’s “partner in crime.”
We hope Luna enjoyed that money while he could because we doubt anyone’s going to be trying to break him out of prison like his former employer, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Unfortunately for Luna, nine of the 26 people who testified against him were former drug traffickers from Mexico who cooperated with U.S. prosecutors in hopes of getting leniency in their own upcoming trials.
They included former several high-level cartel bosses, including Jesus “Rey” Zambada, Sergio Villarreal and Oscar “Lobo” Valencia.
They claimed to have paid millions of dollars to Garcia Luna collectively, and through Arturo Beltran Leyva, who ran his own drug cartel and served as a go-between with Garcia Luna, known as a “supercop,” in exchange for protection.
Nothing like snitching on law enforcement to help yourself get out of a sticky situation.
Garcia Luna was eventually arrested in Texas in December 2019 and charged with five counts including cocaine trafficking conspiracy and making false statements to authorities. His wife and two children were in court when his guilty verdict was announced.
You have to wonder if he’ll end up in the same prison as El Chapo. Just sayin.’
—
Photo: YUKI IWAMURA / Getty
-
Pages