TAG / COCAINE

She drew her children into crime and flooded her community with cocaine. Now Deborah Mason is trading Gucci for a prison cell.

Speedballing is the cartel’s newest formula for addiction—and for death. Some 35,000 Americans die each year from fatal drug cocktails mixing opioids and stimulants.

The former Venezuelan spymaster admits guilt in Manhattan court to trafficking cocaine with Colombian rebels and conspiring to use drugs as a weapon against the US.

Smugglers are stuffing meth, heroin and cocaine into shipments of vegetables, cheese and fruit. The strategy exploits perishable goods to evade inspection.

More than 40 kids as young as 12 were used to smuggle drugs in a network whose ringleaders were sent to jail.

A fentanyl adulterant 10 to 20 times stronger than xylazine is sweeping the US. As medetomidine surges, users face unseen dangers with every hit.

A billion dollars’ worth of cartel drugs seized in recent months shows law enforcement’s reach—but demand remains the root of the crisis.

Ryan Wedding’s story starts as an Olympian, but ends as a wanted fugitive. When found, he faces life in prison—the price of a wasted life. 

Now sentenced to a decade in prison, this Washington man used Snapchat to recruit young drug couriers, showing off his luxurious lifestyle—one built on human misery.

More than $12 billion in cocaine is flooding Europe through an alliance between South American gangs and an Albanian criminal network.