Shipment of Colombian cocaine seizure

May 24, 2011 updated 07: 18 GMT Police suspect the seized money came from a Mexican cartel to pay drug Colombian security forces say they have seized a massive cocaine route in the city of port of Cartagena.

Sniffer dogs found more than 12 tons of the drug hidden in a cargo of brown sugar in the Mexico destination.

It is believed to belong to one of the most powerful drug traffickers of Colombia, the Rastrojos.

In another development, police in Bogota Airport arrested a national Mexican who arrived with $2. 8 m (￡ 1. 7 m) in his hand luggage.

Verification of a ship bound for Veracruz in the Mexico of sniffer dogs alerted their handlers to the presence of drugs in the hull of the ship.

Laboratory tests revealed that a large consignment of brown sugar had been poisoned with cocaine.

Investigation teams are always test the sugar, which had been piled in 33,450 units of 500 g, to determine the exact concentration of cocaine.

However, officials say already amounts to more than 12 tons of the drug.

It is one of the largest crops of cocaine seized in Colombia over the years.

"New enemy".

Police said that it comes from the region of Valle del Cauca, in the southwest of the Colombia.

The region is the stronghold of the Rastrojos, a gang of drug which exports large quantities of cocaine in Central America and the Mexico.

The Colombian Government recently said bands criminal enemy new his and has promised to devote more resources to the fight against them.

In January, Defence Minister Rodrigo Rivera said magazines Semana drug gangs Colombian news have been increasingly taking control of the networks of drug trafficking of the guerrillas of the Farc in left Colombia.

Also Monday, police officers detained a Mexican national, Jesus Ochoa, who is of Culiacan in Sinaloa State.

Officers said they suspected that the money was payment for shipments of drugs cartel Sinaola to the Mexico.

"This is one of the largest species seized in recent years," the Customs authorities said in a statement.

Seizure of the Sudan border key city reignites concerns of the civil war

The news of Juba, southern Sudan - end Saturday evening, frequency of percolation from the Sudan more challenged and militarized hotspot of North-South border: Northern Sudanese army had invaded the town of Abyei, with tanks.

The move, followed by two days of aerial bombardment and a statement by the President Omar el-Bashir that its Government has been dissolving the local Government of Abyei, raises fresh questions that Sudan could descend into civil war before Southern secession officially on July 9.

Oil-rich South, the seizure of the strategic town leaders, was both a declaration of war by the Government of the North and an attempt to well planned to supplant the Ngok Dinka people loyal to the South to maintain permanently take AbyeiAfter the South declared independence.

Monitor QUIZ: Weekly News Quiz for 16-20 May 2011

"[By the Government of the North forced] current occupation is illegal," said Information Minister Barnaba Marian Benjamin of South Sudan. "It is the responsibility of the [UN] Security Council to see that they are withdrawn."

Mounting clashes

The massif escalation of violence between the two armed forces of the Sudan in the historically volatile region came to mind as a delegation of the United Nations Security Council arrived in the capital of the North for a four-day visit.Tensions began to boost Thursday when a grenade Rocket Tower hit a vehicle one which was escorting a convoy of troops from the North. Saturday, a hard response from the North was well already launched in Abyei.

Saturday, spokesman of the army of the South Col. Philip Aguer said that at least 5,000 soldiers from the North and allied militias proxy had infested Abyei from multiple directions, causing the troops from the South to scatter before the city fell to the army of the North.

Concerns of the civil war

Security analysts are now warning that the violence may spread rapidly.

"After weeks of commitment critical national actors and international to prevent escalation, the situation in Abyei has indeed boiled, and the immediate priority is to contain the situation to do not ignite wider conflict, said EJ Hogendoorn"Horn of Africa for the International Crisis Group Project Director based in Brussels.

Sudan 101: Could the North-South war trigger again?

Ambassador Princeton Lyman, Special Envoy of President Obama in Sudan, warned in an interview telephone Sunday that the failure of the Sudanese Army North to stop his offensive in Abyei, which he calls a "disproportionate" by the North to the fighting that flared Thursdaywill cause setbacks in the process of normalization of relations with the U.S. Government.

But a Western diplomat who spoke the condition of anonymity, expressed skepticism of the ability of international representatives to influence the Government of the North following the arrest of the army of Abyei. "We can issue statements, but where leverage? "the diplomat returned in question."

Control of Abyei: a key friction point

The fertile territory, producers of oil to the North and the South say that it has proved to be the main point of friction between the two parties since they signed the 2005 peace agreement that put an end to decades of war. International arbitration, several treaties placed and constant pressure of actors ranging from groups of local civil society to start Hollywood George Clooney did not move north and South on their positions hardened on the future of the Abyei area. Southern Sunday leaders appealed to the international community, including the delegation visit to Security Council United Nations, to put pressure on the army of the North to withdraw in Abyei, but leaders of Northern appeared refuses to move - perhaps emboldened by a military victory clear and the increasingly obvious that fact other clashes between the armies of the North and South in Abyei would probably another decisive victory for the army of the North immediately.