3 injured after man with knife enters Montreal-area mosque
Three men were injured after trying to subdue a man armed with a knife during afternoon prayers at a Montreal-area mosque Friday afternoon.
The head of Mexico's detective service acknowledged Tuesday that the country is "the champion" of fentanyl production, contradicting President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Lopez Obrador hotly denies that any fentanyl is produced in Mexico, saying Mexican cartels only press it into pills or add finishing touches.
But Felipe de Jesus Gallo, the head of Mexico's Criminal Investigation Agency, said that since the 1990s "Mexico has been the champion of methamphetamine production, and now fentanyl." He spoke at a U.S.-Mexico conference on synthetic drugs in Mexico City.
Experts agree that cartels in Mexico use precursor chemicals from China and India to make the synthetic opioid and smuggle it into the United States, where it causes about 70,000 overdose deaths annually.
While fentanyl is not widely abused in Mexico, methamphetamine addiction is commonplace.
Gallo said that Mexican cartels have launched industrial-scale production of meth in many states throughout the country and now export the drug around the world.
"Believe me, methamphetamine production has become industrialized, it's not just in the mountains anymore," Gallo said. "We now expect to see (drug) laboratories not just in the mountains of Sinaloa and Sonora, but in Hidalgo as well, Puebla, and also in Jalisco."
He was apparently referring to thousands of drug labs detected in previous years in the hills and scrublands around Culiacan, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa. Those clandestine, rural production sites were often bare-bones, improvised labs covered with tree branches and tarpaulins.
Police and military patrol Culiacan, Sinaloa state, Mexico, Jan. 6, 2023, the day after the government detained Ovidio Guzman, the son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman (Martin Urista /AP Photo / File)
Now, the meth trade has become so lucrative and so sophisticated that Mexican meth is exported as far away as Hong Kong or Australia, and the cartels have found ways to avoid detection of their drug money.
"The business models have become very innovative, or as old and antiquated as barter; `I'll trade you precursor chemicals for meth,' to avoid leaving a money trail," Gallo said.
There is little question that drug production goes on at a huge scale in Mexico.
In February, Mexico's Navy seized over 45 tons of methamphetamine at the biggest drug lab found during the current administration. The lab was in Quiriego, a township in a remote part of the northern border state of Sonora.
The 91,000 pounds (41,310 kilograms) of meth found there was more than half of the 162,000 pounds of the drug Mexico has seized so far this year.
Fentanyl production is also huge, though because it is a more potent drug, the volume is smaller.
A year ago, soldiers seized more than a half-million fentanyl pills in Culiacan in what the army at the time described as the largest synthetic drug lab found to date.
Soldiers found almost 630,000 pills that appeared to contain fentanyl, the army said. They also reported seizing 282 pounds (128 kilograms) of powdered fentanyl and about 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of suspected methamphetamine.
Lopez Obrador, who took office on Dec. 1 2018, also claims that Mexicans are culturally immune to drug addiction.
Three men were injured after trying to subdue a man armed with a knife during afternoon prayers at a Montreal-area mosque Friday afternoon.
Police have arrested an 18-year-old woman who allegedly stole a Porsche and then ran over its owner in an incident that was captured on video.
Since she was a young girl growing up in Vancouver, Ginny Lam says her mom Yat Hei Law made it very clear she favoured her son William, because he was her male heir.
A 15-year-old boy who was the subject of an emergency alert in New Brunswick has been arrested.
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris on Thursday issued a warning to any potential home intruder: 'If somebody breaks in my house, they're getting shot.'
What Cristiana Barsony-Arcidiacono, 49, the Italian-Hungarian CEO and owner of Hungary-based BAC Consulting, says she hasn't done is make the exploding pagers that killed 12 people and wounded more than 2,000 in Lebanon this week.
Advocates have identified the woman who died this week after being shot by police in Surrey, B.C., as a South American refugee who was raising a young daughter.
The search for a missing six-year-old boy in Shamattawa is continuing Friday as RCMP hope recent tips can help lead to a happy conclusion.
Provincial police investigating the death of a cat that was allegedly set on fire in Orillia earlier this week released surveillance video of a person of interest in the case.
Getting a photograph of a rainbow? Common. Getting a photo of a lightning strike? Rare. Getting a photo of both at the same time? Extremely rare, but it happened to a Manitoba photographer this week.
An anonymous business owner paid off the mortgage for a New Brunswick not-for-profit.
They say a dog is a man’s best friend. In the case of Darren Cropper, from Bonfield, Ont., his three-year-old Siberian husky and golden retriever mix named Bear literally saved his life.
A growing group of brides and wedding photographers from across the province say they have been taken for tens of thousands of dollars by a Barrie, Ont. wedding photographer.
Paleontologists from the Royal B.C. Museum have uncovered "a trove of extraordinary fossils" high in the mountains of northern B.C., the museum announced Thursday.
The search for a missing ancient 28-year-old chocolate donkey ended with a tragic discovery Wednesday.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is celebrating an important milestone in the organization's history: 50 years since the first women joined the force.
It's been a whirlwind of joyful events for a northern Ontario couple who just welcomed a baby into their family and won the $70 million Lotto Max jackpot last month.
A Good Samaritan in New Brunswick has replaced a man's stolen bottle cart so he can continue to collect cans and bottles in his Moncton neighbourhood.