A global look at some of the deadliest incidents involving trafficked migrants in trucks or shipping containers:
— June 27, 2022: 53 migrants died after being abandoned in a sweltering tractor-trailer on a remote back road in San Antonio.
BAGHDAD (AP) — A British citizen was sentenced Monday by an Iraqi court to 15 years in prison after being convicted of attempting to smuggle artifacts out of the country, in a case that has attracted international attention.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s navy said Tuesday that it has arrested 67 people who it believes were trying to travel by sea to Australia illegally.
The navy said in a statement that 12 men were arrested first near the port town of Trincomalee, 260 kilometers (160 miles) northeast of the capital Colombo on Monday and, upon questioning them, intercepted 55 more people traveling in a fishing vessel.
BAGHDAD (AP) — An Iraqi court Sunday postponed the trial of two European tourists charged with antiquities smuggling after their lawyers argued more information was needed about the ancient shards found in their possession.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — U.S. authorities on Monday announced the discovery of a major drug smuggling tunnel — running about the length of a six football fields — from Mexico to a warehouse in an industrial area in the U.S.
BAGHDAD (AP) — A British and a German tourist accused of smuggling ancient shards out of Iraq appeared in a Baghdad court in yellow detainees' uniforms Sunday, telling judges they had not acted with criminal intent and had no idea they might have broken local laws.
New York coach Sandy Brondello was on her way to her team's Friday morning shootaround when she heard the “disappointing" news that Russia had extended Brittney Griner's pre-trial detention another 30 days.
MOSCOW (AP) — WNBA star Brittney Griner had her pre-trial detention in Russia extended by one month Friday, her lawyer said.
Alexander Boykov told The Associated Press he thinks the relatively short extension indicated that Griner's case would go to trial soon.
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Sailors deployed to secure travel during the Eid al-Fitr holiday made Indonesia's biggest cocaine seizure after finding plastic packages of the drugs floating at sea, the navy said.
MIAMI (AP) — A little-noticed federal appeals court ruling this year threatens a key weapon in the United States’ war on drugs: A decades-old law that gives the U.S. broad authority to make high-seas arrests anywhere in the world, even if the drugs aren’t bound for American shores.
MIAMI (AP) — Jeffri Dávila-Reyes says he’s still mystified how he ended up serving hard time in a U.S. federal prison.
His cocaine bust at sea was closer to his homeland of Costa Rica than the United States, and the few kilos of drugs he was carrying were bound for Jamaica rather than American shores.
MIAMI (AP) — The premier of the British Virgin Islands on Monday demanded his immediate release from U.S. custody, arguing he is immune from prosecution on cocaine-smuggling charges because he is the elected, constitutional head of government of the British overseas territory.
MIAMI (AP) — The premier of the British Virgin Islands appeared in federal court in Miami on Friday after his arrest on cocaine-smuggling charges, while Britain’s governor of the Caribbean territory announced that a corruption inquiry found ample reason to suspend the islands’ elected government.
SINGAPORE (AP) — Singapore on Wednesday executed a Malaysian man convicted of drug smuggling after a court dismissed a last-minute challenge from his mother and international pleas to spare him on grounds he was mentally disabled.
CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian court sentenced a former member of parliament and others to ten years in prison on Thursday for smuggling antiquities out of the country, as part of a campaign to stop the trade.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — An Oklahoma man was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison Wednesday for conspiring to smuggle guns through Arkansas to Mexican drug cartels.
In a statement, federal prosecutors said Andrew Scott Pierson was sentenced in Little Rock, Arkansas, for his Nov.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — From X-ray body scanners to anti-drone technology, the state is ramping up efforts to keep contraband out of Ohio prisons as drugs and other illicit goods flood inside, even when visitation was curbed during the pandemic.
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The captain of an overloaded smuggling boat that crashed into rocks and broke up off the San Diego coast last year, killing three immigrants, pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges.
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Eager to show it’s trying to slow the steady flow of its people north to the United States, Guatemala recently tripled prison sentences for migrant smugglers.
The day after Guatemala's legislature approved the measure in February, 18-year-old Yashira Hernández left her home near the Mexican border for the trip north — hiring a smuggler to help.