The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Drug Trafficking" ...
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Policing For Profit
NewsChannel 5's award-winning investigative team wrapped up a two-year investigation into practices that some call "policing for profit" with a primetime documentary that aired Friday, Dec. 21. The one-hour special included actual police "dashcam" videos of officers seizing cash from out-of-state drivers and extended interviews that have never been aired. The documentary examines civil forfeiture laws that allow Tennessee police to legally take cash from individuals based on suspicion that the money might be linked to drug trafficking. If an individual does not take legal action to recover the money, the police agency gets to keep it all – sometimes to pay the salaries of the officers seizing the cash. As our investigation showed, such "profit motives" create the potential for corruption.
Tags: Police officers; corruption; drug trafficking; civil forfeiture laws
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Documenting Russian Federation Corruption
With documentation from several secret bank accounts and offshore corporate records, Barron's Dow Jones traced how Russia's most powerful officials have looted their nation in cahoots with cops, gangsters, and oligarchs. They show how a worldwide network of money laundering professionals that facilitates that plunder, while also abetting other global mischief like drug smuggling and arms trafficking.
Tags: corruption; drug smuggling; arms trafficking; Russia
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Sheila Devereaux Freed From Prison
A synopsis of Sheila Devereux's false conviction of drug trafficking and sentence to prison is investigated, as well as the policemen who were involved in the Devereux's case were investigated for corruption.
Tags: Sheila Devereux; Policemen; Corruption; Drug Trafficking
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Mexico: La Espiral del Silencio
The investigation looked at self-censorship in 11 provincial Mexican newspapers in relation to to drug-related stories and found that 70 percent were publishing only one out of ten stories related to drug trafficking.
Tags: drug cartel; zetas; drug trafficking; censorship;
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"The War Next Door"
Violence has increased in Mexico as the government cracks down on the drug cartels. Murders and kidnappings have increased, and Mexican citizens are afraid to leave their homes. Interviews with the Mexican Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security reveal the role of the U.S. in combating the problem. A jailhouse interview with a prominent female drug smuggler gives insight to the workings of the drug trafficking world.
Tags: Sandra Avila Beltran; drug smuggling; drug cartel; Mexico; Janet Napolitano; Medina Mora; cocaine; Columbia
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"Chapin Narco-connection from Guatemala to New York"
Drug trafficking is on the rise in Guatemala. About "200 tons of cocaine" passes through the country annually on its way to New York. Drug-violence in the country is spreading, reaching levels comparable to that of Mexico. Authorities are only catching a small percentage of the drugs being smuggled, as well as the people who are doing the trafficking.
Tags: drug trafficking; drug violence; Jorge Paredes; cocaine; DEA; Stephen McFarland; Carlos Castresana
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The Dark Side of Plan Colombia
Plan Colombia, which is a multibillion-dollar US assistance package aimed at fighting the cocaine trade. This program supports agriculture projects as an alternative to drug-related crops and violence. Though, this investigation found that most of the program’s funds were supporting the drug-trafficking terrorist networks that Plan Colombia was supposed to defeat. The investigation raises the question of whether the US knew or should have known that it was supporting this trafficking and violence with taxpayer-funded assistance.
Tags: USAID; Grants; Oil Plantations; Drug-trafficking; Alternative development; Violence; Corruption
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Shriners' Investigation
Frost has reported this story for three years, picking up where the ORlando Sentinel left off twenty years ago by focusing on how the Shriners used charitable donations to fund mortgages for executives, directors and key employees and failed to report these transactions, specifically the mortgage satisfactions, on their exempt organization tax returns (990 form.) This past year, most of Frost's focus has been on the Shriners secret sub-group, the Royal Order of Jesters who were involved in a series of sex crimes.
Tags: Shriners; Royal Order of Jesters; prostitution; sex trafficking; drugs; nonprofit organizations; fraud
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Air Marshals: Undercover and Under Arrest
The Federal Air Marshal Service presents the image of an elite undercover force charged with making life-and-death decisions that demand sound judgment. ProPublica found that dozens of air marshals have been charged with crimes, including 18 felonies, and hundreds more have been accused of misconduct. Cases include smuggling drugs past airport security, aiding a human trafficking ring, child sex abuse, bribery, drunken driving, domestic violence, holding an escort against her will during an overnight layover, solicitation to commit murder and voyeurism after one air marshal was caught taking photos of women's genitals on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Tags: air marshals; Transportation Safety Agency; human trafficking; child sex abuse; drunken driving; domestic violence; criminal convictions
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Degrees of Justice
Higgins told the story of Charles Plinton, a graduate student at the University of Akron. The story begins when Plinton was suspended for selling marijuana to a police informant just weeks after being acquitted of felony drug trafficking charges. The story ends with his suicide a year later on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Tags: drugs; education; graduate school; drug dealing; courts; trial; public records