RIO DE JANEIRO - A 10-year-old Brazilian boy was hit by a car and killed on Thursday as he fled a drug sweep by police and social workers, reigniting debate over the government's tough response to a surge in crack cocaine use.

The incident occurred around 4 a.m. on one of the main thoroughfares in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's main tourist destination, the city's social welfare department said in a statement.

The boy, whose name was not released, was part of a large cluster of crack users who scattered as police and social workers approached.

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Clusters of drug users
Such clusters are known in Brazil as cracolandias or "cracklands," and dozens have proliferated in big cities such as Rio and Sao Paulo in recent years. Brazil borders the world's top three cocaine-producing countries and has become a huge market for narcotics as its economy expands.

The boy had left home nine days earlier, the welfare department said. His father was dead, and his mother was also a drug user, it said. The boy's 14-year-old brother had found him on Wednesday and failed to convince him to come home.

"Crack is a very violent and cruel drug, and we have to keep working against it," Rodrigo Abel, Rio's undersecretary for social protection, told reporters.

In response to "cracklands" that sometimes see hundreds of people gather to smoke the drug in broad daylight, Rio in 2011 began staging large-scale sweeps to remove addicts from the street.

They are offered drug treatment, although many refuse and quickly go back to using.

Unlike adults, minors are sometimes held for treatment against their will - a practice that has stirred controversy. Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes said last year he would support forced treatment of adults as well.

The sweeps come as Brazil prepares to host the World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in Rio in 2016.

'Social cleansing'
Twitter and other social media exploded with debate after the boy's death was announced. 

"Social cleansing. Police are chasing these crack-using kids as if they were criminals," tweeted Ariel Castro Alves, a Brazilian lawyer specializing in human rights and youth issues.

Emmanuel Fortes, a psychiatrist and vice president of Brazil's Federal Council of Medicine, said the child's death was a tragedy but that the state had little choice but to press ahead given the widespread problem.

"It's a tragedy also to see an entire generation fall victim to this drug epidemic. I understand people are upset by what happened today, but is it correct to leave a 10-year-old on the street to consume drugs?" Fortes told Reuters.

The crisis has led President Dilma Rousseff to massively increase the presence of police and military patrols and even stage drone flights on its borders to halt drug trafficking.

However, Brazil has 10,000 miles of borders - five times the length of the U.S.-Mexico border - running through Amazon jungle and huge swamps, making it extremely difficult to secure.

Rio's welfare department said it would provide psychological assistance to the boy's family and money for his funeral.

 

 

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The convicted Colombian drug smuggler known as the “Godmother of Cocaine,” Griselda Blanco, 69, was gunned down by a motorcycle-riding assassin in Medellin, Colombian national police confirmed late Monday, according to the Miami Herald.

Blanco spent nearly 20 years in prison in the United States for drug trafficking and three murders before being deported to Colombia in 2004, the Herald reported.

Two armed riders pulled up to Blanco as she was leaving a butcher shop in her hometown, and one shot her twice in the head, the Herald reported, citing a report in El Colombiano newspaper.

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Family members said Blanco had cut her ties to organized crime after returning to her country, the BBC reported. Police said they were investigating the motive.

Blanco was one of the first to engage in large-scale smuggling of cocaine into the United States from Colombia and set up many of the routes used by the Medellin cartel after she was sentenced in the United States in 1985, the BBC reported.

Investigators told the Herald that they estimate conservatively that Blanco was behind about 40 slayings. She was convicted in connection with three murders: Arranging the killing of two South Miami drug dealers who had not paid for a delivery, and ordering the assassination of a former enforcer for her organization, an operation that resulted in the death of the target’s 2-year-old son, the Herald reported.

Read more on Griselda Blanco in The Miami Herald

Three of Blanco’s husbands were killed in violence related to drugs, the Herald reported, and one of her sons was named Michael Corleone, a reference to “The Godfather” movies.

Blanco is credited with originating motorcycle assassinations, the Herald reported.

“This is classic live-by-the-sword, die-by-the-sword,” filmmaker Billy Corben, who with Alfred Spellman made two “Cocaine Cowboys” documentaries, told the Herald. “Or in this case, live-by-the-motorcycle-assassin, die-by-the-motorcycle assassin.”

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A cocaine shipment spotted by customs officers in Newark, N.J., helped lead to the arrest of three people in Barcelona, Spain, U.S. officials said Friday.

Special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), along with the Spanish Guardia Civil, said they arrested Oleksii Stepanets, a Ukrainian national; Eduard Medvedev, a Russian national; and Edgar Palma Bofill, a Spanish national.

Customs and Border Patrol officers at Newark Liberty International Airport intercepted a shipment of pulleys containing approximately 2.23 kilograms of cocaine on Aug. 21, ICE officials said. The shipment originated in Costa Rica and arrived in Newark on a commercial aircraft, they said. The shipment’s manifest said it was auto parts destined for an auto shop in Barcelona.

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HSI Newark agents coordinated with agents in Madrid to assist the Spanish Guardia Civil in the arrests, officials said.

Besides the arrests, police seized a total of 2.99 kilograms of cocaine and “precursor chemicals” used to process the drug, officials said.

The arrests were linked to a previous seizure of 10 kilograms of cocaine at the Newark airport, officials said.

The total wholesale value of the cocaine is over $500,000, they said.

"This cooperation with foreign governments represents HSI's broad footprint that extends beyond our border," said Andrew McLees, special agent in charge of HSI Newark.

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The investigation was the latest in a series of drug-smuggling interceptions reported by ICE. Among others, which yielded larger drug seizures:

• Two U.S. citizens were arrested and 1,048 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of $72 million were seized Aug. 6 from a boat towing a vessel off the southern coast of Puerto Rico.
• Two U.S. citizens were arrested and 450 kilograms of cocaine with a street value of $10 million were seized July 31 from a suspicious 30-foot fiberglass boat with two outboard engines sinking off the eastern coast of Puerto Rico.
• Six Dominican Republic nationals aboard a 25-foot unmarked fiberglass boat heading toward Puerto Rico were arrested and 330 kilograms and 1 kilogram of heroin with an estimated street value of $8 million were seized in early June.

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LONDON -- Multi-millionaire Hans Kristian Rausing pleaded guilty Wednesday to preventing the proper burial of his wealthy U.S.-born wife Eva, whose badly decomposed body was found in the luxury London home she shared with her husband.

A spokeswoman for Britain's judiciary told The Associated Press that Rausing, whose father made billions selling his stake in the Tetra Pak drinks-carton empire, pleaded guilty at London's Isleworth Crown Court to charges of "preventing the lawful and decent burial" of his 48-year-old wife.

She spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office policy.

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Police discovered Eva Rausing's body in early July after her husband was stopped by police after driving erratically. It was found in a fly-filled room under a pile of clothing and garbage bags which had been taped together.   

It was possible Eva Rausing died up to two months before her body was found, Isleworth Crown Court heard, according to BBC News.  A post-mortem examination established that she had drugs in her system, including cocaine.   

In a statement to the court Hans Kristian Rausing said he had been unable to confront the reality of his wife's death, the BBC added.

'Very traumatized'
He told police that he did not have "a very coherent recollection of the events leading up to and since Eva's death" but that he had never wished her any harm.

"I did not supply her with drugs. I have been very traumatized since her death," he added, according to the BBC. "I do not know what caused her death. I did not feel able to confront the reality of her death."

The judiciary spokeswoman told the AP that Hans Kristian Rausing would be sentenced later. He has been treated in a psychiatric facility in recent weeks.

His father has a net worth net worth estimated at 4.3 billion pounds ($6.7 billion) from the Tetra Pak sale.

Tragic story of addition
Hans Kristian's plea caps a tragic story of addiction and wealth.

Eva Rausing's father Tom Kemeny, a former Pepsi executive, said in a statement on July 17 that his daughter had earlier returned to the British capital to try to persuade her husband to join her in drug treatment in the U.S.

"At the time of her death her over-riding concern was for the safety of her beloved husband, for whom she interrupted her own treatment to return to London in an attempt to take him back with her to California, but tragically to no avail," he said in the statement.

The couple's struggles with addiction -- long known to their close friends and family -- became widely known in 2008 when Eva Rausing was caught trying to smuggle crack cocaine and heroin into the U.S. Embassy in London in her handbag.

Police later found more drugs, including a sizeable amount of cocaine, in a search of the couple's townhouse and the two were charged with drug possession.

Police struggle to shed light on US-born heiress' death

Prosecutors later agreed to drop the charges in exchange for formal police warnings when the couple -- who gave millions to anti-addiction charities -- admitted guilt.

Before the embassy arrest, Eva Rausing's good looks and beautiful clothes -- along with her husband and his friendly, bear-like countenance -- had made the Rausings, who had married shortly after they met in the 1980s, welcome participants on the London philanthropic scene.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Peru has again become the top producer of pure cocaine in the world, outpacing Colombia, where output fell by an estimated 25 percent in a year, according to a White House report issued Monday.

Drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said Monday that potential cocaine production in Colombia was down by 72 percent since 2001. Colombia now ranks third, behind Bolivia in addition to Peru.

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"Potential production of pure cocaine in Colombia is down to 195 metric tons (in 2011) from 700 metric tons in 2001, the lowest production potential level since 1994 and the first time since 1995 that Colombia is producing less cocaine than either Peru or Bolivia," Kerlikowske said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, Peru was the leading producer of cocaine. 

The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime released an estimate last week that Colombia could produce 345 metric tons of cocaine in 2011. 

Kerlikowske' s office said the drop in Colombia cocaine production has coincided with a decline in U.S. cocaine overdose deaths, positive workplace drug tests, the purity of cocaine available for street purchase and domestic cocaine seizures. 

"Let me add some context to these results. They didn't happen overnight, there was a sustained effort requiring nearly a decade of steady, strategic pressure across more than one administration in both the United States and Colombia." 

But while he called the decrease in production in South America was encouraging, he said the fight against Mexico's drug cartels "pose a significant challenge."

"These numbers are certainly heartening, but they should not distract us from the fact that the transnational criminal organizations that supply cocaine are a threat to civil society everywhere, as we've seen with our southern neighbor Mexico," he added. "This Administration condemns the gruesome drug-related violence and is committed to partnering with the Mexican government to disrupt the cartels that commit such brutality."

Mexico's drug war: No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'

Plan Colombia
Kerlikowske said the decline in Colombian cocaine production is largely the result of Plan Colombia, a $7.5 billion U.S.-backed effort launched in 1999 to help the South American government crack down on a left-wing insurgency and drug organizations. 

"The results are historic and have tremendous implications, not just for the United States and the Western Hemisphere, really globally," Kerlikowske said. 

"We don't just have a far safer Colombia, we have a vibrant Colombia that is an active partner in helping with the drug and criminal issue in the region," he added.

Colombia President Juan Manuel Santos said the decline is part of his country's overall strategy of cutting off funding sources for drug traffickers. Speaking in the town of Rio Negro, north of Bogota, Colombia, he said it was good news that Colombia is now third in cocaine production. 

Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said the government is also making strides in seizing cocaine, pointing to the confiscation of about 300 tons of the drug in the last two years. 

U.S. Ambassador Michael McKinley told El Tiempo newspaper that "the numbers demonstrate historic advances in ending the fight against drugs in Colombia." 

Speaking Monday, Kerlikowske said while the decline in Colombian production is a positive development, it is not a sign that powerful and deadly drug cartels are going out of business. Instead, he said, these groups, including those waging a drug war against each other and the government in Mexico, will "turn to anything illegal that makes money."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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KAMPALA, Uganda -- An American television producer found dead on a hotel balcony in Uganda last week died after taking contaminated cocaine, police and a private investigator said on Saturday.

An official toxicology report confirmed the narcotic was in Jeff Rice's blood, dispelling initial suspicions the father of two known for his work on the U.S. show "The Amazing Race" had been poisoned by attackers.

Rice, who was found slumped over a table bleeding through the nose and mouth, died of asphyxiation, a post mortem showed. Drug users who fall unconscious risk inhaling vomit.

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"Rice ... used cocaine which had lethal additives and that's what killed him," Uganda police spokesperson Asuman Mugenyi told Reuters.

Brad Nathanson, a private investigator and friend of Rice, said he had been shown the toxicology report by police and there was no evidence of foul play in Rice's death.

"In fact it was as a result of buying bad drugs, cocaine to be specific ... it was a bad concoction," Nathanson told reporters.

"I have read the toxicology report ... it shows that there were small traces of cocaine in their blood and urine," he said, adding he had traveled to Uganda as a friend of the Rice family following rumors he had been poisoned, and not for payment.

Rice's assistant, identified as Kathryne Fuller, was found unconscious when Rice's body was discovered Feb. 18 at the Serena hotel in the capital, Kampala. She is now reported to be conscious but paralyzed down the right side of her body.

Early on, there had been speculation that the two had been poisoned, then that they might have been forced to consume the drugs, because of the high amount of cocaine in Rice's stomach. NBC News contributor Clint van Zandt said on the "TODAY Show" on Saturday that it seemed unlikely that Rice would have willingly taken that amount of cocaine. 

If Rice and Fuller were believed to have voluntarily consumed the drugs, Fuller could be prosecuted under Uganda's drug laws.

Ugandan police said on Saturday they had arrested a man who confessed selling drugs to the pair who had been in the east African country working on a documentary.

Fuller's father said he was "disappointed, sad" but would support his daughter, a South African.

"We all do stupid things in life. Unfortunately this is a large mistake but we can't exactly crucify her," Stewart Fuller said.

Fuller's family hopes to move her to South Africa for treatment.

Msnbc.com staff contributed to this report from Reuters.

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