Tour of a Colombian cocaine lab

As the government has cracked down on the large drug labs located in jungles, the Colombian drug cartels have begun to decentralize their operations, operating small labs in city apartments and cooking batches in microwaves. Here’s a look at one of those apartment labs, which includes an interview with a dealer and a look at the smuggling technique du jour.

It turns out that the latest trend in Colombia’s cocaine trade is moving processing out of the huge plants in the jungle to small, mobile and disposable urban labs. In this new, decentralized world of cocaine production, two men with some buckets, a handful of microwave ovens and only the most basic knowledge of chemistry can take naturally growing coca leaves and turn them into 100 percent pure cocaine powder. And here’s the craziest part…they show us how they do it.

(via digg)

• Colombia
• drugs
• video

The wives and girlfriends of gang members

The wives and girlfriends of gang members in one of Colombia’s most violent cities are taking part in a “strike of crossed legs”, withholding sex from their men until they vow to give up their violent ways.

Update: Lysistrata, a play by Aristophanes, tells of women withholding sex from their husbands in order to end the Peloponnesian War. (thx, steve)

• colombia
• sex
• violence