Smuggling

TIJUANA, Mexico - If Tijuana is safe enough for Al Gore, Nobel laureates in chemistry and economics and co-founders of Twitter and Wikipedia - not to mention a 100,000 dancing residents - shouldn't it be safe for anyone? City leaders, with the help of President Felipe Calderon, made that point Thursday as Tijuana kicked off a two-week festival to showcase the city's economic prowess and cultural riches.

LOS ANGELES - A Southern California man was convicted Wednesday on a conspiracy charge for attempting to arrange the smuggling of shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missiles from his homeland into the United States.

MEXICO CITY - U.S. and Mexican officials are just now fully employing a gun-tracing program touted as a key deterrent to weapons-smuggling, nearly three years after it was first announced in Mexico and weeks after an inspector general's preliminary report called it underused and unsuccessful.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A Chinese company thought to have once been responsible for most of the illegal human growth hormone smuggled from overseas into the United States pleaded guilty along with its CEO Wednesday to illegally selling the drug and agreed to pay $7.5 million.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Hundreds of FBI agents flew into Puerto Rico to round up dozens of police officers accused of aiding drug traffickers - one of the darkest days yet for a force tarnished by recent allegations of brutality, discrimination and incompetence.