Drug trade called greatest security threat

MEXICO CITY, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- A top U.N. official speaking in Mexico Thursday called the violent transnational drug trade the greatest threat to the Americas.

Antonio Maria Costa, U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime executive director, addressed a meeting in Mexico City with top officials from the public-safety sector in North and South America. Costa warned that violence from narco-trafficking throughout the Western Hemisphere is the region's single biggest threat to security, the UNODC reported.

Costa called the threat a "hemispheric security issue" and said that drug-trafficking undermines law enforcement agencies and local governments and also funds transnational criminal networks that are increasingly employing terrorist-style tactics.

"Urban violence in the United States, biker gangs in Canada, violence and kidnapping in Mexico, pandillas and maras in Central America, thugs in the Caribbean, gangs in Brazilian shanty-towns, insurgency in Colombia; in every case there is a connection to drugs," Costa said in a statement.