Drug traffickers today realize that their best protection is not a private army but anonymity.
This is the story of “Memo Fantasma” or “Will the Ghost,” who started life in the Medellín Cartel, funded the bloody rise of a paramilitary army, and today lives the high life in Madrid.
He has helped move hundreds of tons of cocaine yet has no arrest warrants, and nobody is looking for him.
Drug traffickers today have realized that their best protection is not a private army, but rather total anonymity. We call these drug lords "the invisibles." This is the story of…
The hunt for “Will the Ghost,” or “Memo Fantasma” had stalled once again. The name Guillermo Camacho did not register with anyone. Had The Ghost managed to wipe all traces…
In 1997, the paramilitary army began its bloody campaign across Colombia, supposedly to fight the Marxist rebels, but really to take control of the cocaine trade. “Will the Ghost” or…
After the demobilization of the AUC in 2006, the paramilitary high command was behind bars. All except alias “Sebastían Colmenares” and his alter ego, “Memo Fantasma,” who was still moving…
“The Ghost” had fled Medellín, tied off loose ends in the underworld and perhaps suspended his drug trafficking activities. He disappeared with millions of dollars. That kind of money is…
The Ghost, a paramilitary drug lord, has moved to Madrid with his millions of drug dollars. He has dodged the Colombian justice system and perhaps secured a pass from the…
Twenty years ago, on December 2, 1993, Pablo Escobar, the pioneer of Colombia's cocaine trade, was killed on a rooftop…
Colombian National Police on Monday captured Rastrojos leader Hector Eudoro Rivera Erazo, alias "Caballo," in the town of Soacha, just…
Feuding guerrilla factions for control of Colombia’s coca-rich southern state of Putumayo continue to claim dozens of lives.
This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…
InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…
Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…
Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…
This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…
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