HomeNewsBriefUS Helps Fight Trafficking of Natural, Cultural Resources in Mayan Jungle
BRIEF

US Helps Fight Trafficking of Natural, Cultural Resources in Mayan Jungle

GUATEMALA / 25 APR 2012 BY CHRISTOPHER LOOFT EN

The US Embassy in Guatemala City is hosting a workshop to help authorities from Guatemala, Mexico and Belize improve cooperation against the trafficking of natural resources and cultural artifacts from the Mayan jungle.

Officials from the US Departments of State and the Interior, as well as the Agency for International Development, are working with their counterparts from the three countries on fighting the illegal trade in natural resources and cultural artifacts from the region, as Prensa Libre reports.

Cynthia Perera of the Department of the Interior noted that the meeting was "the first time that there has been a dialogue with reprensentatives of the agencies of environment, culture, prosecution, and police of these nations," according to another report from the newspaper.

InSight Crime Analysis

According to a 2010 presentation (download .ppt) by the US Ministry of the Interior, the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala is threatened by a range of criminal activities, including illegal ranching, drug trafficking, human trafficking, and looting of archaeological sites. The report notes that the government of Guatemala has stepped up its efforts to combat these threats since 2009.

The networks of artifact smugglers are sometimes connected to those of drug traffickers. In 2009, four Mexican and three Costa Rican citizens were implicated in a plot to smuggle cocaine hidden within panels of Egyptian marble. The panels were labeled as cardboard box tops when they entered Costa Rica. What's more, there is evidence that Mexican drug trafficking organizations have expanded their operations into the illicit trade in religious artifacts.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) estimates that the global illicit trade in cultural items is worth $8 billion a year.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Tags

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

ELITES AND CRIME / 22 JUN 2023

Presidential frontrunner Edmond Mulet has run on a promise of change. But ties to candidates accused of corruption cast doubt…

COCA / 10 FEB 2023

Guatemala is dealing with the rapid expansion of coca leaf plantations, but there is little evidence the country is becoming…

GUATEMALA / 8 DEC 2021

A transnational labor trafficking network brought dozens of individuals from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico to the United States under the…

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

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…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

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…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

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…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Rights Watch Draws on InSight Crime's Haiti Coverage

18 AUG 2023

Non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch relied on InSight Crime's coverage this week, citing six articles and one of our criminal profiles in its latest report on the humanitarian…