Legal Frameworks to Protect the Amazon Are Being Sorely Tested

Environmental crime is devastating the Amazon. What are these five Amazonian states doing to protect it?…

Wildlife Trafficking Preys on the Amazon Basin

The Amazon is one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, where wildlife trafficking threatens hundreds of thousands of species.

Beneath The Surface of Illegal Gold Mining in the Amazon

As gold prices have skyrocketed, a boom in mining across the Amazon Basin has flourished, leaving a deep environmental footprint.

Amazon Rainforest Under Attack From All Sides

Environmental crime is driving deforestation across the Amazon, where some parts are now emitting more carbon dioxide than they absorb.

Guyana Struggling to Tame Lawless Waters

Guyana claims some 42,800 square nautical miles of ocean. Enforcement capabilities extend to just a fraction of the country's waters.

InSight Crime's 2021 Homicide Round-Up

In 2021, most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean experienced a marked increase in murders. Resurgent violence was to be expected after some of the world’s strictest COVID-19 lockdowns…

GameChangers 2021: How Organized Crime Devoured the Amazon Rainforest

There was record destruction of the Amazon in 2020, as the rainforest lost an area around the size of Belize, and the situation looks to be even bleaker in 2021.

Venezuela's Indigenous Warao Press-Ganged into Guyana's Illegal Gold Mines

Migrants from Venezuela's Warao Indigenous community who have been forced to flee to Guyana find themselves forcibly recruited to work as illegal miners in their new country.

Dirty Business - The Smuggling Pipeline Carrying Mercury Across the Amazon

Smuggling networks are feeding illegal mining operations across the Amazon Basin with mercury, despite global efforts to clamp down on the use of the substance.

Ponzi and Pyramid Schemes Spread Across Caribbean

A new investigative report shows Ponzi and pyramid schemes have proliferated across Caribbean countries during the pandemic, and authorities have been unable to keep up.

French Guiana’s Unpatrolled Waters Lure Illegal Fishing Crews

Illegal fishing off the coast of French Guiana surged amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as French maritime patrols struggled to mobilize resources, luring illegal fishing crews to the country's pristine waters.

Corruption, Containers, Cocaine: Guyana's Role In Transnational Drug Trafficking

A recent string of high-profile interceptions targeting international drug trafficking operations have confirmed Guyana remains a crucial transit point for cocaine headed across the Atlantic and to the United States.