Ahmet Yilmaz* shouldn’t be in a dangerous profession. He’s not a cop or a criminal. Ahmet is a banana importer in Turkey. “This is my third decade in the industry,”…
Turkish and foreign law enforcement have seized record quantities of cocaine heading from South America to Turkey, revealing the growing role of the country’s powerful traffickers in the transit of…
Ecuador's two leading drug gangs are talking the talk when it comes to peace, but walking the walk may be a step too far.
Ecuador has been shaken recently by several car bombings, a terror tactic more commonly employed by major criminal groups in Colombia and Mexico.
The siphoning of guns in police custody to criminals and a naval officer accused of acting in a hit squad are but two of the latest examples of how corruption…
Ecuadorian gangs are taking another page from the playbook of crime groups in Mexico and Colombia, stepping up targeted killings of police officers in drug trafficking hotspots.
Ecuador has seen its sixth large-scale prison massacre since the start of 2021, with at least 44 prisoners being killed during a riot at a jail west of Quito.
A recent wave of murders in the Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas provides clues to the role of dissident factions of the now-defunct Colombian guerrilla group known as the FARC in…
The 2021 ranking of the world's most violent cities predictably features a heavy presence by Latin American and Caribbean population centers. The top eight are all in Mexico and the…
Rampant piracy along Ecuador’s coastal provinces is forcing hundreds of fishermen to leave their profession and the sea out of fear for their lives.
The assassination of a suspected Albanian drug trafficker in Ecuador is another reminder of the increasing presence of Balkan trafficking groups in the South American country.
The discovery of two bodies hanging from a bridge in Ecuador may be the starkest sign yet of the country’s accelerated spiral into violence, including copying the worst excesses seen…