Colombia’s Constitutional Court is debating lifting a judicial ban on the spraying of glyphosate during the controversial aerial fumigation of illicit coca crops, a decision that is unlikely to fix…
In the south Ecuador city of Guayaquil, organized crime has created a vicious circle of drug consumption: violent microtrafficking networks peddle drugs on the city streets creating the addicts that…
Since beginning in Brazil with the “Operation Car Wash” (“Operação Lava Jato”) investigation in 2014, the Odebrecht corruption scandal has been headline news across Latin America. Presidents, lawmakers, and business…
A spike in police slayings have El Salvador's officers on edge as some called on social media for extrajudicial executions of suspected members of the street gangs, an issue that…
With a worsening crisis in Venezuela, dark days in Nicaragua, an ever more fragile peace process in Colombia, new governments and new ideas in Brazil, Mexico and beyond, 2018 was…
Increased pirate attacks in the waters between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela show that criminal gangs in the Venezuelan state of Sucre are trying to dominate the drug trafficking route…
It is hard to be optimistic for 2019. The current trends all point to a strengthening of organized crime throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, as the criminals adapt far…
Which criminal structures have gained the most strength in Latin America in 2018? Three groups, all based in different nations, have engaged in aggressive expansion, both territorial and economic, and…
The six bodies, minus their heads, were dumped just before dawn on a morning in late October. They were left in front of a gas station on the outskirts of Creel,…
Turbulence reigned in 2018, but there was one constant: the flow of Venezuelans fleeing their country. The unceasing migration has left thousands of people homeless, penniless and ripe for exploitation…
As 2018 came to a close, two things became clear: the once impenetrable armor against corruption that the United States and other international donors provided in the region has weakened;…
Elections in Latin America's two most important countries for the drug trade have brought significant change in 2018.