Unrest gripped much of Latin America and the Caribbean throughout 2019. From record violence in Mexico that recalled the darkest days of the drug war, to…
The year was one of political tumult, fed in no small part by organized crime and its favored weapon: corruption. The region appeared to take a step backwards during the…
The year 2019 saw the end of a brief golden era when local and international forces came together to fight state and private corruption in the Northern Triangle.
It was always going to be a thankless task. When President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in December of 2018, Mexico was undergoing the most violent year in its…
Welcome to InSight Crime's Criminal GameChangers 2019, where we highlight the most important trends in organized crime in the Americas over the course of the year. Twenty-nineteen was like one…
In January 2019, heavily armed gunmen traveling in a truck and on a motorbike ambushed a small group of anti-narcotics agents in Sucumbíos, the Ecuadorean province that borders Colombia in…
For the Ecuadorean province of Esmeraldas on the Pacific side of the Colombia border, 2019 began with a warning that the horrors of the past year were no aberration.
Little attention is paid to Ecuador. The murder rate is low, and there are no drug cartels like those that have dominated the criminal landscape in Mexico and Colombia. Yet…
Though it’s his younger brother who will be in the courtroom facing drug trafficking charges, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández will also be judged in the coming weeks for running…
As his final extradition orders were being read and signed, a drug trafficker known as “El Negro” Lobo paced in his small holding cell. He was minutes away from…
On a December morning in 2018, Javier Erazo, known as “El Huita,” took to his hammock after a horseback ride at his farm in Ocotepeque, a town on the western…
The announcement in late August that three important former leaders of the demobilized FARC were returning to war did not only threaten the fragile Colombian peace agreement but raised questions…
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InSight Crime Events – Border Crime: The Northern Triangle and Tri-Border Area
Through several rounds of extensive field investigations, our researchers have analyzed and mapped out the main illicit economies and criminal groups present in 39 border departments spread across the six countries of study – the Northern Triangle trio of Guatemala, Honduras, and El…
InSight Crime’s ‘Memo Fantasma’ Investigation Wins Simón Bolívar National Journalism Prize
The staff at InSight Crime was awarded the prestigious Simón Bolívar national journalism prize in Colombia for its two-year investigation into the drug trafficker known as “Memo Fantasma,” which was…
InSight Crime – From Uncovering Organized Crime to Finding What Works
This project began 10 years ago as an effort to address a problem: the lack of daily coverage, investigative stories and analysis of organized crime in the Americas. …
InSight Crime – Ten Years of Investigating Organized Crime in the Americas
In early 2009, Steven Dudley was in Medellín, Colombia. His assignment: speak to a jailed paramilitary leader in the Itagui prison, just south of the city. Following his interview inside…
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