The Gaitanistas, also known as the Gulf Clan, Urabeños, and Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), emerged from the ashes of Colombia’s paramilitary movement to become the dominant criminal force in Colombia.
The ELN has gained strength in a crucial drug trafficking region in the southern part of Colombia's Bolívar department -- confirming that they have benefited from the demobilization of rival…
A new United Nations report has revealed a scandalous increase in the number of massacres carried out in Colombia, revealing new criminal dynamics in strategic areas of the country.
Colombia’s southern department of Nariño is home to an extortion scheme, where two of the country’s largest criminal organizations, the ELN and the Urabeños, shake down illegal miners.
Having become one of the more visible criminal actors in Colombia due to their war with the Urabeños, the Caparrapos have been heavily targeted by authorities in 2019 so far.
While criminal organizations have widened their portfolios dramatically in recent years, drug trafficking remains their most important earner.
A new report from a Venezuela non-governmental organization working on migration issues shows that Colombia's criminal groups have been recruiting Venezuelans into their ranks at an accelerated rate.
Rocked by government assaults, internal dissent and a leader publicly looking to abandon ship, the Urabeños are facing a dire outlook, one that promises a violent reshuffling within Colombia’s criminal…
A series of attacks on multinational companies operating in Colombia could indicate that armed groups are shedding discipline for increased criminal gains, in a new era of organized crime in…
A new law in Colombia allowing for the collective surrender of criminal groups may have little success, since the country’s fragmented underworld doesn't incentivize crime bosses to rally their people…
Authorities in Colombia have captured one of the last remaining leaders of the Urabeños, a devastating blow to the country’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations that could solidify the group’s…
With the death of “El Indio,” the Urabeños’ third-in-command, Colombian security forces have dealt another blow to the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the country, a sign that authorities…
This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…
InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…
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…
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…
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…
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