GameChangers 2021: Long on Criminality, Short on Democracy in Year to Come
Prediction of the criminal dynamics for 2022 is even harder than most years, as it involves predicting the march of coronavirus. Organized crime does not exist in a bubble.
The United States, under the Biden administration, was supposed to help curb corruption, but for corrupt officials in Central America, life has rarely looked better.
Jimmy Chérizier, alias "Barbecue," is a complicated individual. For some, he's a Robin-Hood figure. For others, he's a former police officer implicated in one of Haiti's worst massacres.
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.
Ecuador's descent into violence followed a common path: more cocaine led to more cash and more weapons for the gangs. But it happened faster than anywhere else.
A spree of illegal fishing occurred across Latin America this past year, much of it driven by competition for diminishing catch.
Welcome to InSight Crime’s Criminal GameChangers 2021, where we highlight the most important trends in organized crime in the Americas over the course of the year.
Organized crime had to tighten its belt in 2020, and pickings remain lean as world economies contract and movement is restricted. Yet this crisis is likely to be a temporary…
Venezuela has long been known as a strategic rearguard for Colombia guerrilla groups. Yet 2020 saw the acceleration of a newer dynamic: Venezuelan gangs now rival their Colombian counterparts in…
As COVID-19 threatened the well-being of the populations they depend on for criminal income, it was largely in the interest of criminal groups to try and keep the pandemic under…
A rush of drug plane traffic from South America, coupled with traffickers smuggling large cocaine shipments after coronavirus border restrictions eased, led to a surge in narcotics transiting Central America…
In a region where 50 percent of the population already makes its living in the informal market, it was perhaps of little surprise that black markets exploded in 2020 amidst…
President-elect Joe Biden has a chance to reset the table on US-Latin American relations, but the Donald Trump administration’s schizophrenic, transactional approach may leave some lasting scars that will be…