The sinking of two boats sailing from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago has unveiled a criminal ring implicating high-level law enforcement officials in the trafficking of migrants and children for…
A violent criminal gang known as "La Línea" has triggered several deadly shootouts in battles with other armed groups seeking to control remote trails near the main border crossing between…
In Panama, women in the sex trade are exposed to monetary and sexual extortion by corrupt police officers. But a new prosecution system has gone some way to reducing this…
Financial extortion in El Salvador spares neither women nor men. But women simultaneously suffer from a more insidious form of extortion shaped by the threat of sexual violence that blurs…
A visit to a women’s prison in the city of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, shows the increasing role that women play in extortion rackets. The ubiquity of extortion markets in urban, poor…
A new report about prisons in Venezuela shows how women have begun to assume criminal leadership roles within prisons, adopting positions usually associated with the "pranes", prison gangs supported by…
While Colombia bears the brunt of the Venezuelan exodus in terms of sheer numbers, several islands of the Caribbean, like Trinidad and Tobago, are being battered by a criminal hurricane…
Authorities in Peru have launched a largescale operation aimed at driving out illegal gold mining and other illicit activities in the Madre de Dios region, but similar operations have…
At 15, you are a woman, a gang member for the Barrio 18, in a marginal barrio of Honduras. You have kids, you are jailed, police abuse you and you question…
The use of protected witnesses by El Salvador’s Attorney General’s Office increased by 15 times in the last 11 years. The case of a young woman accused by her boyfriend…
Although human trafficking continues to surge on the continent, improved legislation and the investment in social platforms are leading to higher human trafficking conviction rates in parts of Latin America.
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…