Nicaragua's Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, on the southern border with Costa Rica, is under assault.
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…
A recent operation in northern Brazil has put a spotlight on the country’s often overlooked illegal diamond trade, but authorities are only scratching the surface of the fast-growing criminal economy.
Peruvian authorities have destroyed yet another illegal mining site in one of the nation’s most popular national parks, but the ongoing failure of official efforts to target this trade strongly…
The jaguar’s head slumps over the back of an all-terrain vehicle. A lifeless paw outstretched above a large muddied tire provides a glimpse of its former mass and power.
Four Indigenous leaders in Peru's Amazon have been murdered since the government declared a state of emergency over COVID-19, revealing how their opposition to illegal logging, mining and drug trafficking…
Raids across Costa Rica have exposed a web of front companies filtering illegally mined gold to the United States, in the kind of multimillion-dollar laundering scheme not typically associated with…
Recent incursions by the ELN to set up illegal mining facilities along the Caura River in central Venezuela are being seen as a threat by local Indigenous communities.
Miners in Peru have skirted coronavirus mobility restrictions to return to Madre de Dios -- an Amazon region where the military launched a massive 2019 operation to root out illegal…
Recent investigations in Colombia have found that government leaders and landowners in Colombia's department of Guaviare have teamed up to illegally deforest the Amazon in quest for mutual profit.
Social leaders across Colombia were murdered at an almost unprecedented rate in 2019, and for a wide range of causes. Criminal gangs seeking to protect their illegal economies, such as…
Satellite images show that while military operations against illegal mining in Peru's Madre de Dios region might be paying off, the same fight is not being waged in other parts…