Bands of mineral thieves in Bolivia are sending recruiters to employ vulnerable workers to rob one of the state-owned ore mining companies.
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.
Colombian authorities have discovered that an important water resource is under threat from illegal mining in a rural area of Cúcuta, revealing that the region is dealing with far more…
What do such distant countries as Venezuela, the Bahamas, Ireland, Morocco, Dubai and Turkey have in common? They were all part of the trade routes for illicit Venezuelan gold in…
Imaging compiled by the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) shows how in 2018 medium scale deforestation affected huge swaths of rainforest in Peru’s central and southern jungle…
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…
Drug trafficking, battles between state forces and armed groups, extortion and illegal gold mining have transformed southern Venezuela into a region where citizens live in a parallel state ruled by…
The largest gold deposit in Ecuador is in the hands of organized crime. At the end of 2017, while authorities in the northern province of Imbabura were working on the…
It is hard to be optimistic for 2019. The current trends all point to a strengthening of organized crime throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, as the criminals adapt far…
Two years after the signing of a peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC, Colombia’s forests are under siege and experiencing heightened levels of deforestation promoted by various…
Dozens of massacres and a sprawling organized crime structure are behind a recent alliance between the governments of Venezuela and Turkey to extract, refine and market the "blood gold" that…
The recent massacre of seven people in one of Venezuela’s mining regions may confirm that the Colombia guerrilla group ELN is expanding its criminal activities into the south of Venezuela,…
About InSight Crime
Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua Becomes Truly Transnational
This week, InSight Crime published a deep dive into the total control that Venezuelan mega-gang, Tren de Aragua, has over the lives of those it smuggles between Venezuela and Chile…
Turkish Traffickers Delivering Latin American Cocaine to Persian Gulf
Last week, InSight Crime published the second half of an investigation piecing together the emerging role of Turkish cocaine traffickers in supplying Russia and the Persian Gulf, which are among…
Turkey as a Lynchpin in European Cocaine Pipeline
InSight Crime is extending its investigation into the cocaine pipeline to Europe, and tracking the growing connections between Latin American drug traffickers and European criminal organizations. This led us to…
Memo Fantasma Coverage Gets Worldwide Attention
Guillermo Acevedo, the former Colombian drug lord and paramilitary commander better known as Memo Fantasma, may soon be allowed to leave prison. Since first revealing the identity of Memo Fantasma…
Who Are Memo Fantasma and Sergio Roberto de Carvalho?
Inside the criminal career of Memo Fantasma In March 2020, InSight Crime revealed the identity and whereabouts of Memo Fantasma, a paramilitary commander and drug trafficker living in…
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