El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has credited his crime-fighting plan for a 60 percent drop in homicides this year. But the country’s violent street gangs deserve some -- if not…
The US indictment of an MS13 leader in El Salvador chronicles the latest failure of the infamous street gang to transform itself into a more sophisticated, transnational drug trafficking organization.
Salvadoran authorities have arrested General David Munguía Payés, a former defense minister who spearheaded a controversial truce between the government of former president Mauricio Funes, the MS13 gang, and the…
Last week, with great fanfare, the US government for the first time levied terrorism charges against a little known MS13 gang leader, but the indictment comes off more like a…
An MS13 cell wired several Honduran neighborhoods on the outskirts of San Pedro Sula with surveillance cameras -- an inventive use of technology to perform an age-old gang function.
Deadly violence within female prisons in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador is rare. But a spate of recent murders in a Honduran prison appears to be a warning sign that…
The entrance to the Honduran border town of Camasca is well guarded. A column of the army’s special forces stops vehicles along the paved road that winds through the mountains…
El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has lashed out after several days of bloodshed amid a coronavirus lockdown, blaming the spike in killings on gangs. But in doing so, he has…
An MS13 linked gang in El Salvador known as the Black Widows has been convicted of forcing women to marry men and then killing their new husbands as part of a complex…
The second season of Showtime’s The Trade comes out March 6, and this time around the award-winning documentary series is doing a deep-dive into the criminal activities surrounding…
A tactical military-style operation allegedly carried out by suspected gang members succeeded in freeing a high-profile MS13 leader jailed in Honduras, but serious questions remain about who may have been…
The evidence used to indict several high-ranking politicians in El Salvador for negotiating with gangs has been around for years, raising questions about why prosecutors are bringing the cases now,…
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InSight Crime Events – Border Crime: The Northern Triangle and Tri-Border Area
Through several rounds of extensive field investigations, our researchers have analyzed and mapped out the main illicit economies and criminal groups present in 39 border departments spread across the six countries of study – the Northern Triangle trio of Guatemala, Honduras, and El…
InSight Crime’s ‘Memo Fantasma’ Investigation Wins Simón Bolívar National Journalism Prize
The staff at InSight Crime was awarded the prestigious Simón Bolívar national journalism prize in Colombia for its two-year investigation into the drug trafficker known as “Memo Fantasma,” which was…
InSight Crime – From Uncovering Organized Crime to Finding What Works
This project began 10 years ago as an effort to address a problem: the lack of daily coverage, investigative stories and analysis of organized crime in the Americas. …
InSight Crime – Ten Years of Investigating Organized Crime in the Americas
In early 2009, Steven Dudley was in Medellín, Colombia. His assignment: speak to a jailed paramilitary leader in the Itagui prison, just south of the city. Following his interview inside…
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