On June 23, 2015, Jaime Alexander Monge and Larry Jesus Navarete were talking on the phone. Monge was in Arkansas. Navarete was in the California state penitentiary system. The two…
In our February 8 Facebook Live session, Senior Investigator Héctor Silva Ávalos and Senior Editor Mike LaSusa discussed the release of a major, groundbreaking investigation by InSight Crime that delves…
This week, Guatemala’s new interior minister asked Congress to reform the penal code in order to designate the country’s gang members as terrorists, a seemingly unlikely request in the…
A former El Salvador mayor has become the country’s first mayor to be convicted of illicit association with gangs, a small step toward addressing the widespread problem of gang infiltration…
President Donald Trump used his first State of the Union Address to blame the expansion and violence of the MS13 gang in the US on the "deadly loopholes" in the…
Authorities in the United States indicted several alleged members of the MS13 gang, offering a detailed look into how these cliques function outside of their traditional strongholds in Central…
When US President Donald Trump put the MS13 gang at the center of his domestic security narrative this year, he equated the threat posed by the group to that…
Welcome to InSight Crime’s GameChangers 2017, where we highlight the most important trends in organized crime in the Americas over the course of the year. If 2015 and 2016 were…
The Salvadoran government is assuring that there exists a profound division within the Mara Salvatrucha, provoked by a dissident group, MS503 or ‘Programa 503’. Every time there is a…
Powerful statements made by a member of one of El Salvador’s most notorious gangs to the New York Times illustrate the group’s violent approach and its current war…
Respondents to a recent survey in El Salvador were far more likely to believe that gangs -- not government officials -- "rule" the country, underscoring how the state's failure…
The administration of US President Donald Trump has announced that it plans to end to a migration policy known as Temporary Protected Status for 2,500 Nicaraguans, while 60,000 Hondurans have…
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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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