Alto Paraná, Paraguay
Alto Paraná is home to some of Paraguay’s most dynamic criminal economies. Contraband goods continue to flood Brazil and Argentina via Ciudad del Este and surrounding river routes.
Amambay is at the heart of Paraguay’s most worrying organized crime trends: cocaine trafficking, marijuana production, and the rise of violent criminal groups.
As COVID-19 threatened the well-being of the populations they depend on for criminal income, it was largely in the interest of criminal groups to try and keep the pandemic under…
New details have emerged about the sophisticated criminal operations of a Red Command leader who once operated in the Argentina-Brazil border region. Such isolated incidents, however, are not an indication…
Recent operations in Brazil against the country’s two leading gangs, the PCC and Red Command, show that authorities are varying up their tactics but may still struggle to have a…
A number of criminal groups across Latin America are ordering ceasefires and exerting control over local communities as fears of the coronavirus sweep across the region, raising questions about the…
The city of Manaus has awoken red in recent weeks: the painting of the Red Command gang's insignia "CV" on its walls, the chanting of "Vermelho" (red) from its largest…
Colombia’s last rebel army is now the most powerful criminal syndicate in Latin America, as it expands across Colombia and far into Venezuela, deepening its involvement in the drug trade.
The recent arrest of a purported Brazilian criminal gang boss, as well as a number of collaborators, including police, along the Brazil-Paraguay border has revealed a complicated problem: nobody knows…
Nearly two dozen police officers in Paraguay are accused of protecting a transnational drug smuggling ring led by a Brazilian trafficker, providing renewed evidence of the profound corruption within the…
A gruesome prison massacre in northern Brazil has raised serious questions about potential shifts in criminal alliances in a highly strategic region of this South American nation.
Argentina, Chile and Brazil are struggling with increased demand for smuggled cigarettes, as these provide major revenue for criminal groups and result in massive tax losses for national governments.
A turf war among the founders of Familia do Norte, northern Brazil’s most powerful crime group, has left dozens of prisoners dead and will have major implications for criminal gang…