Venezuela's prisons have failed to stop the country's most dangerous criminals, these can run criminal empires from behind bars.
Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, has gradually become one of South America's main criminal threats, with Chile its latest target.
Ketamine has become all but the most popular synthetic drug in Chile, as traffickers are increasingly marketing ketamine to buyers as Tusi.
Elements of the Venezuelan underworld, whether drug cartels, street gangs or illegal mining groups, have hit upon a unique way of establishing social control:…
Authorities in Chile are on high alert due to reports that a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua is involved in migrant smuggling in the country, further evidence of…
Weeks after reports emerged of the suicide of a notorious Venezuelan prison gang boss in Colombia, authorities have confirmed the death of Edwin Ramón Soto Nava – a death that…
Political support from career criminals is usually a matter of skulduggery and campaign finance. But one prison gang in Venezuela broke with tradition, releasing a video in which its members…
Venezuela has long been known as a strategic rearguard for Colombia guerrilla groups. Yet 2020 saw the acceleration of a newer dynamic: Venezuelan gangs now rival their Colombian counterparts in…
The Tren de Aragua is Venezuela’s most powerful local "megabanda," or large criminal gangs with more than 100 members. This group is largely based out of the Tocorón prison in…
Members of Venezuela's large and dangerous Tren del Aragua gang are actively trying to expand their group's influence in the Brazilian prisons where they are incarcerated. …
The arrest of members from a major Venezuelan gang, the Tren de Aragua, in the border state of Táchira reveals the expansion of this powerful group into what is already one…
About InSight Crime
InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board
This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…
InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan
InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…
InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation
Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…
Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper
Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…
InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate
This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…
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