Weekly InSight
March 31, 2023 ([link removed])

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This week, InSight Crime explores the routes ([link removed]) used by drug traffickers to move highly-potent “creepy” marijuana from Colombia’s Cauca department through Venezuela, a country that has historically served as a springboard to supply regional markets. Venezuela’s strategic location, and the corrupt authorities that protect trafficking groups like the Camacaro Cartel and the Acacio Medina Front ([link removed]) , help marijuana reach the Caribbean, Central America, and Brazil, where it fetches a far higher price.

We also analyze the killing ([link removed]) by Venezuelan security forces of “El Conejo,” one of Venezuela’s most wanted criminals, who had ties to politicians. We review the clashes between Chapitos ([link removed]) and the Caborca Cartel in Sonora, Mexico, where both groups seek to control ([link removed]) drug trafficking routes to the United States, and we examine criticism ([link removed]) of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) operations by former and current US officials.


** Featured
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** Venezuela Becomes Colombia's 'Creepy' Marijuana Drug Corridor ([link removed])
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Seizures of marijuana shipments on Venezuela's coast and along its border with Colombia have underscored the country's role as an important corridor for a particular type of Colombian cannabis flooding Latin America's markets.

In early March, Colombian National Police seized 2.5 tons of marijuana from a truck carrying kitchen utensils and plastic furniture in the municipality of Maicao, in the border department of La Guajira, on the Colombia-Venezuela border.

Read the investigation > ([link removed])


** NewsAnalysis
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All News ([link removed]) >
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** Venezuela Kills Gang Leader Whose Political Connections Were 'Open Secret' ([link removed])
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Venezuelan security forces have killed one of the country’s most-wanted criminals, “El Conejo” (The Rabbit). Despite...

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** Caborca Cartel Resists Los Chapitos in Sonora, Mexico ([link removed])
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A bloody confrontation between the Caborca Cartel and the Chapitos in Sonora, Mexico, has revealed the...

DEA Criticized for Tame Review of Foreign Operations ([link removed])
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Colombia's Peace Process Stumbles as Gaitanista Ceasefire Ends ([link removed])


** Impact
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What We Do ([link removed]) >


** The Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory Continues to Be a Benchmark in the Region
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Our extensive coverage of criminal activity in the border areas between Venezuela and Colombia has been referenced in a report ([link removed]) by the Colombia-Venezuela RADAR project of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Venezuela Observatory of the Universidad del Rosario. In the border territories section, the report makes use on multiple occasions of our research on the presence of criminal actors in the states of Zulia, Táchira, Apure, and Amazonas.
Visit the Venezuela Organized Crime Observatory > ([link removed])

In addition, Co-director Steven Dudley spoke with Christopher Hernandez-Roy on the 35 West ([link removed]) podcast, produced by the CSIS Americas Program, about anti-gang repression and gang violence in El Salvador.

Read our coverage of El Salvador > ([link removed])


** Criminal Actors
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Profiles of some of the notable criminal personalities and groups that have marked this week.

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** Chapitos ([link removed])
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The now-jailed former Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo,” reportedly had...
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** Acacio Medina Front ([link removed])
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The Acacio Medina Front is a dissident group that emerged from the Revolutionary...


** Media Mentions
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MARCH 28, 2023
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"Ecuador, which is sandwiched between Colombia and Peru - seen as the world's biggest cocaine producers - has become a focus of the global drug trade in recent years, according to the research group InSight Crime."
Read the cited investigation > ([link removed])


** Our Trending Topics
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