Weekly InSight

This week,  InSight Crime analyzes how Ecuador’s police, army, and prison system must confront underfunding and corruption amid an escalating security crisis. The two candidates participating in the runoff of presidential elections, Luisa González and Daniel Noboa, have rejected mano dura policies, but a failure to bring the country’s security problems under control could spur calls for a harsher approach.

We also investigate an increase in money laundering cases tied to drug trafficking in Uruguay, where a lack of investments in prevention, detection, and prosecution of financial crimes have left the country particularly vulnerable to this crime.  

In Colombia, we explore the renewed negotiations between the government and the ex-FARC mafia’s Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC). Peace talks may have little chance of reducing violence, since a ceasefire with the government does not mean any halt to confrontations among criminal groups. 

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Are Ecuador’s Army, Police, and Prisons Beyond Reform?

The state of Ecuador’s security institutions and their inability to halt runaway criminal violence has been a central theme of the country’s ongoing presidential campaign. But facing underfunding and corruption, there are doubts about whether substantial reforms are possible. 

Since outgoing President Guillermo Lasso took office in 2021, violence has risen by over 300%, by far the most significant increase in Latin America. As violence has accelerated, Lasso has begun relying on the army to confront criminal gangs, with little success to date. 

Read the article here > 

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 September 4. The investigators explained how InSight Crime was granted unprecedented access to the prison prior to the June massacre that left at least 46 inmates dead, and how we incorporated a gender perspective into our exploration of growing tensions between the Barrio 18 and MS13 gangs. 

Listen to the discussion > 

Read the investigation here > 

This Week's Criminal Profile: Ex FARC Mafia - EMC

The Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central - EMC) is one of the two main factions, along with Second Marquetalia, of the Ex-FARC Mafia: a series of criminal structures that emerged during and after peace negotiations between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) guerrillas in 2016.  

EMC controls various criminal operations, in particular related to drug trafficking, in the central, southern, eastern, and western regions of Colombia. They are also present in Venezuela. 

Coming Soon

     *Please note that this event will be conducted in Spanish.

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