This week, we investigate how Venezuela’s protracted economic crisis and rampant dollarization have fed a national demand for counterfeit dollars. Criminal groups in neighboring Colombia and Peru have ramped up their counterfeit production to supply this demand and transformed useless Venezuelan bolivars in the process.
In Colombia, we speak to “Jerónimo,” the spokesperson of the Shottas gang, one of the two groups involved in peace talks with the Gustavo Petro government in the Pacific port city of Buenaventura, a principal departure point for drugs. And in the department of Cauca, we examine why the killings of social leaders are at their highest since 2016.
We also ask whether the capture of Venezuelan crime boss, Guillermo Rafael Boscán Bracho, alias “Yiyi,” in Argentina signals a turning of the tide for other Venezuelan gang leaders abroad and explore the Chilean government's attempts to take back public space from organized crime by tearing down narco-mausoleums.
