Weekly InSight

This week, InSight Crime published the 2023 Cocaine Seizure Round-Up, our highly anticipated annual report. Over 1,260 tons of cocaine were seized in Latin America in 2023, reflecting record cocaine production and continued strong demand. 


In Ecuador, a still-developing corruption case has revealed links between organized crime and the judiciary. 


In Peru, a verdict is near in the emblematic trial of five illegal loggers who brutally murdered indigenous leaders from the town of Saweto in the Peruvian Amazon in 2014. 


In Mexico, the prohibition on fentanyl production by Chapitos faction of the Sinaloa Cartel has pushed cooks in Culiacán to migrate production north.


And in Honduras, InSight Crime talks to Lester Ramírez to learn whether the guilty verdict of ex-President Juan Orlando Hernández will do anything to help clean up the country’s corrupt political and judicial system. 


This and more below.

Surinamese drug trafficker Brian Blue remains at large months after InSight Crime exposed his suspected ties to the country’s vice president, showcasing his ability to stay off the radar of Surinamese authorities despite his rising international profile.


Three months after InSight Crime revealed that a US Drug Enforcement Administration special agent suspected that Suriname’s Vice President Ronnie Brunswijk had intervened in an August 2020 drug bust linked to Blue, Suriname authorities have not announced any investigation into the trafficker. 


Read the article here > 

InSight Crime’s investigation, Moskitia: the Honduran Jungle Drowning in Cocaine, has won the Ortega and Gasset Award in the category of Best Story or Journalistic Investigation 2023.

 

The investigation, written by Juan José Martínez and Bryan Avelar explores the legacy of drug trafficking in the Moskitia region of Honduras, where violent land grabs at the hands of individuals allied with criminal groups are displacing indigenous populations. This three-part series chronicles the lives of the Miskitos fighting for survival, and bears witness to the savage capitalism that is destroying one of the region’s most pristine and unique ecosystems.


The jury highlighted "the completeness of the report that covers transversal topics of our time, such as drug trafficking, the environment, or the threat that looms over ancestral cultures." The report "thoroughly describes day-to-day life in a region devastated by drugs and forgotten by institutions," they added. 


Read the investigation >

Tren de Aragua is Venezuela’s most powerful gang. Once based primarily in Tocorón prison in Venezuela’s state of Aragua, the group has gradually expanded throughout Latin America. In September 2023, the gang’s leader, Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, alias “Niño Guerrero,” escaped Tocorón prison during a raid, allegedly after receiving a tip-off from authorities. His whereabouts remain unknown. 


In contrast, Niño Guerrero’s brother, Gerso Isaac Guerrero Flores, recently turned up in Barcelona, Spain. He was arrested on March 14 and the Venezuelan government promptly filed a request for his extradition. The arrest raises questions as to what Flores was doing in Europe and whether his detention will do anything to help track down Niño Guerrero himself.

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