Weekly InSight

This week, InSight Crime published an investigation from Mexico, where authorities are struggling to tackle illicit money flows linked to the synthetic drug boom. $44 billion is thought to be laundered through Mexico’s economy annually, yet prosecutions are exceedingly rare. 


In Colombia, official negotiations between the government and the leaders of some of the country’s largest armed groups fractured further; gangs, corruption and human smuggling present Panama’s newly elected president with immediate challenges; drug trafficking spikes in Southern Spain; US prosecutors charge a purported member of the Cartier family with using cryptocurrency to launder drug profits; and what lessons can be learned from Canada’s ongoing fentanyl epidemic.

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In 2021, Mexican authorities captured an Asian-Mexican businessman at a Mexican port and seized 23 tons of drugs. The shipping manifest said the businessman was importing “calcium chloride,” but lab results later showed that part of the cargo was fentanyl, the deadly synthetic opioid responsible for tens of thousands of overdoses per year in North America. 


Authorities said they also found cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine, as well as other types of unspecified items. And although they did not disclose the amount of each drug they seized, investigators from Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit (Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera — UIF) said the network included the businessman, his wife, his daughter, and a series of associates spread across a wide geographic swath.


Read the investigation >

Colombian President Gustavo Petro is being forced to confront the possibility that his flagship security policy, Total Peace (Paz Total), may only have partial peace in its sights.


National-level peace talks have broken down between the government and two of the armed groups in the most advanced stages of negotiations, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) and the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC), a dissident group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Petro’s negotiators are now engaging with individual blocs or fronts around the country, rather than solely dealing with the national leadership of the two groups. 


Read the article here > 

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This week, InSight Crime and Universidad Iberoamericana hosted a conference on synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals in Mexico City. The event brought together investigators, experts, and policymakers to explore the precursor chemical supply chain, fentanyl’s impact on organized crime and the effects of synthetic drugs on society and the environment in Mexico and beyond.


InSight Crime continues to offer authoritative coverage of all angles of the continued boom in synthetic drugs. The latest chapter of our 11-part investigation into synthetic drugs in Mexico outlined the methods used by criminal groups to finance precursor chemicals and launder money while successfully evading the scrutiny of Mexico’s financial authorities. 


Watch the event > 

Read our synthetic drugs report >

The Monos are an organized criminal group that has operated for over 20 years in the Argentine city of Rosario. Sophisticated relationships with security forces and local elites, along with their use of violence, have led to the Monos becoming the most powerful criminal outfit in Argentina. Rosario is now the most violent city in Argentina and is a strategic transit point for shipments of marijuana and cocaine coming from neighboring Bolivia and Paraguay.


This week, the prosecution of the Monos’ already imprisoned leader, Ariel Máximo Cantero, alias “Guille,” underscored how incarceration alone is rarely successful in impeding the activities of criminal groups. On May 7, 2024, Guille was prosecuted for drug trafficking involving a minor (his now-18-year old daughter) and for ordering attacks against heads of the federal penitentiary. Guille has frequently evaded security measures to call the shots from behind bars, often using phone calls with his daughter to organize attacks and influence the Monos’ operations.

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