Weekly InSight

This week, InSight Crime analyzes the nuances behind the rise in women imprisoned for organized crime in Mexico, which can be traced to various factors such as gender-based violence and economic precarity.


We also cover how expanding human trafficking rings put Venezuelan women increasingly at risk of sexual exploitation; the Drug Enforcement Administration’s misplaced focus on defeating Mexican cartels in order to tackle the fentanyl crisis; Argentinian President Javier Milei’s conflicting economic and security policies in Rosario; and how flight attendants shifted millions of dollars of drug money in their suitcases.

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New data on Mexico’s female prison population suggests a rise in the number of women behind bars for involvement with criminal groups. However, a detailed analysis reveals a more nuanced reality.


Data published by Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía de México – INEGI) shows that between 2017 and 2022, the number of women either sentenced or in pretrial detention for offenses associated with organized crime* grew from 9,754 to 11,295, an increase in the prison rate from 15 per 100,000 people to 17 per 100,000 people. 


Read the article here > 

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InSight Crime’s Podcast

This week, InSight Crime’s Alicia Flórez and Lara Loaiza partnered with the Latin American feminist journalism platform Volcánicas, writing an article called, “After Femicides: The Women Endlessly Persecuted in Tibú, Colombia.” The article builds on Alicia and Lara’s previous InSight Crime investigation, The Informants of Tibú: How the Colombian State Unleashed a Wave of Femicides. 


The article highlights the enduring threat of violence for women caught in the crosshairs of legal and illegal armed groups in Tibú, a municipality in Norte de Santander, Colombia.


Read the Volcánicas article >

Read the Tibú investigation >

The Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) is an organized criminal group that emerged in the state of Jalisco in the 2010s as a result of the fragmentation of other crime groups. The CJNG used extreme violence to expand across Mexico, reflected by its assault on the Zetas criminal organization in Veracruz along with multiple high-profile attacks on security officials. Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, alias “El Mencho,” who is considered the group’s founder and leader, remains one of the most wanted and elusive men in Mexico. 


In early May, Francisco Pulido Coracero, alias “Don Puli” or “Pepino,” allegedly one of the main suppliers of fentanyl precursor chemicals to the CJNG, was extradited to the United States. The illicit fentanyl trade has become the main staple of the CJNG’s operations over recent years. In addition, violence has flared between the CJNG and the Sinaloa Cartel as they battle for control of the state of Chiapas, the strategic heart of human trafficking and a hotspot for extortion and kidnapping. 

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