Weekly InSight

This week, InSight Crime investigates the human cost of Ecuador’s crackdown on gangs,  uncovering torture and abuse inflicted by the armed forces on prisoners as a part of the country’s state of emergency. 


We also analyze the factors limiting Ecuador’s ability to curb gang violence in the strategic city of Durán, examine the data behind the resurgence of a black market for vehicle parts in São Paulo, explore Venezuela’s struggle to uproot entrenched gang control structures in its prisons, and highlight the causes behind a drop in fentanyl overdose deaths in the United States. 


This and more below.

Latest Investigation

When the military entered Latacunga prison in Cotopaxi, Ecuador on the afternoon of January 14, the inmates knew they were coming. The day before, the gang that ran the prison, the Lobos, had released the guards they had taken hostage and word had got around that the soldiers were coming in to clean house. 


But no one was prepared for what followed.


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InSight Crime’s expertise on the cocaine trade continues to enrich discussions on the industry throughout global media. The Guardian utilized InSight Crime’s investigation, The Cocaine Pipeline to Europe, to depict cocaine trafficking routes to Europe, while the BBC enlisted the expertise of InSight Crime’s Sergio Saffon to outline the volatile relationship between cocaine’s ever-growing global demand and the local dynamics of coca leaf production in Latin America. 


Read the investigation>

This Week's Criminal Profile: MS13

On June 11, United States authorities captured Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios, an alleged member of MS13’s National Council (Ranfla Nacional). This is the latest of a string of arrests targeting the gang’s leadership structure on charges of terrorism. MS13 has a transnational presence of loosely organized cells, with its strongest concentration in the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

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