Weekly InSight

This week, InSight Crime investigates the increasing violence in Tapachula, a Mexican city on the border with Guatemala, which acts as a vital staging post for migrants traveling from Central America to the United States. Once a relatively calm city where criminality was controlled by MS13 and Barrio 18, Mexico’s major criminal organizations, the Sinaloa Cartel and CJNG, are now battling for supremacy, and lucrative migration routes. 

We also examine the claims of the Venezuelan government that they have dismantled the Tren de Aragua, given the return to operation of small gangs in Aragua, the mega-gang’s home state.

In addition, we analyze the data behind record marijuana seizures during the response to major floods in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; review what the attempted assassination of family members of Colombia’s vice president says about the security situation in the country’s southwest; and outline the key takeaways of the latest European Union drugs report. 

This and more below.

Latest Investigation

Vortex of Evil: Gangs and Narcos in Tapachula, Mexico

Sitting on a rock in a street on the outskirts of Tapachula, on Mexico’s southern border, Poison and Malandro share a cigarette as they reminisce. They met just two weeks before but have been inseparable since. Like countless other migrants who’ve settled in Tapachula, they were part of the gang wars in Central America before fleeing to Mexico. 

This friendship could never have formed if they had met in El Salvador, where Poison is from, or Honduras, where Malandro grew up. In those places, they would have likely taken out a pistol, a machete, or a knife, and drawn blood.

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Tren de Aragua Factions Persist Despite Venezuela’s Crackdown

Gangs allied to Venezuela’s mega-gang, Tren de Aragua, remain operational despite multiple security operations against it, calling into question the Venezuelan government’s declaration that it dismantled the major criminal organization.

On June 4, officers from Venezuela’s criminal investigation unit (Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas, Penales y Criminalísticas – CICPC) arrested three alleged extortionists from the criminal gang, the Negritos. The gang operates in the San Vicente’s neighborhood of Maracay, the capital of Aragua state, and one of Tren de Aragua’s operational centers.

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In an interview with Diálogo Político, InSight Crime co-founder Steven Dudley and investigator Lara Loaiza provided an in-depth panorama of organized crime in Latin America. 

The interview analyzed the evolution of criminal groups and industries in the region, examined the spike in violence in Ecuador, evaluated the effectiveness of the United States’ so-called war on drugs, and discussed President Nayib Bukele’s model for fighting crime in El Salvador. 

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This Week's Criminal Profile: The First Capital Command - PCC

Last week, police in São Paulo carried out an operation targeting a network of 78 hotels allegedly owned by the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando do Capital - PCC) and run as storehouses to facilitate drug trafficking. 

The hotel network reflects the scale and sophistication of the PCC, which increasingly exploits licit industries such as housing and municipal contracts to operate criminal industries in Brazil. The PCC controls drug trafficking in São Paulo and traffics drugs outside of the country.

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