This week, InSight Crime takes readers to a town on Guatemala’s Pacific coast whose bloody politics is fueled by the cocaine trade.

Weekly InSight
February 5, 2021 ([link removed])
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This week, InSight Crime takes readers to a town on Guatemala’s Pacific coast whose bloody politics is fueled by the cocaine trade. The investigation is the first in a six-part series on crime and corruption in Latin America’s infamous tri-border regions: the Northern Triangle of Central America and the Tri-Border Area of South America. In other news, a dozen police officers -- some members of a US-trained special forces unit -- have been charged in the massacre of 19 people in Mexico; Latin America’s “gota a gota” (drip-by-drip) loan sharks take advantage of people trying to stay afloat amid the pandemic; and Guatemala’s political elites stack the country’s highest court with a judge accused of obstruction of justice.


** Featured
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** A Mayor and a Wave of Narco Violence on Guatemala’s Pacific ([link removed])
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On the night of May 28, 2017, an El Salvador Navy vessel was on routine patrol ([link removed]) when its crew tracked down a fishing boat just over 200 nautical miles south of Acajutla, a seaport city on the country’s Pacific coast. The fishing boat tried to flee the patrol and began off-loading cargo into the ocean. After a short chase, the Navy caught the ship and boarded the vessel. In all, they found 840 kilograms of cocaine ([link removed]) on the ship and in the water.

Worth $21 million in the retail drug market, according to estimates made by Salvadoran authorities, the operation made headlines in El Salvador as the Navy’s biggest cocaine seizure ([link removed]) . The news then spread to neighboring Guatemala, where local press noted that among those arrested ([link removed]) by El Salvador authorities was the brother of Carlos Roberto Marroquín Fuentes, the mayor of Moyuta, a municipality in the southeastern Jutiapa province, just over an hour’s drive from Acajutla.

Read the investigation > ([link removed])

On Tuesday, February 16, InSight Crime will hold its next seminar on cross-border criminal dynamics in Central America’s Northern Triangle and the Southern Cone’s Tri-Border Area. This time we focus on Honduras, mapping criminal actors and illicit economies through our interactive dashboard ([link removed]) to show how cocaine trafficking has evolved in the country’s border departments with El Salvador and Guatemala. InSight Crime will also present its new investigation into how organized crime has infiltrated the highest levels of Honduras’s ruling National Party. The discussion kicks off at 3 p.m. Honduras Time. And if you missed this week’s discussion on Guatemala, you can view a recording in English ([link removed]) or Spanish ([link removed]) .

Sign up for the event > ([link removed])


** NewsAnalysis
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All News ([link removed]) >
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** US-Trained Police Implicated in Mexico Migrant Massacre ([link removed])
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A dozen police officers have been implicated in the massacre of 19 people along the US-Mexico border at the end of January...

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** Loan Sharks Circle as Latin America Reels From Pandemic ([link removed])
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As workers across Latin America struggle to stay afloat amid economic strain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, loan sharks offering...

Political Elites Seek Again to Infiltrate Guatemala’s High Court ([link removed])
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Guatemala’s Anti-Extortion Plan: A Legacy of Unkept Promises ([link removed])
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** Criminal Actors
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Profiles of some of the notable criminal personalities and groups that have marked this week.

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** MS13 ([link removed])
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The Mara Salvatrucha, or MS13, is perhaps the most notorious street gang in the Western Hemisphere. While it has its...
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** Zetas ([link removed])
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Beginning as a group of deserters from an elite unit of the armed forces at the service of the Gulf Cartel, the Zetas would go on...


** Media Mentions
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About Us ([link removed])
FEBRUARY 3, 2021
BREAKING BELIZE NEWS ([link removed])
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"Belize still remains among the top ten for murders in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to InSight Crime’s Homicide Round-up."
Read the cited article > ([link removed])


** Impact
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** Leading the Debate on Mexico's Security Landscape
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On January 26, InSight Crime Co-director Steven Dudley moderated a panel of journalists for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars' 9th Annual ([link removed]) US-Mexico Security Conference. Dudley, a former Wilson Center fellow, led a discussion on major organized crime trends and violence in Mexico. The panel included Deborah Bonello, a senior editor of Latin America for VICE and a former InSight Crime investigator; Ioan Grillo, a journalist and author of “Gangster Warlords: Drug Dollars, Killing Fields, and the New Politics of Latin America” (Bloomsbury 2016); and Angela Kocherga, the news director at KTEP and Borderzine, and the multimedia editor at ElPasoMatters.org ([link removed]) .
View a recording of the panel > ([link removed])

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** Our Trending Topics
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