Weekly InSight
This week, InSight Crime highlights a trifecta of security challenges facing Peru’s new president. Political corruption is rampant. The remote region known as the VRAEM, where 16 people were massacred just weeks ago, is blanketed in coca crops. And miners are tearing down the Andean nation’s Amazon forest at an alarming rate.

In other news from the region, El Salvador’s anti-corruption commission ends like those in Honduras and Guatemala. Argentina’s waters are plundered by illegal fishing fleets. And Brazil’s city of Manaus – a key cocaine transit point through the Amazon – is ablaze after the killing of a Red Command gang leader. 

Featured

3 Security Challenges Facing Peru’s Incoming President

In arguably the most polarizing election Peru has seen in its history, voters have selected, by a razor-thin margin, a leftist rural school teacher over the daughter of a former dictator to be the Andean nation’s next president, a position that will come with a series of pressing security issues.

Pedro Castillo of the Peru Libre party appears to have won with just over 50 percent of the June 6 runoff vote to beat out the right-wing candidate and former congresswoman Keiko Fujimori, according to official data from the National Electoral Office (Oficina Nacional de Procesos Electorales - ONPE).

Read the analysis >

NewsAnalysis

Chinese Fishing Fleet Still Baits Argentina


China’s distant-water fishing fleet is once again engaging in suspicious and potentially illegal fishing near Argentine waters, demonstrating the limits of both regional and Chinese... 

Could Militia-Red Command Feud Explain Manaus Violence in Brazil?


Manaus, the economic heart of Brazil’s Amazon, has come under siege from the Red Command gang...
Coup de Grâce for El Salvador's Anti-Corruption Commission
Loophole Spurs Large-Scale Land Grabs in Brazil
Land Restitution: A Dangerous Job in Colombia
Florida's Gun Traffickers Supplying Brazil's Largest Gang
Why Mexico’s National Guard Remains Vastly Unqualified
Nicaragua Government Weaponizes Criminal Charges to Block Opposition

Criminal Actors
Profiles of some of the notable criminal personalities and groups that have marked this week.

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Shining Path

The Shining Path or the Militarized Communist Party (Militarizado Partido Comunista - MPC) is the last remnant of...

Red Command

The Red Command (Comando Vermelho) is Brazil’s oldest criminal group, created in a Rio de Janeiro prison in the...

Media Mentions
MAY 28, 2021
WORLD POLITICS REVIEW
"As a recent article in InSight Crime put it, ‘ This appears to be the latest, and arguably the most blatant, example of Guatemala protecting powerful elites from criminal prosecution and attacking anti-corruption crusaders instead.’ "

Impact

Combating Environmental Crime in Colombia

 
In a special briefing on May 27, InSight Crime presented findings from a year-long investigation – conducted with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and others – into the four main criminal activities fueling environmental destruction in Colombia: illegal mining, land grabbing, timber trafficking, and wildlife smuggling. 

The online session convened more than 100 stakeholders, including officials from the Colombian government, police, military and prosecutor’s office, functionaries from various embassies, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), as well as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Also taking part were representatives of dozens of non-governmental organizations involved in conservation and development, civil society leaders, and academics. 

During the event, InSight Crime project manager for environmental crime María Fernanda Ramírez discussed the dynamics of timber trafficking and the corruption that fuels it. Ramírez also provided actionable recommendations to combat the illegal logging that devastates biodiversity. 

InSight Crime Co-director Jeremy McDermott spoke on how sophisticated organized crime structures have found opportunities in environmental crime, highlighting how the overlap creates additional security challenges for the Colombian government in tackling this problem. 

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InSight Crime is sponsored by:
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The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

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InSight Crime · Medellin · Medellin 0000 · Colombia