This week, Guillermo Acevedo Giraldo, alias "Memo Fantasma," has been arrested. This Colombian drug trafficker’s roots date back to Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, but he managed to remain invisible until InSight Crime exposed him in March 2020. As a result of the story, InSight Crime Co-director Jeremy McDermott was sued for libel, first by Colombian Vice President Marta Lucia Ramírez, who was named in the investigation, and then by Acevedo himself. The Vice President withdrew her suit, and that of Acevedo is unlikely to progress after his arrest, since his indictment has confirmed our investigation.
Elsewhere, InSight Crime looked at how state responses failed to identify looming crises from skyrocketing homicides in Cali, Colombia, to dozens being killed due to factional warfare in Tamaulipas, Mexico, and even how a poor vaccine roll-out in Venezuela played into the hands of Black Market opportunists.
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Convulsed by nearly eight weeks of anti-government protests, the Colombian city of Cali has also experienced a terrible surge in murders.
In May alone, the city tallied 177 homicides – the deadliest monthly toll in five years. Murders during the first four weeks of June are at 114, up from 80 during the whole month in 2020, according to figures obtained by InSight Crime.
Read the Analysis >
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Guillermo León Acevedo Giraldo, alias “Memo Fantasma,” a former paramilitary leader and longtime...
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Multiple sources from the United States and El Salvador say the recent decision to temporarily halt the extradition of several top MS13...
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Profiles of some of the notable criminal personalities and groups that have marked this week.
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The Gulf Cartel is one of the oldest and most powerful of Mexico’s criminal groups but has lost territory and influence in recent...
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César Emilio Peralta, alias “El Abusador,” is one of the Dominican Republic's most notorious drug traffickers...
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"The meaning for InSight Crime and for me is that finally everything we put in our investigation has proven to be true"
Co-director Jeremy McDermott on the arrest of Memo Fantasma 15 months after InSight Crime revealed his whereabouts.
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Key Arrests Due to InSight Crime Investigations
The two-year investigation into the elusive criminal nicknamed Memo Fantasma, published in March 2020, was the most widely read in InSight Crime’s history and was rewarded with the prestigious Simón Bolívar national journalism prize in Colombia.
Now, with Memo Fantasma’s arrest on June 25, InSight Crime has proven something more tangible: Our investigations, when carried out with patience and dedication, can and will uncover major criminal threats in the Americas.
Publications from around the world profiled how Colombia’s investigators built on our report to isolate and capture Memo Fantasma.
We look forward to working with our partners, supporters and donors to complete more such investigations in the future.
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Police Budget Increases Due to InSight Crime Investigations
In late 2020, InSight Crime delivered a detailed report on the threats posed by Latin American organized crime groups to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, such as major cocaine flows entering the country through the Port of Rotterdam and a number of criminal economies present in the Dutch Caribbean.
This week, the Dutch government announced it would increase funds for law enforcement in Curaçao, Aruba and Sint Maarten as part of a strategy to improve investigation of organized crime between 2020 and 2023. In a letter to the Dutch House of Representatives, the government explained that this decision was partially based on InSight Crime’s recommendations.
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