This week, InSight Crime features a new investigation into the battle for the Venezuelan state of Apure.

Weekly InSight
October 15, 2021 ([link removed])

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This week, InSight Crime features a new investigation into the battle for the Venezuelan state of Apure, along the country’s lawless border with Colombia. The four-part series reveals not only the expansion of elements of Colombia’s civil conflict into Venezuela, but the criminal fault lines within the regime of President Nicolás Maduro.

We also report on a rare victory against illegal logging in Peru’s Amazon, despite a climate of impunity. Meanwhile, the US Treasury Department’s sanction of four suspected members of Mexico’s powerful CJNG cartel underscores the group’s control of a Pacific port crucial to the synthetic drug trade, notably the import of chemical precursors for the deadly opioid fentanyl.


** Featured
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** The Battle for Apure: Chavismo and the ex-FARC ([link removed])
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Colombian rebel groups long ago set up shop in Venezuela, seeking sanctuary beyond the reach of the US-backed Colombian military. The Chavista regime welcomed them as allies against an “imperialist” common foe. But now some of these groups have become unwelcome, and extremely dangerous, guests.

We begin this four-part series with the emergence of the 10th Front, a dissident faction of the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) that came under fire from Venezuela’s armed forces after upending the region’s delicate pax mafiosa. We then reveal how this proxy war has exposed the weakness of Venezuela’s military and its inability to tackle non-state armed actors skilled in asymmetrical warfare. The series wraps up with a look at the repercussions of this battle, and its repercussion on political and criminal dynamics in the country.
Read the full series:

1 ·[link removed] War into Venezuela ([link removed])
2 · Apure's Proxy War ([link removed])
3 · The Venezuelan Military: Outfought and Outmatched ([link removed])
4 · The Fallout from Apure and the Enemy Within ([link removed])
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** NewsAnalysis
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All News ([link removed]) >
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** Yacu Kallpa: Illegal Timber and Impunity in Peru ([link removed])
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Six years after investigators in Peru took down a massive timber trafficking operation that shipped millions of dollars’ worth of illegal...

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** US Sanctions Reveal CJNG’s Grip on Mexico Port To Move Fentanyl ([link removed])
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The United States has sanctioned four suspected members of Mexico’s powerful CJNG cartel, alleging that they controlled drug operations at...

Contraband Chinese Cigarettes Take Latin America by Storm ([link removed])
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Weapons Trafficking Rife on Mexico's Social Media ([link removed])
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Phone Extortion in Mexico Continuing to Rise Despite Low Success Rate ([link removed])
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Dissident FARC Guerrillas Repeatedly Try to Assassinate Colombia Governor ([link removed])
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The Intimate Relationship Between Cocaine and Illegal Timber in Brazil's Amazon ([link removed])


** 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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** Ex-FARC Mafia ([link removed])
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The ex-FARC Mafia are a series of criminal structures that emerged during the peace negotiations between the...
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** CJNG ([link removed])
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The Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación - CJNG) is a criminal group that has evolved as a...


** Media Mentions
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About Us ([link removed])
October 10, 2021
THE GUARDIAN ([link removed])

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"The country, sandwiched between Peru and Colombia – the world’s two biggest producers of cocaine – has become a smuggling superhighway.”"
See the cited investigation – Ecuador: A Cocaine Superhighway to the US and Europe ([link removed])


** Impact
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What We do ([link removed])


** InSight Crime Tackles Illegal Fishing
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In October, InSight Crime and American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies (CLALS ([link removed]) ) began a year-long project on illegal, unreported, unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Americas. The project – which will cover Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay – seeks to understand the scope of IUU fishing-related legislation and government capacity in the Caribbean, Central America and South America; identify government-backed malign actors violating these laws; assess crimes associated with IUU fishing activities; and understand the adverse impacts of IUU fishing in the region through the collection of local investigations and stories.

See our in-depth coverage of environmental crime > ([link removed])


** Our Trending Topics
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VENEZUELA ([link removed])
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