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This week, InSight Crime focuses on Mexico, reporting on a significant fentanyl seizure that may have implications for US-Mexico security relations. We also talk with Marisol Ochoa, a researcher at Mexico City-based Ibero-American University, about the patchwork of criminal groups driving violence in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. Other highlights include a look at how illegal logging has decimated forests in the western part of the country and a report on disgraced former Chihuahua governor César Duarte being returned to Mexico from the US to face embezzlement charges.
Notable reports from elsewhere in the region include booming marijuana sales in Honduras, contraband cigarettes flowing out of Belize and a Peru governor suspected of leading a wood trafficking network that involved Chinese logging firms.
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A recent seizure of fentanyl in Mexico has shed further light on the capacity of organized crime groups to mass-produce the deadly synthetic opioid. Still, the timing suggests US officials may be ratcheting up the pressure on officials south of the border.
At the end of October, members of the Mexican Army and the National Guard raided a synthetic drug lab set up in a seemingly middle-class home in Culiacán, the capital of northwest Sinaloa state. In the home, troops seized 118 kilograms of fentanyl, the armed forces announced in a November 4 press release.
Read the analysis >
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Cocaine, synthetic drugs, weapons, migrants, gasoline - this range of criminal economies has seen...
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The disgraced former governor of Chihuahua, César Duarte, may soon be on a flight home. A US judge...
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Maduro’s El Dorado: Gangs, Guerillas and Gold in Venezuela
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On Wednesday, Nov. 17, InSight Crime launches an investigation that exposes how attempts to control Venezuela’s mining heartland have led to criminal chaos, as guerrilla groups, gangs and corrupt state elements battle over the country’s gold.
See our previous investigation on the battle for Apure >
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Profiles of some of the notable criminal personalities and groups that have marked this week.
Browse by country > |
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The Sinaloa Cartel, often described as the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization...
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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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"We have seen in the surroundings of Cúcuta an alliance with ‘Los Rastrojos,’ the old enemies of the Gulf Clan. They have joined forces because it was advantageous for both sides because it gave them more weight, more men, and more weapons to confront the ELN, the Tren de Aragua and the Ex-FARC mafia."
— Managing Editor Chris Dalby on the Urabeños, aka Gulf Clan
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Senate Commission in Paraguay Cites InSight Crime
InSight Crime’s reporting and investigations often reach the desks of diplomats, security officials and politicians. The latest example occurred in late October during a commission of Paraguay's Senate that tackled smuggling.
There, Representative Abel González denounced the role of corrupt police, showing a video that he alleged to be of officers escorting a convoy of vehicles involved in contraband. González expressed alarm about a surge in smuggling, supporting his argument with an InSight Crime report that concluded, using figures collected by other institutions, that 40 percent of Paraguay’s gross domestic product (GDP) comes from contraband.
The debate may influence the national agenda, as the representative requested to modify the customs code. The coordinator of the country’s anti-contraband unit, Emilio Fuster, responded with an official statement assuring the public that Paraguayan authorities were investigating the issue and that he had filed a complaint with prosecutors.
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