Weekly InSight
This week, InSight Crime investigates cartel money laundering on the US-Mexico border’s infamous black market peso exchange, chronicling a chain of cash transactions that has allowed drug traffickers to launder tens of millions of dollars in illicit funds – a method popularized in the 1980s by Colombian groups including Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel.

Elsewhere, Mexican authorities traded bullets with drug traffickers following the arrest of a notorious cartel leader near the US border, while a former presidential candidate was arrested on corruption charges. In Colombia, alleged drug trafficker “Memo Fantasma” – whose true identity was first revealed by InSight Crime – faces up to 40 years in prison on money laundering charges, and Uruguayan officials question how a ‘Ndrangheta mob boss slipped through their fingers.

Featured

Mom-and-Pop Stores: Perfect Money Laundering Vehicles on US-Mexico Border

The $215,520 began its journey south in the parking lot of a Meijer grocery store in Louisville, Kentucky, a 19-hour drive northeast from its eventual destination on the US-Mexico border.

A local drug dealer handed a courier wrinkled, mostly $20 bills bound with rubber bands, loosely wrapped in a plastic bag and stuffed in a backpack.

Read the analysis >

NewsAnalysis

Memo Fantasma Faces Up to 40 Years as Lawyer Also Investigated


Alleged drug trafficker "Memo Fantasma," or "Will the Ghost," was formally charged with money laundering and criminal... 

Northeast Cartel Leader's Arrest May Aid CJNG Expansion Along US-Mexico Border


Mexican armed forces have captured the reported leader of the feared Northeast Cartel, but this arrest...
Honor Among Thieves - The Venezuela Manhunt for an Altruistic Mob Boss
Endless Chemical Innovations Are Killing Thousands of Americans
Colombia Airport Bust Highlights Risky Business for Female 'Drug Mules'
Uruguay Asks Difficult Questions About Italian Mobster's Jailbreak
Venezuela Judicial Woes Exacerbated as Prison Guards Extort Inmates

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

Browse by country >

El Koki

Carlos Luis Revette, alias "El Koki," was one of Venezuela’s most wanted criminals and leader of the “megabanda" that...

CJNG

The Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación - CJNG) is a criminal group that has evolved as...

Media Mentions
MARCH 11, 2022
VICE
"The former [Honduras police director] had been a controversial figure from the beginning of his police career. In the early 2000s he created a “special task force” to fight violent gangs that was called “Los Magnificos,” in a nod to the Spanish title for the TV series “The A-Team,” according to InSight Crime"

Impact

InSight Crime’s In-Depth Coverage of US-Mexico Border Crime Recognized 

 
The once-feared Zetas have left a powerful imprint on Mexico’s underworld. Their ruthlessness and frequent acts of barbarism affected the way cartels fight each other, and authorities, to this day. On March 14, arguably the most prominent heir to the Zetas, Juan Gerardo Treviño Chávez, alias “El Huevo,” was arrested in Tamaulipas near the US border. 

InSight Crime’s reporting laid out how Treviño Chávez, leader of the Northeast Cartel and nephew to the Zetas founders, was one of the most powerful criminal figures along the US-Mexico border. Our article became a reference point for national and international media. 

An article in Mexico’s El Economista led with InSight Crime’s report, questioning whether El Huevo’s downfall could aid the CJNG’s expansion along the Mexico-US border. El Debate also cited InSight Crime’s story, highlighting the Northeast Cartel leader’s access to military-grade weapons and diverse criminal operations in the country’s northern borderlands. 

The report was also picked up by the internationally-renowned Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which highlighted the Northeast Cartel’s historic ties to the Zetas.   

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‘NDRANGHETA
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InSight Crime · Medellin · Medellin 0000 · Colombia