InSight Crime looks back at a complex and violent week across Latin America, as Ecuador sees another bloody chapterin its prison gang wars...

Weekly InSight
May 13, 2022 ([link removed])

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This week, InSight Crime looks back at a complex and violent week across Latin America, as Ecuador sees another bloody chapter in its prison gang wars, Colombia is paralyzed by a show of criminal might and one of Paraguay’s leading anti-crime prosecutors is gunned down while on honeymoon.

Elsewhere, we break down the first US court appearance by the former president of Honduras, Peru’s attempts to crack down on illegal coal mining and Mexico City’s success in bringing its largest gang to its knees.


** Featured
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** Ecuador's Smaller Gangs Making Deadly Statements in Large-Scale Massacres ([link removed])
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Ecuador has seen yet another large-scale prison massacre, with at least 44 prisoners killed during a riot at a jail west of Quito, in a cycle of violence that offers little hope that this will be the last such slaughter.

On May 9, members of the Lobos gang attacked their rivals, the R7, at the Bellavista prison in the central province of Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, in order to kill a senior R7 leader who had just been transferred there, according to Ecuadorean media, Primicias, citing sources within the country’s prison service (Servicio Nacional de Privados de Libertad - SNAI).

Read the analysis > ([link removed])


** NewsAnalysis
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All News ([link removed]) >
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** Does Armed Strike Mark Urabeños' Last Stand Together? ([link removed])
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An armed blockade by the Urabeños drug clan that left much of northern Colombia reeling has signaled that the group – which the government...

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** Paraguay Grapples with Criminal Sophistication After Prosecutor's Slaying ([link removed])
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The assassination of a crusading Paraguayan prosecutor while on honeymoon in Colombia has caused widespread alarm about the rising...

Former Honduras President Pleads Not Guilty, Ex-Police Chief Extradited to US ([link removed])
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How Mexico City Tried to Crush La Unión Tepito ([link removed])
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Illegal Coal Mine Killings Prompt Peruvian Authorities to Act ([link removed])
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Avocados, Limes and Peaches: Cartel Violence Kills Harvests of Fruit in Mexico ([link removed])
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Colombian and Mexican Cartels Pick Sides in Ecuador's Drug War ([link removed])
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Urabeños Seek to Paralyze Parts of Colombia After Otoniel's Extradition ([link removed])


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

Browse by country > ([link removed])
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** Urabeños ([link removed])
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Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias “Otoniel,” was the head of Colombia’s most powerful criminal group, the Urabeños, and the...
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** La Unión Tepito ([link removed])
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La Unión Tepito is a cell-based criminal organization in Mexico City, named after one of the capital’s largest neighborhoods...


** Media Mentions
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About Us ([link removed])
MAY 6, 2022
WASHINGTON POST ([link removed])

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"Coca crops are being sowed at an industrial scale in Venezuela. Nothing on the scale of Peru and Bolivia, let alone Colombia, but enough to produce cocaine inside Venezuela."

InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott on cocaine production in Venezuela
Read the full investigation > ([link removed])


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


** Urabeños Refuse to Let Otoniel Go Quietly
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InSight Crime’s continuing coverage of the extradition ([link removed]) of Otoniel has become a reference point for Latin American and international media. Otoniel ([link removed]) was the last in Colombia’s old guard of drug traffickers. Having begun as a left-wing guerrilla, transformed into a right-wing paramilitary, he then headed up the Urabeños, Colombia’s most powerful drug trafficking organization with some 2,000 members.

The World interviewed ([link removed]) InSight Crime’s Jeremy McDermott on the nationwide campaign of violence ([link removed].) carried out by the Urabeños in the wake of Otoniel’s extradition. BBC News ([link removed]) and El Colombiano ([link removed]) also referred to our analysis in their coverage.
Learn more about the wider consequences of Otoniel’s fall > ([link removed])


** InSight Crime launches new investigation on Venezuela
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On May 4, InSight Crime launched its most recent investigation, Venezuela's Cocaine Revolution, which was accompanied by a virtual panel where InSight Crime Co-director, Jeremy McDermott, presented the main findings of the report.

The panel also featured comments by Sebastiana Barráez, a Venezuelan investigative journalist; Angélica Durán-Martínez, a Latin America expert and professor of political sciences at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, and Javier Mayorca, a researcher into Venezuelan organized crime.
InSight Crime has provided a version of the panel with full English subtitles > ([link removed])


** Our Trending Topics
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JUAN ORLANDO HERNÁNDEZ ([link removed])
PARAGUAY ([link removed])
ILLEGAL MINING ([link removed])
ECUADOR ([link removed])

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