Audio | InSight Crime

The Venezuelan government launched strikes against the Colombian criminal group the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) this week. The ELN has long enjoyed refuge on the Venezuelan side of the border, and in this episode of the Insight Take, Managing Editor Deborah Bonello, our team leader in Venezuela Alejandra Betancourt, and our Co-director Jeremy McDermott ask whet...

Costa Rican authorities carried out 80 raids this month against a local gang suspected of cargo theft. Reporter Owen Alfonso rode 520km in a semi-truck cab from the Panamanian border to Peñas Blancas, the main crossing between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. He tells InSight Crime’s Managing Editor Deborah Bonello about his reporting trip, how the cargo theft business works, and how Costa Rica’s customs...

Haiti elections are currently non-existent, leaving a power vacuum that empowers criminal groups. We examine the current state of the country's governance crisis. Steven Dudley sits down with investigator Alex Papadovassilakis to analyze the dire political and security landscape in Port-au-Prince. With the absence of elected leadership, the state has struggled to maintain authority, allowing g...

What do the latest Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designations of 21 criminal groups in Latin America and the Caribbean actually change for companies? Claire McCleskey, a former head of OFAC's compliance division, spoke to InSight Crime’s managing editor Deborah Bonello about that more in this week's InSight Take.

Two years after Ismael Zambada Garcia, alias "El Mayo," was handed over to US authorities, the war between the Chapitos and the Mayiza factions of the Sinaloa Cartel continues to roil. The Sinaloa Cartel is now being rebuilt around different people. InSight Crime's Victoria Dittmar and co-director Steven Dudley were recently in Culiacán and Sinaloa, where they interviewed drug produc...

Venezuela is officially off the US’s blacklist of nations that have failed to adequately tackle drug trafficking. InSight Crime Managing Editor Deborah Bonello and Co-Director Jeremy McDermott look at what Venezuela’s removal means, the US drug certification process, Colombia and Bolivia’s continued presence on the list, and the Cartel of the Suns. Subscribe to InSight Crime for weekly analysis of...

Deborah Bonello speaks to InSight Crime co-founder Jeremy McDermott, who has covered Colombia for close to thirty years, about what the final ledgers on Total Peace show: What the ceasefires do? What did the collapse in Catatumbo reveal? And how have gold and extortion risen as key criminal economies in the hands of the country's criminal groups? Finally, we ask what Colombia's own record says abo...

With Brazil’s presidential election just weeks away, public security has become a defining campaign issue. In this week’s InSight Take, InSight Crime Co-director Steven Dudley and Investigator Christopher Newton explore how the US terrorist designations of the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital - PCC) and Red Command (Comando Vermelho) are reshaping the political debate—and what th...

The original version of this episode wrongly stated Xavier Jordán had been sentenced on corruption charges. Jordán has been charged in relation to corruption in the hospital system and in the Metastasis investigation but neither case has yet gone to trial and he has not been convicted on any charges. In addition, the conversation referred to alleged communications between Jordán and Leandro Norero...

Organized crime groups across Latin America are weaponizing commercial drones, pairing them with IEDs to attack rivals, security forces, and civilians. From CJNG's drone unit in Mexico to gang warfare in Rio's favelas and ELN surveillance drones in Colombia, InSight Crime co-director Jeremy McDermott joins Deborah Bonello to ask whether governments can actually keep pace with the threat.

Colombia just became the 19th member of the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition — better known as Shield of the Americas — days after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew to Panama to declare its new motto: "We do bad things to bad people." On this week's InSight Take, Managing Editor Deborah Bonello and co-director Jeremy McDermott unpack what this fast-growing coalition actually commi...

Colombia's new president faces one of the most complicated criminal landscapes in the world. In thisweek's InSight Take, Co-Director Jeremy McDermott and Senior Colombia Analyst Sara Garcia unpack what Abelardo de la Espriella inherits: powerful armed groups like the Gaitanistas and the ELN, record cocaine production, and booming illegal gold mining. They weigh Washington's likely supp...

The capture of Ecuadorian crime boss Wilmer Chavarría, alias “Pipo,” was a major victory for President Daniel Noboa’s strategy of targeting high-value criminal leaders. But it also raises a larger question: Do arrests of top criminal leaders weaken organized crime, or simply make it more fragmented and violent? In this week's InSight Take, InSight Crime Co-director Steven Dudley and Investigat...

From the halls of presidential power to a 45-year prison sentence—and then a shocking return to freedom—this week, we take a look at the story of the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH). InSight Crime’s Managing Editor Deborah Bonello speaks to Co-director Steven Dudley about JOH’s twisting tale, from indictment to pardon.

Ismael Zambada Garcia alias El Mayo just got sentened to life without parole, marking the end of a four-decade run as one of Mexico's most powerful traffickers. InSight Crime's Deborah Bonello and Victoria Dittmar break down how his sentencing won't end the war in Sinaloa but signals a new chapter in Mexican organized crime in this week's Insight Take.

Following the death of CJNG leader "El Mencho" in a February 2026 military operation, US authorities have named his stepson, Juan Carlos Valencia González, alias "El 03," as the group's new leader. But El 03 is one of several senior CJNG figures with a claim to power, and the group may avoid naming a single visible boss at all. InSight Crime's Managing Editor Deborah Bo...

The United States has designated Ecuador's Chone Killers a terrorist organization, but the group has splintered and has no single command structure. InSight Crime's Gavin Voss, Steve Dudley and Deborah Bonello discuss how the label may not map cleanly onto a fragmented reality, echoing a broader pattern where decapitating gang leadership tends to atomize groups rather than dismantle them.

El Salvador’s mass trials of alleged gang members are the latest phase in President Nayib Bukele’s hardline security model, aimed at locking in the dismantling of MS13 and Barrio 18 while processing a massive backlog of cases. InSight Crime's Managing Editor Deborah Bonello and Central America Investigator Alex Papadovassilakis discuss how the trials, which group hundreds of defendants and tho...

The winner of Colombia's presidential elections Abelardo de la Espriella promised to stop negotiating with guerrilla armies and unleash the country's experienced security forces against criminal groups there. But will the Trump-aligned president-elect keep his promises when he takes office in August? And will his plan help, or hinder, the country's organized crime panorama?

InSight Crime's Co-Director Steven Dudley and Managing Editor Deborah Bonello separate fact from fiction around the real security risks in Mexico for tourists coming to the World Cup, and look back at the connection between organized crime and soccer.

The designation of two of Brazil's biggest criminal groups, the PCC and the Red Command, as foreign terrorist organizations by the United States promises to impact businesses, financial institutions, and the economy more widely, as much as the gangs themselves. In today's InSight Take, Managing Editor Deborah Bonello and co-director Steven Dudley take a deep dive into both of these crimina...

Durante años, el gobierno venezolano ha mantenido una relación simbiótica con ciertos grupos criminales del país, colaborando con ellos para mantenerse en el poder y beneficiarse de actividades ilícitas. Pero a medida que Estados Unidos ha intensificado sus acciones contra el crimen en América Latina bajo la presidencia de Donald Trump, el gobierno venezolano se ha encontrado entre la espada y la...

For years, the Venezuelan government has had a symbiotic relationship with certain criminal groups in the country, working together to maintain power and profit from illicit activities. But as the United States has taken increasingly aggressive anti-crime action in Latin America under President Donald Trump, the Venezuelan government has found itself between a rock and a hard place. Venezuela Says...

Gang violence and crime has surged to unprecedented levels in Ecuador in recent years. Groups like the Lobos, the Choneros, and the Tiguerones fight for alliances with international drug trafficking groups and control over strategic territories. In the areas they control, these groups reign through violence, threatening and extorting residents. In response, President Daniel Noboa has taken a hard...

La violencia de las pandillas y el crimen han aumentado a niveles sin precedentes en Ecuador en los últimos años. Grupos como Los Lobos, Los Choneros y Los Tiguerones luchan por alianzas con grupos internacionales de narcotráfico y por el control de territorios estratégicos. En las zonas que controlan, estos grupos imponen su poder mediante la violencia, amenazando y extorsionando a los residentes...