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InSight Crime

*Our content is bilingual | Nuestro contenido es bilingüe.
Drawing on field research, local sources, and expert voices, InSight Crime tells the human stories behind organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, explaining how criminal networks operate, how they impact countries and communities, and why these dynamics continue to shape the region.
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31 episodes
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English

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Thursday · 15 min
Paraguay’s Ueno Bank Scandal and the Criminal Elite Behind It | The InSight Take
Paraguay is scrambling following the dissolution of Ueno bank and the arrest of the country’s now ex-president. In this episode of The InSight Take, Steven Dudley, co-director of InSight Crime, and Paraguay investigator Chris Newton, examine Paraguay’s criminal regime, the corrupt elites that have pillaged the government and financial sector for decades, and political Godfather behind it all. Subscribe to InSight Crime for weekly analysis of organized crime and security in the region.
November 5 · 12 min
Has Venezuelan Declared War on Colombia’s ELN Guerrillas? | The InSight Take
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 whether this pivot from the government of Delcy Rodriguez could signal the start of a campaign against the group. Our discussion covers how the United States has pressured the Rodriguez government to finally crack down on the guerrilla group, which for decades has enjoyed protection from the Chavista regime. But will the strikes continue? Subscribe to InSight Crime for weekly analysis of organized crime and security in the region.
November 2 · 14 min
Inside Costa Rica's Highway Robbery Trade | The InSight Take
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 systems tell gangs what each truck is carrying.
October 22 · 11 min
Haiti in Crisis: Why Elections Are Impossible Right Now | The InSight Take
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 gang control to expand significantly across the nation. We break down how the erosion of democratic institutions has facilitated this shift and what it means for regional stability. Our discussion clarifies why the current security situation remains so volatile without a clear path to democratic transition. Understanding the nexus between political failure and organized crime is essential for grasping the current reality on the ground in Haiti. Subscribe to InSight Crime for weekly analysis of organized crime and security in the region.
October 15 · 22 min
Cartel FTO Designations: What They Mean for Companies | The InSight Take
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.
October 8 · 39 min
Dispatch From Culiacán: Two Years of the Sinaloa Cartel War | The 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 producers, residents and local sources during a week in which a shootout hit a restaurant near their hotel and a house was attacked in broad daylight meters from one of their interviews. What they found was a city where the war is less visible than it was, but no less present: the lookouts are gone, the narcocorridos have stopped playing openly, and the fighting has moved south. In this episode of The InSight Take, managing editor Deborah Bonello asks them what that shift actually means for the two factions, for the people living between them, and for who ends up running Sinaloa when the shooting stops.
September 23 · 29 min
Why did the US remove Venezuela from its drug list?
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 organized crime and drug trafficking across Latin America and the Caribbean. #Venezuela #USDrugPolicy #DrugTrafficking #OrganizedCrime
September 15 · 36 min
The Autopsy of Total Peace | The InSight Take
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 about whether the force promised by President Abelardo de la Espriella will work any better than former president Petro's peace.
September 9 · 42 min
Organized Crime in Brazil's Elections | The InSight Take
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 the reality of organized crime and security looks like on the ground. More at insightcrime.org Story ideas: flagship@insightcrime.org #Brazil #OrganizedCrime #InSightCrime
September 1 · 26 min
The InSight Take: Who Killed Fernando Villavicencio? Ecuador's Reckoning
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 that the Attorney General's Office has presented as evidence, referring to them as 'intercepted' communications. These communications were not intercepted, they were recovered from Norero's electronic devices, according to the Attorney General's Office.__________________ Three years after presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated in Quito, Ecuador is closing in on an answer to who ordered the murder. This week on The InSight Take, Deborah Bonello and senior investigator James Bargent break down the case against seven alleged masterminds, and why it's become a test of whether Ecuador can hold its political-criminal elite accountable. More at InSightCrime.org Story ideas: flagship@insightcrime.org #Ecuador #OrganizedCrime #InSightCrime
August 25 · 32 min
The InSight Take: How Organized Crime Is Adopting New Drone Technology
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.
August 18 · 28 min
The InSight Take: The Shield of the Americas Grows, But Does it Have a Strategy?
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 commits its members to, five months after its founding and still without an approved operational plan. With lethal strikes on Caribbean and Pacific boats having killed over 200 people — and no evidence the US drug flow has slowed — they ask whether Shield of the Americas can actually disrupt organized crime.
August 11 · 39 min
The InSight Take: Abelardo de la Espriella Inherits Colombia's Fractured Criminal Landscape
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 support, whether de la Espriella can match the Uribe-era security gains, and the human rights risks of a harder military push. More at insightcrime.org. Story idea? flagship@insightcrime.org.
August 4 · 25 min
The InSight Take: Ecuador's Kingpin Strategy Has Tactical Wins, but Strategic Uncertainty
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 Investigator James Bargent examine what Pipo’s case reveals about Ecuador’s kingpin strategy.
July 28 · 29 min
The InSight Take: Juan Orlando Hernández, from Indictment to Pardon
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.
July 21 · 26 min
The InSight Take: After El Mayo's Sentencing, Is the Godfather Era of the Sinaloa Cartel Over?
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.
July 14 · 25 min
The InSight Take: CJNG's New Boss? Not So Fast
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 Bonello speaks to Co-director Steven Dudley and Mexico investigators Victoria Dittmar and Parker Asmann about the CJNG's messy succession.
July 6 · 22 min
The InSight Take: Washington's Newest ‘Terrorist’ Label Meets Ecuador’s Fracturing Gang War
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.
June 30 · 13 min
The InSight Take: El Salvador’s Mass Trials Put Bukele’s Gang Crackdown on Display
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 thousands of crimes into single proceedings, raise troubling questions about whether collective punishment is replacing individual justice.
June 24 · 34 min
Colombia Turns Right With Abelardo de la Espriella: Washington and Security Challenges
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?

Showing 1–20 of 31 episodes