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 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?

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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.

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.

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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 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.

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.
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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.

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.

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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.

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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.