cocaine

  • How Mexico’s CJNG Controls Guadalajara’s Expanding Drug Market

    One of Mexico’s most powerful crime groups, the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG), is employing forced disappearance and exploiting corruption to build up a burgeoning local drug market on its home turf of Guadalajara… This piece was co-authored with Peter Appleby and Victoria Dittmar. Read it in its entirety at

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  • 30 Years After Escobar, How the Cocaine Trade Has Changed

    Pablo Escobar and his Medellín Cartel transformed the cocaine trade during their heyday in the 1980s. But the 30 years since the kingpin’s death have shown that the business remains one of the world’s most dynamic criminal economies… This piece was co-authored with Sara Garcia, Lara Loaiza and Charlotte Newell. Read it in its entirety

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  • Nicaragua Claims No ‘Cartel’ Presence, But Past Cases Tell a Different Story

    Authorities in Nicaragua are trumpeting their counternarcotics efforts, which they say have kept “cartels” out of the country. But a series of prosecutions of alleged crime bosses shows that sophisticated, large-scale drug trafficking groups do indeed operate in the Central American nation… Read this piece in its entirety at InSight Crime.

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  • Talking about Colombia Coca Production on InSight Crime’s “Weekly InSight”

    I joined Senior Investigators Deborah Bonello and Héctor Silva Ávalos for InSight Crime’s weekly Facebook Live session today, where we discussed new White House estimates of coca production in Colombia, the future of the Sinaloa Cartel after “El Chapo,” and the close ties between elites and organized crime in Latin America. You can watch the

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  • US Estimates Highest-Ever Colombia Coca Production

    New US government estimates of coca production in Colombia indicate the South American country is growing more of the drug-producing crop than ever before, a development that is likely driving changes in underworld dynamics across the Americas and the globe… Read this piece in its entirety at InSight Crime.

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Portrait illustration of Mike LaSusa

Mike LaSusa