Environmental Crimes Plague Amazon’s Tri-Border Regions
Deep in the heart of the Amazon basin lie two tri-border regions, where environmental crimes and their perpetrators recognize no…
Digging Into a Toxic Trade: Illegal Mining in Amazon Tri-Border Regions
Illegal mining is by far the most widespread and insidious environmental crime occurring in the Amazon’s tri-border regions. In the…
Beneath the Surface of Timber Trafficking on the Peru-Colombia-Brazil Border
Once untouched forest is now feeling the predatory hands of timber traffickers in the Amazon’s two tri-border regions. Illegal loggers…
How Criminal Groups Helped Fill Venezuela’s Post-Chávez Void
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez succumbed to cancer in 2013, a perfect storm of crises was already looming on the…
Maduro’s Peace Defender Squads Are Anything But Peaceful
In March 2019, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro created a new wing of the Bolivarian Revolution political movement, the Peace Defender…
The Future of Venezuela’s Hybrid State
The evolution of a hybrid state in Venezuela, combining governance with criminality, has helped President Nicolás Maduro hold on to…
Rise and Fall of a Hybrid Guerrilla Group: The Bolivarian Liberation Forces
In June 2022, according to local press reports, a heavily armed unit from Venezuela’s General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence stormed…
Hybrid Governance and the Criminal Fiefdoms of Tren de Aragua
There are specific expectations for residents of San Vicente, a neighborhood in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. Men are not…
Does US Policy Exacerbate Migrant Kidnappings on the US-Mexico Border?
It was just after dawn when Ricardo Montes* saw nearly a dozen armed men in two pickup trucks arrive at…
The Gauntlet: One Migrant’s Journey from Venezuela to the US-Mexico Border
More than two months of travel across eight countries. Regular run-ins with corrupt police and migration officials, organized crime groups,…