Transnational Crime Archives - Diálogo Américas

Belize Unifies Command, Intelligence to Disrupt Gang Leadership

Belize is restructuring its response to criminal gang violence under a unified command, integrating intelligence, analysis, investigations, and law enforcement while expanding the use of data to anticipate crime rather than simply react to it. On July 3, 2026, the Belize Police Department created the Violence Prevention and Enforcement Team (VPAET), a national unit designed to coordinate efforts targeting high-risk…

November 04, 2026

Criminal Highways: How Latin America’s Rivers Fuel Transnational Crime

Latin America’s vast river networks are playing an increasingly important role in organized crime logistics. From the Amazon Basin to the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway, thousands of miles of rivers and tributaries cross remote areas and border regions, linking zones of cocaine production, illegal mining, and illicit natural resource exploitation to Atlantic ports and international markets. Criminal networks use these waterways to…

November 02, 2026

Multinational Cooperation Tightens the Net Around Tren de Aragua’s Transnational Leadership

Transnational criminal organizations exploit borders, spreading their leadership, finances, and operations across multiple countries. For the security forces pursuing them, the challenge is to connect intelligence, investigations, and judicial mechanisms across those same borders. The capture in Bogotá of Luis Saúl Pérez Nieto, alias Nairobi or Páez, identified as one of the top leaders of Tren de Aragua (TdA) in…

October 30, 2026

One Border, Different Threats: Colombia’s Evolving Security Strategy Along the Venezuelan Frontier

Along Colombia’s 2,219-kilometer border with Venezuela, the security challenge changes with the terrain. In Catatumbo, Colombian forces confront armed groups and the illicit economies that sustain them. Across La Guajira, long distances and open terrain make mobility and surveillance critical. Farther south, the rivers of Arauca and the Orinoquía become both transportation corridors and operational spaces. Colombia reinforced the frontier…

October 26, 2026

Peru Tightens Prison Security to Break Criminal Command from Behind Bars

Peru is expanding its strategy to prevent criminal organizations from continuing to operate from prisons, where they coordinate extortion, contract killings, drug trafficking, and other illicit activities carried out beyond prison walls. Measures adopted and announced throughout 2026 combine prison reform, Armed Forces participation in perimeter security, control technologies, and cooperation with the United States to strengthen state control over…

October 22, 2026

Vice Admiral Oxley: ‘The Main Challenge Is Developing an Ability to Anticipate That Outpaces Criminal Organizations’ Ability to Adapt’

Transnational criminal organizations are changing their routes, methods, and structures to exploit international maritime supply chains and evade controls. In Chile, this dynamic has brought strategic ports such as Arica, Valparaíso, and San Antonio under greater scrutiny, as trade volumes, shipping routes, and connections to other markets create new challenges for port and maritime security. In an exclusive interview with…

October 21, 2026

As Brazilian authorities dismantle giant Stolen Smartphones’ Racketeering Scheme, a possible Hezbollah connection emerges

Summary: On September 10, the Office of Public Prosecutions of the Brazilian state of São Paulo launched Operation Frankmobile. The target: a vast criminal network engaged in theft of thousands of mobile phones, extraction of personal information from the devices for the purpose of defrauding their owners, technical alteration of the stolen goods, and their resale as new phones. The…

October 21, 2026

Ecuador Follows the Money to Strike at Organized Crime Networks

Ecuador is intensifying efforts to trace transfers, companies, properties, and other assets linked to suspected criminal networks. Cases investigated in 2026 point to a strategy that seeks to go beyond arrests: reconstruct the flow of money, identify the business networks that move it, and target the assets that sustain illicit operations. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) considers asset recovery…

October 20, 2026

Honduras Leads Maritime Counterdrug Effort During Operation Barracuda

Honduran security forces, working in close coordination with regional and U.S. partners, seized 2,560 kilograms of suspected cocaine and detained nine suspected smugglers during Operation Barracuda, a multinational maritime counterdrug operation conducted September 6–21, 2026. The operation underscored Honduras’s leadership in combating transnational criminal organizations and demonstrated how coordinated intelligence, aerial surveillance, and maritime capabilities strengthen regional efforts to disrupt…

October 20, 2026

Liquid Cocaine Puts Ports, Laboratories, and Customs Agencies to the Test

As customs controls become increasingly sophisticated, transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) are turning to ever more complex concealment methods. Among them is so-called liquid cocaine, produced by altering the drug’s physical properties and incorporating it into seemingly legitimate liquid or viscous substances, such as beverages, fruit juice and pulp, oils, shampoos, creams, and gels. Once it reaches its destination, the cocaine…

October 19, 2026

Beyond Drugs: How Brazilian Criminal Groups Build Territorial Power

The transformation of Brazilian organized crime — from a phenomenon primarily associated with illegal activities into a network capable of exercising territorial and coercive control — is redefining the nature of the challenge criminal factions pose to the state. Criminal power is no longer measured solely by the amount of drugs trafficked or firepower, but also by the ability to…

October 16, 2026

Colombia Targets the Networks that Sustain Criminal Control

Colombia is intensifying its offensive against criminal organizations with a strategy aimed not only at their armed members and drug trafficking operations, but also at the finances and illicit economies that allow them to maintain territorial control. “We are going to strike their structures, their leaders, their finances, and the illicit economies that fuel their criminal machinery,” President Abelardo De…