Latin America's most prominent organized crimes

🇺🇾 ✨ While cartels expand across borders, one country stands as Latin America's bright spot. Find out which ↓

Despite substantial progress over the last few decades, it’s undeniable that Latin America today continues to have a crime problem.

What the region lacks in interstate conflicts and wars can rather be found in organized crime, and illegal networks which span different sectors and nations. 

In fact, one recent report from the Inter-American Development Bank noted that a whopping 40% of Latin American citizens ranked crime as the dominant issue facing their countries.

Of course, the situation varies between countries and even measurements. Today let’s use the Global Organized Crime Index, which assesses this topic through three key pillars: criminal markets, criminal actors, and resilience.

Now, Latin America’s three most populous countries – Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia – are all ranked among those with the highest degree of criminal presence. 

This can be explained in part due to the transnational criminal networks which span all three countries, ranging from the PCC to the Sinaloa Cartel.

In recent years, these organizations have expanded their reach and zones of operations into smaller countries. 

The PCC is now particularly active in Paraguay, which has limited capacity for resilience, while the Sinaloa Cartel (and its rivals) have contributed to Ecuador’s massive spike in narco-violence.

Uruguay, as usual, provides a key bright spot, while other countries with relatively better reputations – think Costa Rica or Panama are held back in part by their struggles to crack down on global money laundering.

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