In December 2012, newly installed President Enrique Pena Nieto promised to switch the focus of Mexico's drug wars from tackling the gang leaders to reducing the crime and violence that affect the lives of Mexicans. What is the scale of the violence? Official figures have been issued only sporadically. Most estimates put the number of people killed in drug-related violence since late 2006 at more than 60,000. Although there is no official breakdown of the numbers, the victims include...

Illegal activities such as drug trafficking, money laundering and smuggling are financing the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah in Latin America, according to experts and authorities. Increasingly strong evidence shows the Lebanon-based Shiite militia sponsored by Iran maintains ties with drug cartels and receives contributions from organized crime groups. “The money is used to maintain a military structure and finance social activities among Shiite populations in Lebanon and the...

Central America constitutes an important strategic area for the United States. As discussed in my recent book “Latin America in the Post-Chavez Era: The Threat to U.S. Security”, legal and institutional collapse in Central America could have very serious consequences for regional and U.S security. Central America has been victim to increasing drug cartel activity as the situation in Colombia and Mexico has turned more complicated for the drug lords. In addition, Central America is...

Mexico must build an effective police and justice system, as well as implement comprehensive social programs, if it is to escape the extraordinary violence triggered by the country’s destructive cartels in extortion, kidnapping and control of transnational crime. Peña Nieto’s Challenge: Criminal Cartels and Rule of Law in Mexico is the International Crisis Group's first report on the country with the world’s fourteenth largest economy but also one of its worst cases...

(Mexico City) - Mexico ’s security forces have participated in widespread enforced disappearances, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Virtually none of the victims have been found or those responsible brought to justice, exacerbating the suffering of families of the disappeared, Human Rights Watch found. The 176-page report, “Mexico’s Disappeared: The Enduring Cost of a Crisis Ignored,” documents nearly 250 “disappearances” during the...

"Little Russsian brainless, we'll kill you and your daughters. Jewish son of a thousand whores, do not you realize you changed your hand? "The brutal threat received by Alberto Nisman, the prosecutor in the case by the AMIA bombing, caused shivers employees Court No. 9 headed Luis Rodriguez, where the complaint was filed. Not only by the text, but some pictures attached style Mexican narco cartels not worth describing to not be functional to the cowards who only seek to intimidate...

Known as El Chapo for his short, stocky frame, Guzmán is 55, which in narco-years is about 150. He is a quasi-mythical figure in Mexico, the subject of countless ballads, who has outlived enemies and accomplices alike, defying the implicit bargain of a life in the drug trade: that careers are glittering but brief and always terminate in prison or the grave. When Pablo Escobar was Chapo’s age, he had been dead for more than a decade. In fact, according to the Drug Enforcement...

After a two-year manhunt, the United States Drug Enforcement Agency last week arrested Colombian drug kingpin Javier Antonio Calle Serna, a senior leader of Los Rastrojos, one of the country's most formidable drug-trafficking organizations. After being indicted last summer by the Eastern District of New York, Serna reportedly felt so squeezed by the agency and rival drug dealers that he began negotiating for his surrender. His arrest is by all accounts good news, especially due to Los...

American law enforcement agencies have significantly built up networks of Mexican informants that have allowed them to secretly infiltrate some of that country’s most powerful and dangerous criminal organizations, according to security officials on both sides of the border. Typically, the officials said, Mexico is kept in the dark about the United States’ contacts with its most secret informants - including Mexican law enforcement officers, elected officials and cartel...