The state of insecurity in Mexico has gone beyond isolated remedies like tweaking laws or reforming agencies. It is so ingrained that people are getting acclimated.
Tag: crime
Differently than places like the Netherlands or the state of Colorado, legalizing cannabis in Mexico is colored by the presence of drug cartels — and the absence of the state.
Bitcoin has proved popular in Colombia, especially in small retail operations. But is it being used by criminals?
India’s police and political leaders need to find better ways to halt regular acts of vandalism on Valentine’s Day by those who want to block Western influence.
Already a victim of organized crime and drug trafficking, Naples is now also facing wanton violence from disillusioned youth.
Ciudad Juárez, once torn by drug wars, experienced a 34% spike in femicides this year.
-OpEd- SAO PAULO — Barbarism has actually become popular in the Philippines. According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 78% of Filipinos support the “license to kill” President Rodrigo Duterte has given the police against those accused, or even just suspected, of dealing or consuming drugs. The government proudly announced the death […]
PALERMO — As the Sicilian capital’s oldest market, La Vucciria has long drawn visitors from around the world for its myriad colors and aromas. While its peculiar traditions live on, with vendors barking out in the local dialect to sell their products to passersby, the market is a shadow of its former self. Once immortalized […]
Millions drive past the favela of Vila Esperança, with its rampant unemployment and open sewers. But thanks to a three-meter high concrete wall, they don’t see it.
One of the ugliest tactics in modern warfare has been the use of “human shields.” From Serbia to Sri Lanka and Gaza, armed combatants have been accused of putting civilian lives at risk on the frontlines in order to protect themselves. If the enemy attacks innocent bystanders on site, it risks committing a grave human […]
SAO PAULO — “My name is Daniel Garcia and I’m 18. I love reading Folha de S. Paulo! Today, I read an article about women unsung heroes, and I believe that my own mother fits that category perfectly. Marlene Garcia is 59, she’s black and she used to be a cleaning lady. Every day, without […]
MEXICO CITY — Residents of Iztapalapa, a crowded area on the edge of Mexico City, have hung up sheets warning criminals they would be lynched if they threaten locals, steal or vandalize cars. Iztapalapa is a working-class delegación, or large district, where crime has spiked in recent months, the daily Milenio reports. The move to […]
Murderous paramilitary organizations that formed in the 1980s were supposedly dismantled. Elements, however, continue to live on through what the government now calls Organized Armed Groups, or GAO.
Rue de Ponthieu is one of the French capital’s choice spots for late-night partying. But it also has a reputation for dodgy encounters and pre-dawn street fights.
-Analysis- BUENOS AIRES — It must be a sign of the times. Echoing the clampdown of foreign visitors by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, Argentina is set to tighten its border controls in a country that has long received migrants from around the world. The move was taken ostensibly to target crime, which many Argentines […]
MANAUS — There’s a gang war raging across northern Brazil. It has led to prison riots in which close to 100 inmates have been killed since the beginning of the year. This violence is linked to the flow of cocaine from Peru to Brazil’s northern, northeastern and central-western regions. The money involved is huge — […]
Among the world’s many gloomy corners, it is hard to get any gloomier than Brazil. After a drug war broke out among several criminal groups, leading to huge prison riots and the death of close to 100 inmates, what looks like a worrying yellow fever outbreak and the death of the Supreme Court judge leading […]
‘Baad’ is a tribal tradition through which a woman is offered as compensation if her relative commits a crime.
All signs say the 56 prisoners killed inside the Anisio Jobim Prison Complex are part of an ongoing drug gang feud on the outside.
CERIGNOLA — Franco Metta is the mayor of the small town of Cerignola, located in the southern Italian region of Apulia. He recently received a box of biscuits as a Christmas gift from a local businessman, but upon opening the box he discovered 20,000 euros ($21,120) expertly rolled into two packs of 10,000 each — […]
In southern Italy, mob clans have entered into an unlikely alliance with the Islamic terror group, exchanging Kalashnikovs for ancient artifacts pillaged in war. One reporter went undercover looking to make a deal.
TRUJILLO — The mayor of the northwestern Peruvian city of Piura was shot dead last week by a masked hitman as he left a restaurant, making him the latest victim in a wave of violence directed at Peru’s embattled local officials. Lima-based daily El Comercio reports that the death of Piura Mayor Ronald Javier Navarro […]
TEGUCIGALPA — The Central American countries of the “Northern Triangle” (Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala) have long battled gang wars and drug-related crime that have left the region’s cities among the world’s most dangerous. Individual attempts in the past to defuse the crisis, including local gang truces and national crackdowns on drugs, have been largely […]
-Analysis- PARIS — Little is known about the financing of terror. Where does it come from? What part did it play in the Paris shootings and Brussels bombings? Are we able to fight it effectively? We are, on all counts, poorly equipped to deal with this challenge. In France and our neighboring countries, there is […]
While most Western prisons operate under strict surveillance, the Filipino penitentiary system functions through an unusual combination of prisoner self-management and gang oversight.
TEHRAN — Talk about a life in crime. Iranian police recently busted — or re-busted — a thieving gang consisting mostly of middle-aged and older men who have been in and out of prison since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The gang’s head is believed to be around 63 years old, and is known to law […]
MEXICO CITY — Who’s killing Mexico’s journalists? Reporters and editors have increasingly been targeted for murder during the ongoing war against Mexican drug cartels. But a recent investigation by Mexico City-based newspaper El Universal shows that a majority of the journalists killed were not investigating narcotics trafficking, but local police news and national politics. Some […]
PARIS — France’s intelligence services no longer rule out what not so long ago seemed unthinkable: the emergence on its territory of a “Lebanon-like” terrorism which would see suicide bombs replaced one day by the deadliest of operational modes — truck or car bombings, possibly activated remotely. “We have to accept the reality,” a well-informed […]
Bathroom breaks and oxygen tanks mix with kilos of cocaine and money laundering: The “papy connection” trial of aging ex-cons unfolded in a Marseille courtroom.
In Brazil, law enforcement officers boast on social network sites about committing violence against suspects, and show off the results for all to see.
Grim accusations from a United Nations probe that Brazilian police use extrajudicial murder to clear out youth gangs in Rio de Janeiro ahead of next year’s Olympics.
This week we shine the spotlight on Mexico: CHILD TRAFFICKING PROBE IN SONORA Mexican national daily Excelsior reports that the country’s Attorney General formally charged two officials from the northern state of Sonora with child trafficking. The case first emerged last month, when Vladimir Alfredo Arzate and José Hernández López, both officials at a government […]
With Europe’s lowest fertility rate, and some 20% of its 10.6 million inhabitants over the age of 65, Portugal is aging fast. Bad news for the country, but apparently a boon to criminals, who see the elderly as prime targets. Crime against senior citizens, financial scams in particular, has registered a sharp rise since the […]
Under a repressive regime that outlaws independent lawyers, Laritza Diversent is blazing a trail for victims of Cuba’s harsh judicial system.
Fears are rising in Japan that a large-scale gang war could erupt, following a major schism in the yakuza organized crime syndicate. Cyber-crime might be making headlines today, but this is a reminder that “traditional” organized crime is still strong. And scary. Here’s a look at what’s happening in five criminal networks around the world. […]
It gives new meaning to the concept “community policing.” The explosion of smartphones is allowing people to fight crime from their pocket, wherever they may be. We take a look at five crime-fighting apps from around the world: ITALY: STANDING UP TO THE MAFIA Addiopizzo, a citizen’s organization founded a decade ago on the Italian […]
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The Mystery Of India’s Vanishing Children
MUMBAI — Night has fallen on Mumbai, and a monsoon fog fills the air as an aging man looks over the vast Indian metropolis from his balcony. Rajendra Dhondu Bhosale retired earlier this year as deputy inspector at a local police precinct, but still lives in dilapidated government housing with walls dampened by the constant […]
Gangs extort at leisure in the El Salvadoran capital, making a mockery of police and the state. Could this again happen in Colombian cities like MedellÃn?
-OpEd- BEIJING — When Macau authorities recently uncovered a prostitution ring, the most shocking aspect of the case was that its alleged mastermind was a 16-year-old boy. Needless to say, the teenager in Macau, one of two special Chinese administrative regions, represents an extreme example of the more diffused problem of the millions of minors […]
Why do so many Filipinos own and carry weapons? One theory points to the influence of former American colonial rulers.