InSight, Organized Crime in the Americas

InSight Crime’s objective is to increase the level of research, analysis and investigation on organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. To this end, InSight Crime has created this website where it connects the pieces, the players and organizations and gives a cohesive look of the region’s criminal enterprises and the effectiveness of the initiatives designed to stop them. InSight Crime’s staff and contributors also write analysis and do field investigations, providing the type of on-the-ground research absent in other monitoring services.

InSight Crime launched its website December 1, 2010, with profiles on groups, personalities, and security initiatives in Mexico and Colombia. It now has profiles on El Salvador and Guatemala, and with time, it will add more countries, regions, groups, personalities and security initiatives to give the most complete, up-to-date picture on organized crime in the region.

InSight Crime began in April 2010, under the auspices of the Fundacion Ideas para la Paz (FIP) in Bogota, Colombia, and with funding from the Open Society Foundations. In August, American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies (CLALS) became a sponsor and additional host to the project.

In May 2012, the organization legally and formally constituted the Fundacion InSight Crime, an independent research institution with headquarters in Medellin, Colombia. It currently has offices in Medellin, Colombia, and at American University in Washington DC.