Artwork for podcast Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Extortion in the Northern Triangle
Episode 510th September 2020 • Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime • Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
00:00:00 00:39:14

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In the Northern Triangle countries of Central America - Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, extortion is so pervasive that it has been called “A way of life”.

The growth in extortion in the region was defined by the expansion of street gangs MS13 and Barrio 18. They have a stranglehold on the countries in which they operate, extorting rich and poor and even international corporations.

The revenue from extortion has provided gangs in the region with a solid economic operating base, and at the same time allowed them to diversify into other criminal enterprises – they are now transnational organized criminal groups.

Presenter: Jack Meegan-Vickers

Speakers:

1.      Guillermo Vazquez del Mercado Almada, Senior Analyst, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

2.      Evelyn Espinosa, Research Adviser at Diálogos

3.      Pamela Ruiz, Consultant at the Coalition for Resilience Project and member of the GI Network of Experts.

4.      Professor Lucia Dammert, University of Santiago, Chile and member of the GI Network of Experts.

GI Extortion Project

Paper: A Criminal Culture: Extortion in Central America

Other content available at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime website.

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