📥 The Tren de Aragua and prisons in the spotlight

Hello! This week, the Tren de Aragua has been on everybody’s mind; from Chile, where the government is still trying to figure out the best approach to its security crisis, to Colombia, where the director of La Modelo prison in Bogota was brutally murdered, and the United States, following the arrest of an alleged member of the mega-gang.

How much truth is there to the theories about the seemingly unstoppable expansion of the group originating from Venezuela's prisons? Investigative journalist and co-founder of In.Visibles, Ronna Rísquez, answers this and more in this interview.

And that's not all. Here are five other news from the world of Latin America organized crime this week.

Thanks for reading and see you next Saturday!

Josefina Salomón

Editorial Director, In.Visibles

1.Prisons and gangs. The combination that has Latin America on edge has claimed a new high-profile victim in Colombia this week. Retired Colonel Élmer Fernández, director of Bogotá's La Modelo prison, was murdered as he travelled home in a van on Thursday afternoon. Fernández, who took office less than two months ago, had received threatening pamphlets warning that he and his family would be killed if he continued to intervene in the prison's wards. President Gustavo Petro said that "the murder of Colonel Elmer Fernández is a threat to the entire State". Colombian Justice Minister Néstor Osuna – who said that the prison situation in Colombia is "under control"– announced an operation to find those responsible and promised to reinforce security at the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Inpec), which is in charge of the country's prisons. So far three theories are circulating about the alleged perpetrators of the attack, as Jules Ownby reported for El País: Pedro Pluma, Pipe Tuluá, and members of the Tren de Aragua. The murder took place in the midst of the prison emergency that was declared in February in response to attacks on prison staff and an increase in extortion. La Modelo has capacity for 2,900 people but has a long history of overcrowding and riots, El Espectador reported. The big question is why Fernández did not have protection measures in place and why there is no proper investment in improving the state of prisons in a context where criminal organisations use them as centres of operation and expansion.

2.More violence. With just over two weeks to go before Mexico's presidential elections on 2 June, violence continues unabated. The week kicked off with the massacre of 11 people in Chicomuselo, a town in the southern state of Chiapas, AP reported. On Thursday night, six more people were killed in La Concordia, another town in the state, including Lucero López Maza, a local mayoral candidate. The Public Prosecutor's Office says it was a confrontation between armed civilians during a political campaign event, El País reported, but on Friday, the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas claimed that behind the killings were criminal groups who want to punish the local population for not agreeing to work for them. The violence did not only take place in Chiapas. On Thursday, members of a local independent organization who search for the disappeared located a clandestine grave with at least 21 bodies in the municipality of Abasolo in the state of Guanajuato, reported El País. Of the 2,679 disappeared people recorded by the Interior Ministry; nearly 2,000 were documented in the last seven years alone.

3. 40 per cent. That's the increase in the number of child migrants who have crossed the dangerous Darien jungle in the first four months of this year, according to data released by UNICEF on Wednesday. The UN agency estimates that among the approximately 139,000 people who have crossed the dangerous area between Colombia and Panama in that period, there were some 30,000 minors and that some have died. Experts predict that at this rate, the number of migrants crossing the Darién could reach 800,000 by the end of the year, including 160,000 minors. Panama's newly elected president, José Raúl Mulino, promised to close the area, which has become a "gold mine" for criminal organizations. In practice, however, the proposal is unrealistic, as this analysis by Alejandro Millán Valencia for BBC Mundo details.

4. Prime Minister wanted (again). Haiti is searching for a new Prime Minister after the surprise announcement on 30 April confirming Fritz Bélizaire as the new leader of the Caribbean nation sparked criticism within the newly formed governing council. Now, the seven voting members of the council have agreed on a new set of rules for the selection of the country's new leader. Experts say the task will be complex as the country struggles to emerge from a deep political and humanitarian crisis. But there is no shortage of candidates, the AP reported, with many people applying for the challenging post. The search is taking place as Haiti awaits the arrival of Kenyan police forces to help address the deepening security crisis.

5. Reappeared. On Saturday, Luciano Marín Arango, alias "Iván Márquez'', leader of the Second Marquetalia, a faction of the FARC dissidents, reappeared. Márquez, who had first been presumed dead and was later said to have been seriously wounded in an attack in Venezuela in July 2022, appeared in a video that was shown during the Binational Peace Forum organised by the officials of the Vichada department assembly in Puerto Carreño and accessed by El País. In the video, Márquez offers his support for the Constituent Assembly proposed by President Gustavo Petro, which has caused so much tension in Colombian society. The mystery of what had happened to the guerrilla leader is still alive to this day.

ALSO

The islander who defeated the regime in El Salvador (Carlos Barrera, El Faro)

Between hope and misery: 5,000 families occupy the farm of an extradited drug trafficker in Colombia (Jules Ownby, El País).

Interview with Claudia Sheinbaum, favourite to win Mexico's presidency: "I don't care if the opposition says mine would be another AMLO government" (Will Grant, BBC Mundo) 

The economic cost of violence in Mexico amounts to 19.8% of GDP (Institute for Economics and Peace).

US seeks to reclassify marijuana as less dangerous drug (Eileen Sullivan, NYT)