Crime

Bottom Line: The dark web has long been a place where stolen personal data is bought and sold in staggering numbers, criminals run lucrative drug and pornographic businesses and terrorists have found relatively safe territory from which to organize and communicate.  But the future of the dark web may look ...

Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly warned against the “real” and increasingly sophisticated threat from the nexus between criminal and terrorist networks as he advocated for more aggressive immigration policy enforcement. Kelly laid out on Tuesday a vision of a world that is increasingly dangerous and fraught with security ...

Kidnappings in Mexico continue to increase, particularly in the states of Guerrero, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Morelos, Puebla, Zacatecas, and Tabasco.  Although the Interior Ministry reported a 2.1 percent drop in 2016 compared to 2015, the methodology—or lack thereof—leaves a lot to be desired.  Statistics, like those reporting homicides, are hidden or ...

Mexico’s homicide rate is surging. Government and independent sources are reporting an up to 18 percent increase for 2016, compared to last year. This comes on the heels of a multi-year decline in criminal violence in many parts of the country. It has been more than six years since Mexico’s ...

Earlier this month, a police truck burned on the side of the road in Zihuatanejo, Guerrero, with meter high flames melting the interior and the four bodies, three of them murdered federal police officers, that lay inside. Like so many gruesome crime scenes across Mexico, this one marked a fault ...

The increase in violence over the last year has spread evenly across Mexico (as shown in Figure 1 below) which compares state-level intentional homicide rates per 100,000 residents for the first ten months of 2015 (X axis) and 2016 (Y axis). There are a few states where homicide rates have ...

South Africa has come a long way since 1994, when the country was on a knife’s edge, and it seemed civil war was imminent. With strong leadership by Nelson Mandela, the transition was relatively peaceful, and political violence reduced substantially during the first years of democracy.  Indeed, since the birth ...

CSS Tactical (Pty) Ltd, a security company in Johannesburg, South Africa, takes a community policing approach to crime prevention.  CEO Ricky Croock discussed with The Cipher Brief the biggest security concerns to businesses operating in South Africa and how technology and manpower can help confront the growing crime threat.  The ...

Ambassador John Campbell served as a Foreign Service Officer in South Africa during the transition from apartheid to majority rule.  He told The Cipher Brief that South Africa has undergone immense changes, but more needs to be done to reduce poverty which has led to a recent spike in crime ...

Illovo Sugar Limited, Africa’s biggest sugar producer, exports raw and refined sugar globally.  After crime and conflict in South Africa over land ownership affected business operations, Illovo South Africa began working on redistributing land to local farmers, well before the government implemented such a policy.  Chris Fitz-Gerald, Illovo’s Communication Manager, ...

Violent crime is rising in Brazil and, if past trends hold true, that could be bad for the business community during a time when the Brazilian economy is already suffering. Last Thursday night, Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil, saw the deadliest of six massacres this year.  At least ...