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Narcotrafficking

High Risk in Venezuela—To What End?

OPINION — “I knew the possible danger. It was a very dangerous operation. It was amazing that we had a few injured, but all are in good shape right [...] More

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The Caribbean Emerges as a Test of U.S. Power

The Caribbean Emerges as a Test of U.S. Power

DEEP DIVE — U.S. military forces this week carried out yet another strike on a vessel in Caribbean waters off Venezuela, marking the sixth such [...] More

As Trump Expands Caribbean Strikes on Cartels, Much is Still Unclear

OPINION — “Extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels that the United States has designated as terrorist organizations have wrought devastating [...] More

Expert Q&A: The U.S. Takes On the Mexican Cartels

EXPERT INTERVIEW — The Trump administration is prioritizing going after Mexican drug cartels as a key national security objective. It has designated [...] More

Can the CIA and U.S. military stop the Mexican cartels? 

Can the CIA and U.S. military stop the Mexican cartels? 

CIPHER BRIEF REPORTING — On January 20, the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump formally labeled Mexico’s crime cartels as [...] More

Trump Administration Says Narco-Trafficking is #1 Threat - and Tries All-Hands Approach to Stop It

DEEP DIVE — When the U.S. intelligence community (IC) declared last week that the greatest danger to American national security is old-fashioned [...] More

Ungoverned Space: A National Security Challenge

Whoever the American people elect to be our next president in November, she or he will inherit numerous problems, including terrorism, the hollowing [...] More

The Structure and Psychology of Drug Cartels

One of the most prominent and visible characteristics of a transnational drug trafficking organization is the existence of a highly formal hierarchy [...] More

New Developments in Organized Crime in Peru

From May 8 through May 13, I had the opportunity to participate in the international Special Operations Forces exercise “Fuerzas Comando” in Lima, [...] More

A First Hand View of Campesinos and the War on Drugs

My name is Pedro José Arenas Garcia. I am a former Colombian congressman and the director of the Observatory on Growers and Crops Declared Illicit in [...] More

The Fall and Rise of Cocaine

In 1992, Peru produced an estimated 60 percent of the world’s cocaine. At one time, cocaine production was the largest industry in the country, at 17 [...] More

Cocaine and Conflict in Colombia

Cocaine and Conflict in Colombia

For a very long time, the word that most often followed a mention of Colombia was cocaine. Colombia was the world’s largest producer of the illicit [...] More

Mapping Criminal Networks

Two assumptions about transnational crime disrupt the design of effective security policies worldwide: Assuming that corruption is mainly an economic [...] More