*Our content is bilingual | Nuestro contenido es bilingüe.
Drawing on field research, local sources, and expert voices, InSight Crime tells the human stories behind organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean, explaining how criminal networks operate, how they impact countries and communities, and why these dynamics continue to shape the region.
Visit our web site for more: insightcrime.org
Dispatch From Culiacán: Two Years of the Sinaloa Cartel War | The InSight Take
Two years after Ismael Zambada Garcia, alias "El Mayo," was handed over to US authorities, the war between the Chapitos and the Mayiza factions of the Sinaloa Cartel continues to roil. The Sinaloa Cartel is now being rebuilt around different people. InSight Crime's Victoria Dittmar and co-director Steven Dudley were recently in Culiacán and Sinaloa, where they interviewed drug producers, residents and local sources during a week in which a shootout hit a restaurant near their hotel and a house was attacked in broad daylight meters from one of their interviews. What they found was a city where the war is less visible than it was, but no less present: the lookouts are gone, the narcocorridos have stopped playing openly, and the fighting has moved south.
In this episode of The InSight Take, managing editor Deborah Bonello asks them what that shift actually means for the two factions, for the people living between them, and for who ends up running Sinaloa when the shooting stops.
23 Sept 2026
Why did the US remove Venezuela from its drug list?
Venezuela is officially off the US’s blacklist of nations that have failed to adequately tackle drug trafficking. InSight Crime Managing Editor Deborah Bonello and Co-Director Jeremy McDermott look at what Venezuela’s removal means, the US drug certification process, Colombia and Bolivia’s continued presence on the list, and the Cartel of the Suns.
Subscribe to InSight Crime for weekly analysis of organized crime and drug trafficking across Latin America and the Caribbean.
#Venezuela #USDrugPolicy #DrugTrafficking #OrganizedCrime
15 Sept 2026
The Autopsy of Total Peace | The InSight Take
Deborah Bonello speaks to InSight Crime co-founder Jeremy McDermott, who has covered Colombia for close to thirty years, about what the final ledgers on Total Peace show: What the ceasefires do? What did the collapse in Catatumbo reveal? And how have gold and extortion risen as key criminal economies in the hands of the country's criminal groups? Finally, we ask what Colombia's own record says about whether the force promised by President Abelardo de la Espriella will work any better than former president Petro's peace.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
YouTube views
2,632,180
Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
16 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
199 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 66 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
61
Social presence
0
YouTube
86
Engagement
89
Host of InSight Crime Podcast | From the ground up?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
