Avocados are marketed as a superfood, but growing them for an expanding world market has turned a rural Mexican state into an unsustainable monoculture.
Federal and state RICO charges, which target racketeering, have been applied to a wide range of crimes committed by politicians and business people over the past few decades.
Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says he will end land clearance in Brazil’s Amazon region. But powerful forces profit from rainforest destruction.
Organized crime gangs in Southeast Asia use psychological profiling, elaborate scripts and algorithms to produce sophisticated scams. Using dating apps, they target vulnerable people looking for love.
Gangs have changed in the decades since ‘West Side Story’ first came out – they are deadlier, and their demographics are different – as are the means law enforcement use to control them.
A series of brazen, highly visible attacks by Mexican drug cartels have killed at least 50 people in the past month, terrorizing citizens and making the government look weak on crime.
President López Obrador campaigned on some outside-the-box ideas to ‘pacify’ Mexico after 12 years of extreme violence. But so far his government has emphasized traditional law-and-order policies.
Italy saw 1,191 attacks on politicians from 2013 to 2015. A new study reveals, for the first time, the destructive effect this strategic political violence has on the nation’s political life.
Robert Muggah, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
As hard-line Pentecostalism spreads across Brazil, some drug traffickers in gang-controlled areas of Rio de Janeiro are using religion as an excuse to attack nonbelievers.
On the eve of its departure from Haiti after a 13-year stabilization effort, the UN faces accusations that its troops used excessive force to fight gangs, killing innocent bystanders.
Overuse of sand for construction and industry is harming the environment and fueling violence around the world. Scientists explain why we need international rules to regulate sand mining and use.
Ross William Ulbricht, the tech-savvy Texan who created the Silk Road, was sentenced to life in prison without parole on charges that equated him with a mafia boss.
Assistant Professor at University of Milan and Executive Director of the CLEAN Unit on the economics of crime at Bocconi University, Bocconi University