 A new study is seeking to address the complex and rapidly evolving roles that women play in criminal structures, which have often gone underreported or been simplified in both academia and the press. This report looks at three criminal economies, drug trafficking, human trafficking and migrant smuggling to reveal that women often play myriad roles at the same time, ascending to power or wielding influence in a range of manners. In this report, InSight Crime and Universidad del Rosario include profiles of some of the important women in organized crime in the Americas, many of them linked by a common thread: the use of violence. When beginning or ascending up the ranks of a criminal enterprise, violence is a tool that women have used – to a greater or lesser extent – to achieve their mission. And the profiles of criminal leaders from Colombia, Guatemala and México in this report show what use they made of it |
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