Crime & Conflict, UKR-Obs

Scam call centres in Ukraine

...d Stream 2. It turned out to be a fake investment and they lost all their money.  Call centres such as this operate not only in Ukraine, but all over the world – including India, Latvia, China, Mexico and Bulgaria. According to Truecaller, a company that specializes in blocking spam calls, Americans collectively lost nearly US$30 billion to scammers in 12 months between 2021 and 2022, and one in t...

Posted on 21 Oct 2023

Author(s): Jack Meegan-Vickers

Crime & Conflict, UKR-Obs

Entrepreneurial newcomers: Russian-speaking migrant smugglers on the US southern border

... flows from Central Asia, particularly Uzbekistan, have also surged. Many seek refuge in the US, facilitated by Russian- and Uzbek-speaking smuggling networks operating in Turkey, Central America and Mexico.   On 11 May 2023, a Trump-era US health policy known as Title 42 – which allowed authorities to turn back migrants at the border as part of measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 – will be ...

Posted on 11 May 2023

Author(s): Yulia Vorobyeva

Latinoamérica y el Caribe, CAM-Obs

Diez años de vigilantes

Diez años de vigilantes

...Ten years of vigilantes The Mexican autodefensas In February 2013, a couple hundred armed men gathered in the heart of the Tierra Caliente region in western Mexico. They called themselves Autodefensas de Michoacán (Self-Defence Forces of Michoacán) and asserted that they would combat and wipe out the Caballeros Templarios or ‘Templarios’ (the Knights Temp...

Posted on 07 Mar 2023

Author(s): Romain Le-Cour-Grandmaison