Category: Crime

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A photo taken by Discovery astronauts in 1991 shows the thick haze over the central Andes in Bolivia. The pollution is caused by the extensive dry seasonal burning in the Amazon basin. The hase is trapped in the lower atmosphere by a stable layer of air. The forests are being burned, in many cases, for coca production. AP/Wide World Photo.

Coca Fields: Better than Devastation?

Ichoa, Bolivia – The yap of a toucan sounded from a treetop near the Ichoa ranger post in Bolivia’s Isiboro-Secure National Park. From the cabin’s porch, park director Hans Rocha picked out the bird’s long-billed silhouette, framed against the foothills of the Andes, where the

Jose Santos (left) and Salvador Valdez (right) in a Hidalgo jail this spring. These traveling stamp salesmen were falsely accused of kidnaping in rural Mexico. Photo by Jorge Muedano

Lynching in Huejutla

Looking back, people say they didn’t much notice the two men – one fat and one thin – lurching along the unpaved roads in their gray 1980 Chevrolet pickup early on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 24. Like most days in Huejutla, Hidalgo that time

At age 18, Edgar Bolaños, known as Shy Boy, lives in fear of death. “There are lots of people who want to kill me.” he says. “I don’t mean homeboys. I mean really bad people from the organized crime rings and other people who just hate us. They think because I used to live in Los Angeles that I am the leader here. They are wrong, but they have lots of guns, big guns and we don’t have much of anything.”

How Edgar Bolaños Became Shy Boy in El Salvador

Text and photos by Donna DeCesare Soyapango, El Salvador — During pre-dusk hours when school children in crumpled uniforms race home, past the maquila factory workers wearily descending from buses, Shy Boy and his friends emerge alert and ready for business. They scatter in clusters

Alberto Fujimori, president of Peru, has agreed to work with the president of Bolivia to remove coca from a United Nations blacklist. Photo by AP/Wide World

The Dialogue of the Deaf Over Coca

Quillabamba, Peru – The decrepit old theater, filled with hand-lettered signs and women in bowler hats passing out coca leaves, seemed worlds away from the high living associated with the illegal drug trade. So did the calls for all-out war on “el narcotráfico.” But its

An aerial view of part of Peru's Upper Huallaga Valley shows ravaged patches of jungle which have been cleared by peasants for the illegal cultivation of coca bushes. Use of the pesticide Spike over the area, which is at the experimental stage, could further damage the ecosystem, according to environmental advocates. Photo by AP/Wide World Photos.

The Lure of a Criminal Cash Crop

TINGO MARIA, Peru. – On her farm in a hollow in Peru’s high jungle, one woman’s pride are her tropical fruit trees. But she acknowledges that fruit doesn’t bring in money in. Nor does the coffee and cacao she and her husband grow. These days,