Crime Archive

Thieves mugged tourists in front of their swanky, beachfront hotels. Gang members traded gunfire with police, sending partygoers into a panic. A police officer was assaulted by multiple people right outside his home. This year’s celebrations for Carnival, which marks the beginning of Lent in the Christian calendar, brought global attention to mounting insecurity in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s iconic coastal city that boasts a population of around 6 million. Fogo Cruzado, or Cross Fire, an app created by Amnesty International Brazil to monitor crime in Rio, recorded 24 deaths by guns during the seven-day period, as well as a […]

A new attorney general took office in Guatemala last week amid sharp tensions over the role of a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission that has helped bring high-profile charges against some of the country’s most powerful politicians. Maria Consuelo Porras, a former substitute judge for Guatemala’s Constitutional Court, will run the country’s Public Ministry and direct its criminal, human rights and anti-corruption investigations. The outgoing attorney general, Thelma Aldana, and her predecessor, Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, showed impressive leadership and independence in investigating and prosecuting these sorts of cases. Now their enemies want those advances reversed. Across Central America, public […]

WARSAW—On April 19, the Polish capital paused to remember the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, when Jews took up arms against the Nazi Germans. The 75th anniversary of the start of the uprising was observed in ceremonies led by Jewish leaders as well as officials from the highest levels of government. At one event held at the city’s Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Heroes, addressing a crowd that included Holocaust survivors, President Andrzej Duda hailed those who rose up to resist the Nazi occupiers. “We bow our heads low to their heroism, their bravery, their determination and courage,” he said. […]