Western Hemisphere Regional Transnational Crime Assessment and Analysis

Transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), including gangs and drug cartels, undermine border security, perpetuate crime, and inflict harm in communities throughout the Western Hemisphere. These organizations often exploit the region’s pervasive corruption and weak rule of law to facilitate criminal activity and siphon away resources. Challenges posed by corruption, financial crimes, and criminal networks are also pervasive; however, there remains a lack of data driven, reliable analytics to define the scope of these challenges in the hemisphere, and successful approaches to address them. To enhance policy decision-making and guide foreign assistance programming decisions, INL is seeking applications for three (3) grant projects to comprehensively assess anti-corruption, financial crimes, criminal networks, and the impact of interventions on these topics in Central America, South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean.