Co-Director – Steven Dudley is the co-founder and co-director of InSight Crime and a senior research fellow at American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies in Washington, DC. In 2020, Dudley published his second book, MS-13: The Making of America’s Most Notorious Gang (HarperCollins), which in 2019 won the Lukas Prize for work-in-progress. Dudley is the former bureau chief of the Miami Herald in the Andean Region and the author of Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia (Routledge 2004). Dudley has also reported from Haiti, Brazil, Nicaragua, Cuba and Miami for National Public Radio and the Washington Post, among others. He holds a BA in Latin American History from Cornell University and an MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
X: @stevensdudley – sdudley@insightcrime.org
Co- Director – Jeremy McDermott is co-founder and co-director of InSight Crime. McDermott has more than two decades of experience reporting from around Latin America. He is a former British Army officer, who saw active service in Northern Ireland and Bosnia. Upon retiring from the military he became a war correspondent, covering the Balkans, based in Bosnia, then the Middle East from Beirut, before being sent to Colombia to cover the conflict. He has traveled extensively throughout Latin America. Before setting up InSight Crime he worked for many of Britain’s most prestigious media outlets, including the BBC, the Daily Telegraph and The Economist. He specializes in drug trafficking, organized crime and the Colombian civil conflict. He has an MA from the University of Edinburgh.
X: @jerrymcdermott – jmcdermott@insightcrime.org
Chief Operating Officer – María Elena Ortegón has a degree in Business Administration (2006) and Public Accounting (2008), as well as a specialization in Business Law from the Universidad Externado de Colombia (2009). She also completed the Performance Measurement for Effective Management of Nonprofit Organizations program at Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education (June 2018) and the Direction and Management of NGO-ONL at ESADE (October 2024). María Elena has been a part of InSight Crime since March 2014
X: @nariaortegon – administration@insightcrime.org
Managing Editor – Deborah Bonello is an editor, author, reporter and investigator, and has been based in Latin America since 2006 after graduating with a BSc in Sociology from Bristol University in the UK. She has worked on projects and investigations across the region, covering topics including drug trafficking, extortion, street gangs and narco states. Bonello is the author of the book “NARCAS: The Secret Rise of Woman in the Sinaloa Cartel,” (Beacon July 2023).
X – @mexicoreporter – email: dbonello@insightcrime.org
English Editor – Liza Schmidt is a journalist with a dual master’s degree in global journalism and Latin American and Caribbean studies from New York University (NYU) and a bachelor’s in human development from Brown University. She previously worked as an editor for NACLA and writer for Latin America News Dispatch. She joined InSight Crime in May 2023.
X: @lizamayschmidt – lschmidt@insightcrime.org
Project Manager / Investigator – Alex Papadovassilakis is InSight Crime’s lead investigator in Central America. Based in Guatemala, he has led several in-depth investigations into drug trafficking, corruption, and gang dynamics. He holds a master’s degree in development studies from the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies in Geneva. He joined InSight Crime in 2019.
X: @AlexPapadov – apapadovassilakis@insightcrime.org
Project Manager / Investigator – Parker Asmann earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and Spanish in 2015 from DePaul University, as well as a minor in Latin American studies. He later obtained his master’s degree in international peace and conflict resolution from American University’s School of International Service in 2021. Before joining InSight Crime in 2017, he reported for various publications as a freelance journalist.
X: @PJAsmann – pasmann@insightcrime.org
Project Manager / Investigator – Victoria Dittmar graduated with a degree in international relations and international development from the University of Sussex. She then completed a master’s degree in sociology at the University of Oxford. She has worked with InSight Crime since 2016 and has mainly focused on investigating organized crime in Mexico and Central America.
X: @antjevictoria – vdittmar@insightcrime.org
Project Manager / Investigator –Juliana Manjarrés holds a journalism degree from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá and is a conflict resolution specialist. For the past two years, her work at InSight Crime has centered on investigations into organized crime and gang dynamics in Colombia and the Caribbean, including Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
LinkedIn – jmanjarres@insightcrime.org
Investigator – Alicia Flórez She holds a degree in Economics and a master’s degree from EAFIT University. Since 2018, she has worked as a researcher at InSight Crime, contributing to investigative projects on triple-border regions in Central America and the Southern Cone. Since 2020, her work has been dedicated to analyzing criminal economies and groups in Colombia, with a particular focus on the intersection of organized crime and women. In 2024, she was awarded the Simón Bolívar National Journalism Prize in the investigative journalism-text category for her research on gender-based violence in Tibú, Colombia.
aflorez@insightcrime.org
Investigator – Sara García is a historian with a master’s degree in peace building from Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá. She has participated in investigations on criminal networks, criminal actors, urban conflict, and gender-based violence in Colombia. She has also investigated the flow of chemical precursors for the production of synthetic drugs in Mexico. She has been part of the InSight Crime since 2020.
X: @SGarcia426 – LinkedIn – sgarcia@insightcrime.org
Investigator – Sean Doherty holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Manchester and a National Council for the Training of Journalists diploma in journalism. He is an investigator at InSight Crime, joining the organization at the beginning of 2023.
X:@seaninedoc – sdoherty@insightcrime.org
Creative Manager – Elisa Roldán Restrepo has a degree in graphic communication and advertising from the Universidad de Medellín, and a master’s degree in visual and experience design from the University of Europe for Applied Sciences in Berlin. She joined InSight Crime in 2016 and currently oversees multimedia content production and supports the organization’s communication and innovation strategies.
eroldan@insightcrime.org
Senior Graphic Designer – Maria Isabel Gaviria Gómez has a degree in graphic design from Institución Universitaria Pascual Bravo in Medellín. She has over 12 years of experience in the field of advertising, entertainment, and managing cultural projects. She is currently developing the graphic conceptualization for investigative journalism projects at Insight Crime.
mgaviria@insightcrime.org
