The SAIS Review of International Affairs
Latin America’s criminal groups have leveraged the coronavirus pandemic to win the goodwill and support of local populations by delivering humanitarian assistance and co-opting public service provision in communities underserved by state institutions. Such levels of “criminal charity” could complicate the future efforts of Latin America’s weakest states to dismantle and defeat organized crime groups, whose power has grown in recent years.
At a time where the international flow of remittances has received a great deal of criticisms by those on the political right, Jorge de Leon Miranda, a researcher at the International Monetary Fund, attempts to investigate the magnitude and effects of international remittances. In doing so, he discovered that remittances from the United States make up a great deal of the remittance inflow for at least fifteen countries and that the level of remittance inflow has an appreciable effect level of that country’s development.