Today, we’re joined by Rafael Cabrera. Rafael is a senior strategic intelligence analyst for Latin America. He was a founding partner of the Risko consultancies. He was also in charge of the corporate intelligence unit of the Banco Sabadell in Mexico, and the deputy director of strategic liaison of human rights at Mexico City. He’s graduated with honors from a master’s degree in international studies from the National University in Mexico. And he’s taught courses on the legal aspects for the use of force and the maintenance of public order. He was an advisor to the Public Security Commission, and the Chamber of Deputies in Mexico.
Tell our listeners where you work today and what it is that keeps you busy? (2:21)
We’re having a lot of jobs in the region, because we have a lot of elections. It is a very important year for elections activities and security purposes in the region. So this is a complicated year. (2:27)
And can you tell our listeners, Rafael, so you’ve been an intelligence analyst for a long time working and focusing on a variety of countries in Latin America, what are the main risks for companies and individuals and for government agencies working in Mexico and throughout Latin America? (2:53)
If I have to divide the main ways in Latin America, I can say that there are three principal or main threats for security and for risks in the region. The first one is organized crime, of course, is probably the main threat to the security of the region. But something that they have to say this in Latin America is not an homogeneous region. Many people think that in America it is the same from Argentina to Mexico. And we have a different kind of threat. When I say organized crime is the most important threat for the region is because it affects many countries, but not all the countries of the region. For example, the most affected countries by organized crime activities or in specific drug cartels activities are of course Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, and probably Peru. But in other regions of Latin America, I can say that the most important threat for security is social unrest. That happens, for example in Chile, or Argentina or Uruguay, where social unrest is turning in the most important thread because since 2019, we have experienced the increase of demonstration, protest, confrontation between civil society against the government because people usually in the past were quiet but today are demanding different changes in the policies applied in that kind of countries. And these demonstrations are getting more violent and are characterized by blooding or vandalism or graffitis or clashes with police. And the third main threat for the region is natural hazards. Of course, most of the countries of the region are close to the Pacific area. And as you know, the fire belt in the Pacific is characterized by seismic activities, earthquakes, volcano activities, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc, that can affect their populations and infrastructure in the context of the region. So if you ask me, the three most important threats in the regions are the organized crime, the social unrest, and the natural hazards. (3:13)
Thanks for unpacking that Rafale. And when we hear about organized crime, that’s often something that sends a real cold shiver down risk managers and security advisors when they’re looking at their risk register and they’re building their enterprise risk management plan. Because organized crime is often seen as something that’s so multifaceted and so deep, and can often be entrenched within government agencies within security forces. And it’s very difficult even to screen employees to make sure that the people you’re recruiting aren’t linked or associated with organized crime. How can companies that are interested in investing or setting up operations in Latin America understand and navigate through this environment? (5:50)
Many companies in the region are getting a more comprehensive culture of risk. So they are trying to develop a strategy for protecting the different assets of the companies, but at the same time, their reputation, and on the other hand, the security of the people working in the companies. So in order to avoid for example, risk coming from people that you are hiring, something that is very common right now in the region’s, especially in the financial sector is to do a background check of people that you are hiring, and in order to avoid different risks coming from people. And on the other hand, many companies are developing intelligence units in order to follow the different threads organized crime or identifying the triggers that can produce social unrest in the different cities of the region. So usually most of the companies are monitoring the develops of the social unrest, demonstrations, protests, roadblocks, etc, that can affect the operational continuity, and on the other hand, something that is very important, the companies and in a specific day intelligence analysts are trying to develop and I mean, totally to analyze it, the different risk in order to mitigate it or avoid the risk. This is something that is changing a lot in the region, because in the past, this kind of actions were not so common. And right now, this culture is more frequently in the region. And I can say that not on all the countries, we have this kind of cultural strategy, probably we can see more developed strategies to mitigate risk in Mexico, in Brazil, in Colombia, Chile, and Argentina. And of course, Costa Rica, too, they are developing some good strategies in order to avoid risk for the private sector. (6:34)
That is a really exciting point that you bring up, Rafael, about companies actually doing more insourcing. And we know that one of the trends we’ve seen in 2019, and 2020, is less outsourcing and many companies reviewing whether they should be in sourcing, but we haven’t seen in the north and American, Australian or the European markets, companies in sourcing their intelligence and their forecasting units. So it’s really interesting to hear you talk about that. Could you maybe explain to our listeners, what does it mean for a company that wants to have in house capacity to do their own intelligence correction, monitoring, analysis, and doing some foresight about event triggers, whether it’s social unrest or government action? What does that look like for a company that wants to build that? (8:37)
Well, obviously the big companies most of these companies are in the financial sector are big tech companies. They are doing insource programs to develop intelligence unit for the companies but simply have to say that many companies don’t create their own intelligence unit. They prefer it to contract and a specialized company. In order to do we love that kind of units into companies. But some companies, the most important banks or the big tech companies, are creating diligence units that monitor The normal threads that are very common in the region say that the southern arrests are organized crime activities or grammar crank, but at the same time they are analyzing the threads of the risk coming from the digital sources for criminals, cybercriminals. For example, unfortunately, not all the company’s company is related to the primary sector or some industries, they are not interested because they think that this kind of activity is more a waste of money than an investment, doing a forecast for the region most companies will introduce in this culture because to report aspect in Latin America is receiving a lot of investment from foreign companies and these companies come to the region with a different culture of private governance, the where the risk identification is something important. And on the other hand, this kind of companies comes to the region with this culture, because the regulation in their original countries only that you incorporate for compliance purposes, this kind of culture of governance for companies. So this is coming to Latin America, and it has really spread for the region. So the local branches are taking these models of companies, and they are copy and pasting heavy strategies to analyze the different threats. (9:25)