Media Works, the film production company founded by Hoyu Yamamoto, specializes in producing Yakuza movies, almost all of which are based on true events. They produce dozens of movies a year, making up 80 percent of all Yakuza films put out each year. Unfortunately for them, gang expulsion laws were passed two years ago in an effort to prevent Japanese entities from working with the Yakuza.

The day that 17-year-old Israel Arenas Durán disappeared began, like most, with his mother making him breakfast. He ate with his father and 15-year-old brother, Irving, at a small wooden table outside the family's single-room home, overlooking the plant nursery they run in the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leó.

Mexico saw the highest number of reported kidnappings in the first half of 2013 since at least 1997, according to a national civil society organization, a figure that reflects the increasing diversification of criminal activities in the country. According to a report from the National Citizen Observatory (ONC), there were 757 reports of kidnappings recorded between January and June this year, the highest number for any semester in the time period 1997 to 2013.

Nearly half of Salvadorans believe the "maras" benefit most from the country's gang truce, according to an opinion poll, which could spell political trouble for the pact as presidential elections are looming. In a public opinion survey of 2,119 Salvadorans, El Salvador's Universidad Tecnologica found that 47 percent of respondents believed the Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha (MS13) street gangs benefitted most from the truce brokered between the two groups in March 2012.