The study of international crime and surveillance in the South American Caribbean during the export era is still in its early stages. In the historiography of criminality, Atlantic perspectives allow for a deeper analysis of the mobility of criminals. However, most studies with this approach focus on regions that received mass migrations in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, particularly in the South American port cities. Other studies have investigated penal transportation and the circulation of forced laborers. Nevertheless, there were other areas in the Americas with lower population flows but dynamic commercial relations, which were exploited by international criminals. From the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, a key node in these connections was the penal colony in French Guiana. The penal camp of Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni received tens of thousands of convicts from Saint-Martin-de-Ré, in La Rochelle. Hundreds of prisoners managed to escape, as documented in diplomatic correspondence, where lists of fugitive prisoners appear, but this history can be traced mostly through narratives written by the fugitives themselves or with the collaboration of journalists, revealing the art and structure of the escape. Within this contingent, it is possible to reconstruct the trajectory of a notorious forger, whose itinerary was part of a network that moved from Venezuela to Panama, Havana, and finally to the Gulf of Mexico.
Diego Pulido Esteva (Thu,) studied this question.