17Received 11.09.2024. Revised 18.11.2024. Accepted 29.01.2025.
Abstract. This paper shows that in Latin American countries highly developed criminal organizations with economic motivation can transform into de facto political actors. The argument is based on the assumption that the qualification of highly developed criminal organizations capable of exercising direct forceful territorial control does not necessarily depend on their motive. The study reveals that the transformation of criminal organizations with economic goals into de facto political actors is underpinned by the specifics of their evolution. The process of transition to direct forceful territorial control exercised by criminal organizations due to organizational complexity and an increase in the scale of their criminal activity is demonstrated. At this stage, a criminal organization has to spend much more resources per participant in order to maintain its functioning and protect itself from competing groups and the state. This is due to the division of labor within the criminal organization, the involvement of highly qualified personnel, the need for more vehicles, weapons, etc. It is established that in order to ensure a continuous influx of resources in sufficient volume, criminal organizations need to ensure forceful control over the places of production and storage of illegal goods and their supply routes. The achievement of economic goals by criminal organizations becomes impossible without ensuring de facto political goals through territorial control. This produces prerequisites for internal armed conflict in the form of a criminal insurgency since authorities in a number of Latin American countries are forced to use troops to fight these groups. The emergence of criminal insurgency is also facilitated by fragmentation of criminal organizations due to liquidation or arrest of their leaders.
Keywords: criminal organizations, non-state violent actors, drug cartels, gangs, criminal insurgency, internal armed conflict, Latin America, national security
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