The convergence of terrorism and transnational organized crime (TOC) is a phenomenon that dates back to the 1970s but rapidly accelerated with the end of the Cold War in 1991 and the ensuing round of rapid globalization. Since 9/11 , the US and others have focused predominately on eliminating the threat of terrorism throughout the world by focusing exclusively on the apprehension and/or termination of specific groups and individuals that comprise the leadership. However, very little attention or money has been devoted to investigating the linkages that exist between terrorist organizations and transnational organized crime networks. According to Tamara Makarenko of the Asia Pacific Centre for Security Studies, this emerging nexus poses the greatest threat to the security of the US and deserves paramount attention “precisely because [terrorism and TOC] both span national boundaries, and thus are necessarily multi-dimensional and organized; and, because they directly threaten the stability of states by targeting economic, political and social systems.”
To better illustrate the association of terrorism and TOC, Makarenko developed the crime-terror continuum (CTC) model, depicting four general relationships that exist between terrorism and organized crime: (1) alliances, (2) operational motives, (3) convergence, and (4) the ‘black hole’ syndrome. Although this relationship was accelerated dramatically with the culmination of the Cold War, the process had begun nearly two decades earlier. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, various terrorist groups financed a large portion of their activities by entering into cooperative relationships with drug cartels operating in Latin America (Colombia ), Europe, Asia (Golden Triangle) and the Middle East (Lebanon ). Forming a symbiotic relationship, drug cartels retained the protection services of terrorist groups, which in turn received revenues for operations. For example, the Medellin and Cali cartels regularly hired FARC and M19 guerrillas to provide security at cocaine production facilities. For protection services, the later groups received substantial revenues from the former that were used for various purposes, including acquiring arms.
Since 1991, the relationship between organized crime and terrorism grew exponentially for a variety of reasons, including the wave of globalization that swept through the international economy. Emerging markets and global integration created an attractive environment for the rapid acceleration of criminal activity into those areas controlled by the former Soviet Union. Often states emerging from the former Soviet bloc lacked political order, leaving a void in power that was filled by nefarious criminal organizations, some in association with Islamic fundamentalist groups. However, the disintegration of the Soviet Union impacted those states and/or terrorist organizations that had received substantial funding from the Soviet Union, including the FARC and ELN . To remedy the loss of financial services, terrorist organizations became more intertwined with transnational organized criminals, developing parallel economies and alternative means of financing.
As time progressed, criminal enterprises took on characteristics of the terrorist organization, exhibiting similar structures. Barbara Harris-White in her essay “Globalization, Insecurities, and Responses: an Introductory Essay” concluded that organized criminal activities have incorporated the structure of the traditional terrorist organization. She notes that these groups “consist of specialized cells, separately managing production, transport, distribution, money-laundering, communications, physical protection, and recruitment.” Makarenko identifies eight areas of similarity between contemporary organized crime and terrorism: “both utilize network and cell-based structures; the activities of both groups cross the national-regional-transnational divide; both groups require safe havens, and as a result both tend to take advantage of Diaspora communities; both groups use similar targeting and deployment techniques, and thus have sophisticated intelligence and counter-intelligence capabilities; both groups have a programme of government and public relations; and both contemporary criminal and terrorist groups have an absolute dependence on external sources of funding.”
The crime-terror continuum clearly illustrates the nexus that exists between organized crime and terrorist groups. Both groups have utilized the other, providing for a mutually beneficial relationship. Increasingly, terrorist organizations have bypassed the international criminal organization, choosing to engage directly in activities that were historically outside the confines of terrorist operations. In so doing, terrorist organizations, particularly in the Tri-Border Zone of Latin America , have become both terrorist and international criminal. In the same manner, international criminal organizations increasingly exhibit traits that define international terrorist organizations, simultaneously becoming both criminal and terrorist. As suggested by the Makarenko’s CTC, “organized crime and terrorism exist on the same plane, and thus are capable of converging at a central point at which time it becomes impossible to distinguish between the two.”
It is a mistake for US officials to believe that Middle Eastern terrorist groups are not active in Latin America, as suggested by Harry Crumpton, anti-terrorism coordinator at the US State Department. Crumpton alludes to the possibility that terrorist organizations may acquire the services of criminal networks operating in Latin America. However, he does not acknowledge that terrorists may simultaneously play the role of the fundamentalist terrorist and the capitalistic criminal. Terrorist financing is solely dependent on international criminal activities and therefore indistinguishable. One cannot be fought without targeting the other.