A new study released by Grupo Método, an OSI grantee based in Bogotá, Colombia, finds disturbing parallels between the penetration of the Colombian government by illegal organizations and the growing power of narcotics traffickers in Mexico and Guatemala. Utilizing social network analysis to map criminal networks in each country, Método seeks to generate a new understanding of how organized crime infiltrates and manipulates state institutions.
"In each one of these countries, there are criminal organizations that are learning to make the legal world work in conjunction with the illegal world," write Luis Jorge Garay, Isaac de León-Beltran, and Eduardo Salcedo-Albarán.
This process has advanced most in Colombia, where drug traffickers linked to paramilitary forces have extended their reach from local leaders to the Colombian National Congress. Dozens of current or former lawmakers are under investigation or have been convicted on charges of collaborating with outlawed militias.
The authors see similar networks emerging in Mexico and Guatemala, where traffickers who already exercise virtual control in many municipalities are extending their reach to the national authorities.
"Public officials at all levels will be seduced by drug trafficking organizations, from the police officer patrolling the streets to the general directing the fight against drugs," they write. "The Colombian experience points to the development of private armies for territorial control along with the control of certain electoral processes."