Organized crime, terrorism, or insurgency? Reflections on Mexico

José Carlos Hernández-Gutiérrez

The phenomenon of organized crime in Mexico is not new. However, it is no less true that, for a few years now, violence caused by or related to criminal organizations has been registering higher levels than ever. This has caused, from different spheres, to wonder if indeed the problem facing the country can still be called organized crime. Can non-state armed actors in Mexico qualify as terrorists? Have they evolved into some form of insurgency? The author of these pages, after conducting a bibliographic review on the variants of terrorism and insurgency used by some authors to refer to the Mexican case, affirms that Mexican criminal organizations are not terrorists or insurgents, but rather profit-making organizations that make a tactical use of terrorism and / or insurgency to achieve economic benefits or the goals of their organizations.

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