By Reynell Badillo-Sarmiento & Luis Fernando Trejos-Rosero 

This article explores how organized criminal organizations exercise criminal governance over other organized and non-organized criminals using public messaging, lethal and extra-lethal violence. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, over 350 press reports, and an original database on inter-criminal lethal violence, we show, in line with recent literature on organized crime, that while these organizations use violence to build their reputation as actors willing to use force, they also provide benefits to other criminals such as financing and protection from state and competitors. This article contributes to the literature on criminal governance by elaborating on the mechanisms shown in recent work and by detailing an unexplored case study in Barranquilla (Colombia).

Colombia: Trends in Organized Crime, 2023. 27p.

By Patrick Naef

This article provides a picture of the political economy of tourism and violence in Medellín. It analyses the way criminal actors and tourism entrepreneurs share a territory, by shedding light on the extortion of tour guides, street performers and business owners in some of its barrios populares (poor neighbourhoods). The main objective is to demonstrate how intimate relationships – between and among kin, friends, long-term acquaintances – impact what is considered the criminal governance of tourism. This contribution shows that extortion in Medellín meets only limited resistance from tourism entrepreneurs. It also emphasises how criminals, tourism actors and tourists themselves contribute to the creation of fragile secured spaces in the developing tourist-scapes of Colombia's second city.

Journal of Latin American Studies (2023), 55, 323–348

By Reynell Badillo-Sarmiento, Luis Fernando Trejos-Rosero

This article investigates why organised criminal organisations opt for dismemberment, a costly and resource-intensive practice compared to targeted killings. We argue that dismemberment serves two functions for OCGs: first, it demonstrates OCGs' willingness to use gruesome violence against those who challenge their territorial hegemony, and second, it sustains criminal governance regimes by punishing individuals who violate OCGs' regulations. To demonstrate this argument, we analyse 25 cases of dismemberment in Colombia that we compiled during more than four years of fieldwork, review of press archives and databases provided by local authorities. This article contributes to extending the concept of extra-lethal violence to organised crime studies

Working Paper, 2023.