Fecha Publicación: 07-03-2023

How does strategic competition between the United States and China influence the evolution of transnational organised crime in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)? Although it is becoming increasingly visible, the “global power competition – transnational organised crime’ nexus remains unexplored in national and international scholarship as well as in risk assessments and, therefore, in the policy-making process.

The purpose of this article is to examine this global power competition and transnational organised crime nexus. I argue that strategic competition between the United States and China feeds – unintentionally or otherwise – dynamics associated with organised crime in LAC, thus having implications for democratic governance, citizen security, and sustainable development in the region. This article focuses the criminal organisation known as the Knights Templar, analysing its infiltration and exploitation of iron ore in Michoacán and their interaction with Chinese brokers in the mining industry. Information was gathered from discussions with government officials and scholars, interviewed in 2019, as well as open-source analysis.

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