International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 80

Criminal Networks: The Forgotten Actors of International Politics
Kremer, and Kronenberg 2012). Indeed, diffusion of founding mythology among
local population enhances Mafias’ strength. For example, U.S. Cosa Nostra’ Families
were allegedly formed to defend Italian immigrants against White Anglo-Saxon
Protestant (WASP) establishment, showing their attachment to values of honor,
courage, and virility. The use of the social bandit mythology (Robin Hood) and
social charity to win the heart of the poor working class could not correspond
to anyone better than to Pablo Escobar, the head of the Medellin Cartel, which
in the early 1980s won $500,000 a day. Despised for the extremely violent war he
conducted against the Colombian State, Pablo Escobar was venerated like a Saint
in Medellin’s poor neighborhoods. During his reign, Escobar spent a significant
amount of money in charitable public works, built schools, sports fields, and housing
developments. He gifted affordable houses to thousands of families living in
slums, interestingly giving his own name to the newly built neighborhood, Barrio
Pablo Escobar.
Mafias have always tried to balance the use of coercion with social action
in order to reinforce their noble image, “a necessary evil,” in the eyes of the general
public. For instance, Al Capone gave soup to poor workers during the 1929
depression and Yakuza Yamagushi-Gumi organized free food and water deliveries
to the population affected by the 1995 earthquake in Kobe. Mafias’ smart power
is also visible in its attempt to brand itself as the only reliable social mediator and
peace enforcer in neighborhoods where traditional public security duty is delegated
to them, such as in Taiwan (Triads), Little Italy (Sicilian-American), or Corleone
(Cosa Nostra) (Grennan and Britz 2006). On the contrary, the war between
Mexican cartels and their structural instability, the public acts of terror, and continuous
emergence of new powerful actors have prevented them to become perennial
Mafias. The use of torture and murder of civilians have become a trade mark
of these ultra-violent criminal organizations: on March 15, 2017, a mass grave of
250 human skulls, all victims of cartels, was discovered in Veracruz (Karimi and
Jones 2017).
In fact, since the 1990s, cartels emerged out of paramilitary branches of the
most powerful Mexican cartels such as Los Negros headed by the Beltran Leyva
formerly part of the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas, deserters of the elite corps of the
Mexican army, who became the private army of the Gulf cartel leader’ Osiel Cardenas
Guillen (Saviano 2014). 5 Their military ultra-modern equipment (Kevlar,
assault rifles, night-glasses, wire-tapping, etc.) and highly professionalized rigid
and codified structure, their post-modern criminal flexibility, and lack of territorial
roots have allowed them to quickly become major criminal players. In addition,
newly formed Familia Michoacan or the Millennium Family has all contributed to
transforming Central America into a transnational battleground. 6
5 Gruopo Areomovil de Fuerza Especiales.
6 Along criminal organizations such as White Templars or kill-Zetas, the Michoacan Familia is of-
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