In different ways, ASG and Mexican drug cartels present a challenge for Australian policymakers. Recent evidence, which has been corroborated by media outlets and
conversations with law enforcement agents, points to the presence of Mexican OC groups in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia is a prime market for drugs, given its high profit margin, and is thus of interest to Mexican cartels. On the other hand, groups like ASG are a direct threat to Australian citizens and interests through kidnapping and monetary loss and also in their capacity to destabilise the political order in the Asia-Pacific region. Research in Australia should seek to establish how these two groups are perceived, tackled and dealt with and to evaluate whether the policies enacted today take into account the complexity of the terror–crime relationship as Arias and Hussain describe it.
Conclusion
Terrorism and organised crime pose a series of important challenges to Australian national security and public safety. Governments have signalled these phenomena as policy areas of priority in the past. While much has been written about the risks of collusion between organised crime and terrorist organisations, the truth is that we know precious little about these connections. While these organisations have traditionally been seen as epistemologically separate entities, new developments in academia and in the behaviours of these organisations have made clear the fact that it will be profitable to study their interactions deeply in the near future. This builds a bridge between criminology and security studies. It will also allow both academics and policymakers to assess the reality of the threat these groups pose. It is
important to focus research not only on these groups, however, but also on their relationships to other actors, like the state and society in general, to generate a nuanced picture of their structures, contacts and networks.
As a regional leader, Australia is well placed to take on these research challenges, insofar as they affect its internal and external security. This is a difficult agenda, touching on many sensitive topics like radicalisation, drug trafficking and abuse, and with geopolitical
considerations. However, the need for a better understanding of the links between OC and terrorist organisations in the Asia-Pacific region should prove a worthy incentive to support and carry out this agenda of research.
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