Jonathan D. Rosen. Criminal Actors in Latin America. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. Front matter, 86 pp. ; hardcover 44. 99, eBook 34. 99.

In Criminal Actors in Latin America, Jonathan D. Rosen offers, in 86 pages, a short primer to the complex landscape of criminal actors in Latin America.He examines the nature of major criminal actors in selected countries across the region, ranging from Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel and El Salvador's Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) to Argentina's The Monkeys (Los Monos).He provides an overview of these groups' organizational structure, leadership, reach, operational scope, and levels of violence, as well as patterns of fragmentation and, in some cases, the dismantling of key criminal organizations.The book is organized into six chapters.It consists of an introductory chapter, four case-study chapters covering Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras, Brazil, and Argentina, and a concluding chapter.Rosen includes insightful introductions and conclusions within each chapter to guide the reader and synthesize the main contributions.Although he does not state it explicitly, the selection of the six countries appears to reflect their relevance for understanding different types of criminal actors in Latin America.Thus, the four empirical chapters examine some of the major criminal groups and their leaders in the selected countries.In the introductory chapter, Rosen begins by analyzing how different criminal actors are defined, using the example of whether MS-13 should be classified as a drug cartel or a gang.He emphasizes that politicians most frequently use these terms as synonyms, even though the nature of each criminal group is different.In this chapter, Rosen also highlights several themes that cut across the empirical chapters: criminal groups' ability to serve as a de facto form of government in certain territories, and governments' focus on capturing kingpins, which has led to the implosion or fragmentation of criminal organizations.He also discusses the role of the militarization of the war on drugs and the collusion between state authorities and criminal actors.One of the book's distinguishing features is its organization.The case-study chapters are divided into sections, each devoted to the examination of a specific criminal group.In general, the analysis begins with the actors with greater reach and longer developmental trajectories and then moves on to those with more local operations or more recent emergence.The chapters highlight the distinct characteristics and operational dynamics of powerful transnational organized crime groups, cartels with regional reach, guerrillas, criminal bands, gangs, and a wide range of other actors operating across the six countries under analysis.The first two empirical chapters analyze the cases of Mexico and Colombia.In the chapter on Mexico, Rosen traces the evolution of the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Zetas, the Cartel Jalisco New Generation (CJNG), and other criminal organizations.He shows that competition between groups and state pressure tend to produce fragmentation, adaptation, and shifts in power, rather than the definitive disappearance of these organizations.In the chapter on Colombia, he outlines the rise and decline of the Medelln, Cali, and Norte del Valle cartels, and incorporates the criminal dynamics of guerrilla and paramilitary groups, as well as criminal organizations that emerged following demobilization processes.