By Calvin Chrustie and John Gilmour, February 17, 2026
In February 2025, Canada listed seven transnational organized crime groups, primarily Mexican cartels, as terrorist entities, noting “their drug trafficking activities are a risk to national security and must be stopped.” In a follow-up media interview, senior RCMP officers confirmed that all listed groups were active in Canada and “very much involved in crime impacting Canada.”
The move sparked significant debate. Critics argued that terrorism is ideologically motivated, seeking political or social change through fear, whereas organized crime is driven by profit and pragmatism. While cartels use terrorist-like violence, it is typically to protect markets, eliminate rivals, or deter state interference — not to alter political structures. In this view, cartels and terrorists occupy different ends of the threat spectrum.
But this distinction is increasingly outdated – and dangerously misleading.
The listings raise difficult but necessary questions for Canada’s national security community: Is the traditional definition of terrorism too narrow to capture today’s complex threats? Do illicit activities beyond transnational organized crime need a policy and legal framework that reflects their growing geopolitical dimension?
Canada must shift perspective – from only asking “what is different?” between terrorism and organized crime to also asking “what is similar?” Only by doing so can we understand the interconnectivity of threats against Canadian interests and develop strategies that strengthen resilience.
Objective analysis reveals a well-established link between three key threat sources – transnational organized crime, terrorism, and adversarial states pursuing hybrid warfare strategies. Canada must overcome its reluctance to acknowledge the pervasiveness of this convergence.
When criminal networks are weaponized by hostile state or foreign non-state actors, they cease to be purely profit-driven enterprises and evolve into instruments of destabilization – tools in a broader campaign of hybrid warfare. The question is not whether these cartels are “terrorist” in the traditional sense, but whether their actions and alliances produce the same strategic objectives in support of adversarial states: fear, control, destabilization, and political influence.
Individually, terrorism, organized crime, and state-sponsored interference have long been monitored, with strategies and programs in place to mitigate each. National security and law-enforcement agencies already co-operate on these threats, often through fusion centres or by supporting individual investigations.
Terrorist groups have leveraged criminal networks to launder funds, smuggle weapons, forge documents, and allow for the safe passage of operatives. Historically, these were “marriages of convenience” or funding mechanisms (states have employed terrorist and insurgent groups in various guises in support of broader geopolitical agendas since the Second World War), but today these relationships are increasingly transnational and synergistic.
As highlighted in the Georgetown University study Discourse, Dissent and Strategic Surprise, institutional mindsets and bureaucratic inertia often slow recognition of emerging threats, especially when they challenge entrenched assumptions or political comfort zones. In Canada, this inertia has long hindered a comprehensive response to the convergence between transnational organized crime and terrorism and their use by adversarial states in hybrid warfare.
Cartels and terrorist entities now increasingly act as proxies for state actors, including Russia, Iran, India, and China. Their hybrid warfare operations erode sovereignty, undermine democratic institutions, and weaken public trust. Adversarial states are integrating terrorism, terrorist financing, and transnational organized crime into coordinated strategies, creating symbiotic relationships rather than mere relationships of operational convenience.
A number of high-profile investigations – Operation Cassandra in 2008, the investigation into HSBC Holdings (HSBC) financial links to terrorist groups in 2012, and Project Harrington in Canada in 2015 – provide ample evidence of this evolving convergence. Academic and practitioner analyses, including the book Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, anticipated these trends more than a decade ago.
But recent media investigations and declassified intelligence confirm that organized crime, terrorist entities, and state-sponsored actors are deeply interconnected. Treating these actors solely as “criminal” or “terrorist” overlooks their roles as tools of state-directed aggression.
Adversarial states are exploiting organized crime and terrorist entities for hybrid warfare. Plausible deniability, cost efficiency (local proxies are often cheaper to employ), and local expertise make these groups useful proxies. This reality demands a rethink of how these growing and increasingly dangerous threats are perceived and mitigated.
Practical examples will demonstrate the point:
A recent Globsec report notes that Russia increasingly employs criminal networks to carry out coercive, terror-like operations that advance geopolitical objectives under the guise of profit-driven activity. For instance, the use of Russian criminal networks to undertake state-directed cyber-attacks is nothing new. As the lines between crime and terrorism evaporate, we must treat this with similar urgency in national security frameworks.
Meanwhile, Iran is accused of using criminal networks in North America and Europe and listed terrorist organizations abroad to carry out politically motivated assassinations against public figures and dissidents. One recent report notes that these kinds of Iranian proxy operations are likely to continue, conducted at arm’s length from Tehran. The same report notes of 157 known cases of external Iranian operations around the world over the past five years, 22 involved criminal proxies and 55 terrorist proxies.
Targets have included high-level US officials – including President Donald Trump before the last election, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo – as well as the Saudi Ambassador in Washington, using Mexican cartel assets. Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) even recruited two Hells Angels bikers from Canada to assassinate dissidents who had fled Iran. In Canada, former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler confirmed in November 2024 that he was the target of a foiled Iranian assassination attempt discovered by the RCMP. It is not clear whether state agents or proxies were to carry it out.
A 2025 RAND Corporation report notes “Iran has developed a comprehensive approach to expanding its influence in Latin America, employing a combination of overt and covert strategies. These efforts not only advance Iran’s geopolitical interests, but also potentially support Hezbollah’s operations in the region.”
Turning to India, Canada and other Western countries have accused Indian diplomats and politicians of working with local organized crime syndicates to carry out attacks against, and assassinations of, Sikh dissidents around the world. While attacks are undertaken by criminal groups, the purpose of such attacks – whether directed by a state or not – clearly have political ends: the elimination of political opposition through violence. This was the rationale behind Canada’s recent listing of India’s Bolshoi criminal network as a terrorist entity. A recent town-hall session in British Columbia’s southwest region was characterized as “trying to untangle the complex law enforcement response to the recent rash of extortion cases, as well as the role of international gangs and foreign governments in the violence.”
China’s state-directed espionage, cyberattacks, and influence and coercion operations in Canada have been well documented. What has not been so well publicized is the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) relationship with organized crime in the drug trade and related money-laundering operations:
- An April 2024 report for the US Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party noted that, at the domestic level within the People’s Republic of China (PRC),the CCP directly subsidizes the export of synthetic narcotics that are actually illegal under its own laws. The CCP provides grants and other awards to companies openly trafficking illicit drugs online.
- It holds interests in some companies engaged in production.
- It has actively thwarted investigations by external law enforcement agencies into illicit fentanyl manufacturers located in China, and fails to use its own security agencies to stop production for external trafficking.
- It allows the open sale of fentanyl precursors for export on the extensively monitored Chinese internet networks.
How does this relationship work? The CCP and its elites profit directly from narcotics, receiving a cut of the substantial revenues in exchange for providing state-sanctioned support for external drug operations in a variety of ways. Beyond this, the CCP shields and supports domestic organized crime groups, which have taken on a significant role in laundering funds for Mexican and other cartels – often operating with apparent impunity, including within Canada.
A recent report noted that “political tensions between Canada and China have led to some obstacles in the RCMP’s relationship with Chinese law enforcement. As a result, recent RCMP efforts to combat the flow of illicit fentanyl have not been met with the same level of engagement by the Chinese MPS.” This illustrates China’s duplicitous approach: publicly, it claims to curtail the flow of drugs, while in reality it acts as an active partner as part of its broader hybrid strategy.
The CCP’s role is part of its broader asymmetric strategy against the West. Externally, the Select Committee report notes that “Premier Xi has intensified alliances with Chinese organized crime overseas, as he has pursued greater international influence … The partnership between the PRC government and organized crime mixes geopolitics and corruption for mutual benefit.”
The report also cites Major General Qiao, who describes the CCP’s unofficial role in narcotic networks as supporting China’s broader hybrid strategy by “causing disasters in other countries and making huge profits (for the CCP).” This view is supported in a well-known publication from as far back as 1999 by two PLA Colonels, titled Unrestricted Warfare. As part of the broader theoretical framework for asymmetric warfare against Western states, the narrative notes China should engage in “drug warfare that causes disasters in other countries, and make huge profits.”
Testimony at the 2022 Cullen Commission on money laundering in British Columbia highlighted how narcotic networks of Mexican, Colombian, Asian, and Middle Eastern cartels have converged both strategically and operationally in Canada. These networks have also been linked to terrorist groups. “We would see that some of the dropped calls came from somebody that was formally known to be affiliated closely with a Hezbollah-related network, i.e., an Iranian proxy network. We would see some triad networks receiving security from Iranian networks,” the Commission noted.
A lesser-known report, 2025 Assessment of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Risks in Canada, identifies that Hezbollah, Hamas, Khalistan separatist groups, the Taliban, and ISIS are funding their activities through money laundering and other financial networks in Canada, often using crime as a vehicle.
Finally, in his latest annual speech (October 2025), Sir Ken McCallum, head of Britain’s MI5, said state actors including China, Russia, and Iran, are “descending into ugly methods MI5 is more used to seeing in our terrorism casework.”
The convergence of these threats is pervasive in Canada. Five key drivers underline the need for a comprehensive rethink of Canada’s approach:
- Global law enforcement and security agencies in the US, Australia, and New Zealand are increasingly frustrated that Canada is not taking appropriate and timely action on the convergent threat, despite clear evidence spanning the past two decades. Canada’s growing role as a hub for cartel activity has exacerbated these concerns;
- The staggering number of fentanyl-related deaths in Canada, aided by state-supported transnational organized crime networks, underscores the urgency of the threat;
- A clearer understanding is needed of the legislative changes and resources required to respond effectively to the threat trifecta.
- Listing criminal-based groups has expanded the geographic scope of counterterrorism operations, creating challenges for intelligence sharing between domestic law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
- Expanding the definition of terrorism requires forms of expertise that may not currently exist within Canadian intelligence agencies. Understanding the intersection of these activities with threats – such as illicit foreign investment, electoral interference, transnational repression, and lawfare – is crucial for national security.
Despite compelling evidence of these convergent threats, Canadian policymakers have chosen not to adopt a sustained, strategic approach. A whole-of-government, or even whole-of-society approach, is required.
Canada now faces a complex threat spectrum, ranging from core jihadist groups and affiliates to state-sponsored entities and transnational organized crime groups. The convergence of these networks only increases the challenge. As one recent article on the rise in global terrorism noted, “Complacency is a greater risk than alarmism.”
Calvin W. Chrustie, BA, BA (Hons), LLM is a Senior Partner at Critical Risk Team, a boutique risk management group advising C-suite leaders, high-net-worth individuals, and law firms on complex threat prevention and risk mitigation.
Dr. John Gilmour is an instructor on terrorism, counterterrorism, and intelligence, with the University of Ottawa’s Professional Development Institute and recently at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA).
