September 15, 2026

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The Criminal Nexus: States, Organized Crime, and State-Sponsored Assassinations 

(AP Photo/Muhammad Sajjad)

Iran, Russia, and India have engaged in a dozen assassinations (or attempts) using criminal organizations in the last decade, demonstrating an evolution in state-sponsored political violence. The “old” model, with states funding and directing terrorist groups to advance geopolitical objectives, is giving way to a “new” architecture: states increasingly using organized crime networks to conduct assassinations, sabotage, and covert influence operations. This shift is not unprecedented historically (states have long used criminals for all kinds of covert operations), but it marks a distinct adaptation to the post-9/11 counterterrorism environment.

In the decades preceding September 11, 2001, states such as Iran, Syria, and Libya openly sponsored terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (amongst others), to project power beyond their borders and advance strategic objectives. The post-9/11 counterterrorism framework disrupted many of these relationships through financial tracking, intelligence cooperation, sanctions, and military action. States faced greater scrutiny over state sponsorship, with the result being that twenty-five years later, states are much more circumspect about directly supporting terrorist groups, with Iran being a notable exception.

The geopolitical response to these counterterrorism pressures was adaptation. Rather than abandoning terrorist groups as geopolitical actors, states sought new channels. Criminal organizations emerged as attractive alternatives: they possess operational independence from state oversight, enjoy greater freedom of movement than many known terrorist networks, and operate through bespoke financial channels that are often harder to track than formal state sponsorship mechanisms.

While eliminating a designated enemy of the state is the primary objective of state-sponsored assassinations, the killing itself generates a range of ancillary effects that multiply its strategic value. Each assassination sends a message that reverberates far beyond the immediate target: journalists, activists, and diaspora critics are silenced not only through the removal of specific individuals but through the chilling effect the violence produces across entire communities. Ethnic and religious communities abroad come to understand that criticism of the regime carries consequences that can follow them across borders. In this sense, a single killing performs deterrence work across an entire population.

Beyond silencing dissent, these operations also serve broader strategic functions. They can interfere with political and democratic processes, including elections, referendums, and policy debates by removing vocal opponents or intimidating communities whose participation states wish to suppress. They also enable power projection, allowing states to extend coercive reach well beyond their conventional capabilities through what scholars Rory Cormac and Richard Aldrich call “implausible” deniability. In this sense, assassination by criminal proxy functions not merely as the elimination of an adversary but as a versatile instrument of statecraft: the tactic complements other forms of political violence, and the common thread across these objectives is the extension of state power through covert means.

Criminal operatives are also “disposable”. Unlike intelligence officers, whose capture or arrest could trigger diplomatic crises, criminal operatives can be sacrificed or abandoned without direct state liability, reducing political risk when operations fail or are exposed. This allows states to avoid escalation risks while still achieving their political objectives.

Organized crime networks (and criminals more broadly) also often offer specialized skill sets. These networks bring tradecraft in surveillance, weapons procurement, logistics, and violence developed through years of illicit activity.

For assassinations, states have relationships with different types of actors; these might be proxies, who fight for and on behalf of states; surrogates, who have a more distant relationship with the state and retain substantial autonomy; or contractors, criminals hired for a single operation or to enable an operation.

These are important distinctions. When states use proxies to conduct assassinations, they illustrate their organizational breadth, depth, and control; this is part of their intelligence and covert action capabilities and a long-standing investment in the group. Generally, covertly influencing events in another country requires investment in intelligence assets, skills, and expertise. However, using criminal organizations, and most specifically surrogates or contractors, states are shortcutting the development of this capability and instead buying assets, skills, access, and expertise to achieve a strategic outcome and project power. When they use criminal surrogates or contractors, states are demonstrating, to a certain extent, their weakness. While criminal surrogates have undoubted advantages, in most cases, if the environment allowed, states would likely have preferred to use more professional and more likely to succeed assets like trained intelligence professionals. Instead, states have chosen to conduct this sensitive covert action through surrogates.

India, Russia, and Iran have all engaged in well-documented state-sponsored assassinations over the last fifteen years. Iran is one of the most notorious states to engage in this type of activity, having perpetrated at least five incidents of government-sponsored assassinations since 2011. Iran also maintains extensive documented relationships with criminal networks such as the Zindashti and Foxtrot networks. These operations have targeted dissidents and critics across Europe and North America. Russia has also engaged in several incidents since 2019 targeting defectors, opposition figures, and perceived adversaries. For Russia, using criminal organizations augments its existing covert operations capabilities and does not replace its intelligence services in conducting many of these operations directly. India has also engaged in at least four incidents since 2023, the most notable of which was the 2024 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. Canadian authorities publicly attributed the operation to Indian intelligence, with alleged criminal facilitation by the Bishnoi gang. There could also be many other examples of states using organized crime groups to conduct assassinations (attempted or completed) that have not yet risen to the level of public attribution.

The relationship between states and criminal proxies is transactional but rarely one-dimensional. Criminal groups are not passive instruments — they bring motivations, leverage, and strategic calculations that shape the arrangement’s durability and risk profile. Financial incentives remain the baseline motivation for many organized crime groups: contract killings and covert operations offer lucrative revenue streams that complement traditional criminal business models, with cryptocurrency and other obfuscated payment mechanisms reducing traceability and friction.

However, money alone does not sustain these partnerships. Safe haven guarantees create durable quid pro quo arrangements, with states offering protection from prosecution or extradition, allowing criminal groups to operate with reduced risk of domestic or international arrest. Coercion also plays a role; states can threaten imprisonment, asset seizure, or violent retaliation to compel compliance.

Political promises and aspirations further entrench these relationships. Some criminal groups seek legitimacy, protection of their operations, or favorable regulatory environments, while states might promise relaxed enforcement, protection of criminal markets, or even tacit political influence in exchange for services rendered. These arrangements generate reciprocal dependence: states acquire deniable capabilities, while criminal organizations consolidate territorial control, financial resources, and gain insulation from prosecution. Disentangling the relationship therefore requires disrupting incentives for both states and organized crime groups.

The growing normalization of state-sponsored criminal violence as a foreign policy tool carries implications that extend well beyond individual operations. First, escalation is a tangible risk. As more states see these operations succeed without meaningful consequence, the likelihood of adoption grows, thus expanding the global threat footprint. While states deploy criminal proxies, surrogates, and contractors precisely to avoid escalation, the calculation is delicate. A misjudgment by a sponsoring state could catalyze open conflict. The deniability that makes criminal proxies attractive in peacetime becomes fragile in moments of crisis.

Second, these hybrid networks expose structural weaknesses in existing disruption frameworks. Counterterrorism tools are calibrated for ideologically motivated non-state actors while counter-crime tools target profit-driven activity. Neither is designed for their intersection with broader geopolitical objectives. What is needed are integrated frameworks that bridge classified intelligence, financial intelligence, sanctions enforcement, and criminal investigations. A particular impediment is the traditional breakdown between intelligence and law enforcement when targeting criminal groups. In many countries, this separation reflects legal necessity and evidentiary thresholds, but it creates operational blind spots: intelligence agencies hold information they cannot easily share with prosecutors, while law enforcement agencies lack the intelligence picture needed to anticipate state-directed operations, including in operations like shooter-for-hire networks. Bridging this divide will require not just better coordination but, in some cases, legislative reform to permit information sharing across institutional boundaries that were never designed with this convergence in mind.

Jessica Davis is the President of Insight Threat Intelligence, a post-doctoral associate at the University of Calgary Faculty of Law, and a visiting senior fellow with the Soufan Center.