Organized crime and mafias are not the autonomous, powerful entities we're led to believe by the popular media. They're usually subjugated by the state, and used to bring money and do their dirty work.
That's why cartels appear out of control in Mexico, but when USA wants an offer, Mexico will promptly deport a high-level criminal. It's a show of strength, that the state is still in control of the cartels, but won't extinguish them because they generate lots of money for their respective political coalitions.
Happens everywhere, the biggest bank accounts of organized crime could be seized internationally if there was a will, but that would hurt politics too... unless they're Russians, there were token seizures of money and yachts last year, but it stopped quickly.
That makes me think of some US-libertarian-adjacent thought, which goes something like "the government are just a big-enough gang", or conversely "organized-crime rings are just smaller competing governments."
While I admit there is some pattern-making appeal to that idea, I don't think it quite matches what we see in practice, where gangs often seem quite happy to abandon unprofitable responsibilities and choose profit over political independence.
If nothing else, it quietly conflates entirely different kinds of governments together: A small dictatorship is not just a shrunken version of large democracy.
Gangs are as often business-by-other-means. Not to say some aren’t government, either.
They often come to exist due to niches government can’t (officially) operate in, but when they grow enough, they’re susceptible to capture the same as any other entity.
The history of China is that the ones with the biggest guns (and fireworks) took over the whole state, the most peaceful factions were subjugated, and the hardest to integrate ex: the Uighurs, either reeducated or exterminated. Let’s say you’re right for the sake of supposing. What will do you do about it?
That's why cartels appear out of control in Mexico, but when USA wants an offer, Mexico will promptly deport a high-level criminal. It's a show of strength, that the state is still in control of the cartels, but won't extinguish them because they generate lots of money for their respective political coalitions.
Happens everywhere, the biggest bank accounts of organized crime could be seized internationally if there was a will, but that would hurt politics too... unless they're Russians, there were token seizures of money and yachts last year, but it stopped quickly.