Armed with sophisticated cyber and financial capabilities, criminal cartels pose a huge threat to national security. However, as Cormac Meiners, U.S. Federal Engagement Leader at i2 Group explains, US and allied intelligence communities are well placed to respond so long as they move quickly. By drawing on i2’s analytical tools and aligning their intelligence insights, partners can map criminal supply chains, expose financial facilitators and disrupt supply chains.
In early 2025, the US government issued an executive order that reclassified criminal cartels as foreign terrorist groups, an acknowledgment that they now pose an elevated risk to US national security.
Historically, the intelligence community has responded to this threat by treating criminal cartels as law enforcement targets concerned mainly with the movement of drugs and people across borders.
More recently we have seen these criminals deploy more advanced capabilities such as drones, armoured vehicles, encrypted communications and even cyber tools, raising the security stakes considerably.
This requires a readjustment in intelligence thinking; one where the security community can respond effectively to both the conventional threats posed by states like Russia and China while simultaneously taking on more sophisticated criminal adversaries.
Stepping into the gray zone
We described this new reality as a gray zone conflict, one in which criminal cartels exploit the gaps between different intelligence, law enforcement and military jurisdictions.
To counter this growing risk, local through to federal agencies must align their financial, strategic and technological operations while enhancing co-operation with international partners.
While the US military can secure borders, monitor airspace and track supply chains, only law enforcement has the authority to make arrests, prosecute cases and disrupt financial networks.
Shared analytics
Success relies on state-of-the-art software; one that provides the intelligence community with a common framework to map criminal relationships, share data and visualize complicated networks. Analyst’s Notebook does this by providing a shared analytical language for different agencies and nations that deploy different systems.
Typically, investigators share link charts or spreadsheets with partners but this process is slow and fragmented as it requires each party to gather intelligence manually before it can be acted on.
However, Analyst’s Notebook fosters co-operation by enabling analysts based in different jurisdictions to create shared databases and a comprehensive intelligence picture in real time.
Financial targeting
One of the reasons why criminal cartels have grown to be so influential is the ease at which they can move drugs, fuel, money and weapons across borders. However, while a cartel leader can be easily replaced, it is much harder to take out the facilitators and financial pipelines that sustain criminal operations.
Banks and financial institutions have deployed Analyst’s Notebook for years to undertake fraud investigations and anti-money laundering and these same tools can be applied to combat criminal cartels. The software maps money trails, visualizes money transfers across time and identifies shell companies or laundering schemes.
With criminal cartels exploiting a diverse range of revenue streams, including arms smuggling, cybercrime, drugs and human trafficking, Analyst’s Notebook can expose the linkages in each of these financial networks allowing intelligence agencies to target them.
Remaining one step ahead
The software supports collaboration between intelligence partners through its handling of large and varied datasets and its seamless integration of information from multiple sources. It also provides data insights quickly enough to inform analysts’ decisions in real time so they can respond promptly when criminals suddenly pursue new tactics.
Most importantly, it is adaptable to the ever-changing demands of modern intelligence analysis. For example, version 10’s added features include unstructured text processing, automation, big-data scalability and advanced network analysis.
With these features, Analyst’s Notebook can model supply chains, assess counterintelligence risks and track cyber vulnerabilities, all of which are invaluable, for instance, when cartels outsource drone assassinations to third parties with conflict experience.
Having mapped the supply chains for those systems, Analyst’s Notebook identifies the person selling the parts, where the components are sourced from and the flow of logistics. Armed with this intelligence, security agencies can disrupt procurement before the drones can be deployed.
Training on tried and tested tools
Because analysts need to understand how the software tool can best serve their needs, we also provide regular on-going training through direct sessions, webcasts and user engagement programmes.
In addition, we are building artificial intelligence (AI) into our analytical software as we recognise that advances in natural language processing can help analysts work more effectively. While humans will maintain oversight over operations, AI can, for example, speed up the intelligence cycle.
While criminal cartels continue to adapt and build their capabilities, our response must be to maximize the use of the tools we already have. That means harnessing advanced software analytics and AI to support the powers of law enforcement and the military so we remain agile and can respond decisively to the greatest threat to national security we have seen to date.
