Yasin Demirhan
Latin America has always had a dual face within the global system. On one side lies the literary brilliance of magical realism, the rhythms of samba and tango, the ancient majesty of the Andes, and the dizzying allure of the Caribbean coasts. On the other side are drug cartels, paramilitary violence, corrupt state apparatuses, and bloody cycles produced by deepening poverty. This dual image exposes the tragic paradox of the continent’s modern history: unique cultural richness exists side by side with a deadly social crisis.
One of the most well-known figures of this dark face is the sicario, which in Spanish means “hired killer.” Yet, a sicario is not merely a category of criminal. He is a structural symptom born of social decay, the erosion of state authority, global inequalities, and the drug economy. The story of a young hitman carrying out executions in the streets is, in fact, a mirror that reveals the socio-economic pathologies of an entire continent.
This article aims to examine the figure of the sicario in all its dimensions. From its historical roots to its social background, from its cultural representations to its ethical-political debates, from its international connections to its ultimate consequences, we will try to understand this dark phenomenon together within a broad framework.
- The Origins of the Sicario Concept
The word sicario derives from the sicarii of Ancient Rome. The term described radical militias in regions under Roman occupation who carried short daggers (sica) and carried out political assassinations. The Sicarii were groups who staged covert killings against state authority, using political violence as a tool.
Centuries later, the concept was reborn in a completely different geography. In the second half of the 20th century, with the rise of organized crime and the drug trade in Latin America, the word acquired new meanings. During the era of Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellín Cartel in Colombia, young hitmen executing people in the streets began to be called sicarios. Soon the term came to denote the most visible actors of organized crime across the continent.
Today, sicario refers to a young hitman, often recruited from poor neighborhoods, who kills for money on behalf of a particular cartel or criminal organization. Sicarios existence signal a context where the state has lost its monopoly on violence and criminal organizations function like “parallel states,” shaping social order. Thus, the sicario is not merely an individual perpetrator but also a product of historical conditions and structural crises.
- Social and Economic Background
Latin America has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world. According to data from the World Bank and CEPAL, the region’s Gini coefficient is far above the global average. While the richest 10% of society controls more than half of the continent’s wealth, millions struggle to survive below the poverty line. This deep divide manifests not only in income differences but also in access to basic rights such as health, education, housing, and security.
This structural inequality has a devastating impact, especially on the youth. High unemployment rates, the prevalence of low-paid and precarious jobs, and limited social mobility condemn young people to a sense of “no future.” In cities such as Medellín, Ciudad Juárez, or San Salvador, the youth of marginalized neighborhoods are defenseless against the “alternative future” offered by the cartels. The cartels promise not only money but also belongingness, power, and respect. In this context, becoming a sicario is not just a “criminal choice” but a way out produced by the social structure itself.
For a hitman, the payment for a single execution can amount to enough to support his family for months. This reality explains the economic allure of becoming a sicario. Yet it is not just about money. For marginalized youth, being a sicario is also a way to become visible in the eyes of society and to escape from “nothingness.” Violence, for these young people, turns into a form of “social capital.”
The weakness of state security and justice institutions makes the situation even worse. In Colombia, 98% of murders committed in the 1980s went unpunished. In Mexico, the majority of “desaparecidos” (the forcibly disappeared) cases remain unresolved. Corrupt police forces and ineffective judicial systems allow cartels to operate virtually as parallel states. In this sense, the sicario is one of the clearest embodiments of state failure: not merely a criminal but the master of territories abandoned by the state.
The fact that being a hitman has become a “career” among young people is also striking. Field research conducted in Medellín has documented children as young as 14–15 working as hitmen for cartels. This phenomenon of “niños sicarios” can be seen as an urban version of the child soldier phenomenon. That children are exposed to such violence so early in their life is one of the most dramatic indicators of social breakdown.
To understand the phenomenon of the sicario, it is not enough to look only at individual criminal motivations. The social and economic background that produces it points to a broad context woven with structural inequalities in Latin America, the erosion of state authority, the marginalization of youth, and the allure of cartels.
III. Cultural Representations
The figure of the sicario gains visibility not only in the dark streets of the city but also across different realms of art and cultural production. This figure has been etched into society’s collective memory through literature, cinema, and music, becoming a symbol of fear, admiration, and helplessness.
Literature
Fernando Vallejo’s novel La virgen de los sicarios (1994) narrates the nihilistic lives of young hitmen in the violence-ridden streets of Medellín. Vallejo portrays the sicarios not merely as criminals, but as children of a society where God has remained silent. The novel provides not only an individual drama but also a literary record of social decay and the collapse of moral values. Alonso Salazar’s No nacimos pa’ semilla also includes direct testimonies of sicarios; thus, their daily lives, dreams, and tragedies are conveyed with a sociological documentary style.
Cinema
Cinema has played a critical role in introducing the sicario figure to a global audience. Denis Villeneuve’s Sicario (2015) exposes the blurred lines between cartels and the state on the U.S.–Mexico border. Here, sicarios are portrayed not just as individual hitmen but as invisible cogs within transnational crime networks. Colombian cinema also frequently addresses this theme: Barbet Schroeder’s adaptation of Vallejo’s novel La virgen de los sicarios brings the nihilistic lives of hitmen to the screen with harsh and unsettling realism. These works turn the sicario into a cinematic symbol of both fear and social despair.
Music and Popular Culture
In Mexico, the genre of “narcocorridos” presents sicarios and cartel leaders as modern-day heroes. In these songs, violence is transformed into a romanticized tale of heroism; hitmen are idealized as anti-heroes fighting for wealth and power. The aestheticization of violence contributes to the normalization of the sicario figure within collective memory. This shows how popular culture can serve both as a tool to legitimize and to spread violence.
Collective Memory and Aestheticization
When literature’s detailed depictions, cinema’s visual narratives, and music’s mass-reaching rhythms converge, the sicario becomes not only a social reality but also an image. This image produces a collective memory oscillating between fear and admiration. Sometimes cursed, sometimes glorified, the sicario becomes an “icon” through cultural production. In this way, art plays a dual role: both exposing violence and, perhaps unintentionally, reproducing it.
- Ethical and Political Dimensions
The figure of the sicario tests the harshest boundaries of ethics. It is easy to see him merely as an individual criminal, a “hired killer”; but such an approach overlooks the social and structural context. The real problem is that society itself produces sicarios. Poverty, inequality, the culture of impunity, and the state’s inadequacy turn violence into a profession. In this sense, becoming a sicario should be understood not so much as an individual moral failing but as a form of social production. The perpetrator is also a victim of the system: on one side the young man who pulls the trigger and ends a life, and on the other the unjust world that drove him to that point.
Ethical Dilemmas
The central ethical dilemma here is the blurring of the line between perpetrator and victim. The sicario is the killer; yet at the same time, he is a marginalized youth deprived of opportunities and excluded from society. Thus, the moral evaluation of sicarios must highlight structural violence without denying individual responsibility. In parallel with Hannah Arendt’s concept of the “banality of evil,” the normalization of sicariodom turns violence into an ordinary social practice.
Political Crisis and State Legitimacy
On the political level, the sicario reveals the crisis of state legitimacy. As Max Weber emphasized in his definition of the state, its essential feature is the “legitimate monopoly of violence.” But in many parts of Latin America, this monopoly has fallen into the hands of cartels. Cartels collect extortion as if it were taxes, impose their own laws, and determine social order. The sicario is the executioner of this parallel power.
This situation undermines democratic institutions and erodes citizens’ trust in the state. The inability of the state to deliver justice and ensure public safety leads to cartels and sicarios being perceived as “alternative authorities.” Thus, the sicario is not only a criminal figure but also an element corroding democracy from within.
The Link Between Politics and Cartels
The political dimension of sicariodom is not limited to domestic issues; it also carries international dimensions through the global drug economy. According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reports, the annual volume of drug trafficking in Latin America exceeds 300 billion dollars. This massive capital infiltrates the highest levels of politics, blurring the boundaries between crime and politics.
Mexico provides one of the most striking examples of this situation. Former Mexican Security Minister Genaro García Luna was found guilty in a U.S. court in 2023 of collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel and sentenced to life imprisonment. Similarly, former Michoacán governor Jesús Reyna García was arrested in 2014 due to his ties with the Knights Templar Cartel. These cases show that cartels provide protection not only by controlling local politics but also by financing national politics.
In Colombia, during the 1980s, Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel directly influenced politics. Escobar entered Congress as a representative and consolidated his power by ordering the killings of rivals. More recently, in the so-called “parapolitics scandal,” hundreds of Colombian politicians were investigated for their connections to paramilitary groups.
Similar examples have emerged in Central America. Former Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina was forced to resign in 2015 due to his involvement in the corruption and smuggling network known as “La Línea,” and was later arrested. Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was extradited to the U.S. in 2022 on drug trafficking charges.
These examples demonstrate the critical role that the economic power of cartels plays in shaping political authority. While cartels gain impunity by financing political campaigns, politicians strengthen their power with the material resources provided by the cartels.
This symbiotic relationship makes sicarios not only tools of crime but also tools of politics. A bullet fired by a hitman often targets not only an individual but also the integrity of the state, democratic institutions, and the legitimacy of the political order.
- International Dimension
It would be incomplete to view the sicario phenomenon in Latin America merely as a regional issue. Behind it lies a much more complex network operating on a global scale: drug demand, arms trade, money laundering, and financial systems.
Global Demand
According to UNODC’s 2023 report, around 20 million people worldwide regularly use cocaine. More than 60% of this market is concentrated in the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S. alone, the annual cocaine market is worth about 35 billion dollars. In Europe, the number of cocaine users has surpassed 4.5 million, and the market’s value exceeds 10 billion euros. As long as this demand continues, Latin American cartels expand production; and as long as production continues, sicarios endure.
Flow of Arms
The United States is the world’s largest legal arms producer; yet this production also fuels illegal trafficking. According to the Mexican government, 70% of the weapons used by criminal organizations in the country come from the U.S. About 200,000 firearms are smuggled across the border every year. Most of these weapons end up in the hands of sicarios and are used in executions. Thus, the sicario is indirectly connected to the U.S. arms industry.
Money Laundering and the Financial System
The cartels’ total annual revenue is estimated to exceed 300 billion dollars. Much of this money is laundered through international banking systems. In 2012, HSBC was forced to pay a $1.9 billion fine for laundering billions of dollars in revenue for Mexican cartels. This case demonstrates that the sicario culture is fed not only in the “back streets” but also in global financial centers such as London and New York.
Overlooked Aspects
One often overlooked element of the international dimension of the sicario phenomenon is its link to migration. A significant portion of the caravans of migrants moving from Central America toward the U.S. are fleeing cartel violence and sicarios. This shows that sicarios are not only criminal actors but also geopolitical factors triggering mass migration waves.
Another lesser-known aspect is the cartels’ adoption of new technologies. In recent years, there have been reports of sicarios carrying out attacks with drones and receiving payments through cryptocurrencies. This reveals that the sicario phenomenon is evolving not only within traditional mafia structures but also through the tools of the digital age.
Conclusion
The sicario represents the dark face of Latin America; yet their story carries global lessons that transcend the continent. The sicario is far more than an individual criminal: he is a product of inequality, state weakness, international drug demand, and the deadly face of global capitalism.
Knowing him through literature and cinema does not merely aestheticize violence; it also makes visible the social traumas. Understanding the origins and dimensions of sicariodom is equivalent to understanding the crises of democracy in Latin America, the violations of human rights, and the moral impasses of global capitalism.
In conclusion, to look at the sicario is to look at the dark face not only of Latin America but of the entire world. Their stories compel us to ask some of the sharpest questions of the modern age: What is justice? What is the state? And how can society stop the violence it has itself created?
