On November 15, 2017, Professor Celina Realuyo participated as a speaker at the international seminar “The Challenges of Security and Defense: Facing Transnational and Transregional Threats,” held by the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Faculty of Political and Social Sciences in Mexico City, Mexico.

The seminar was opened by Yadira Gálvez, professor at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, and Colonel Steven Angerthal, chief of Strategic Plans and Communications at the William J. Perry Center for Defense Hemispheric Studies (WJPC).

The event opened with Professor Realuyo’s presentation “Terror-Crime Nexus: The Case of the Islamic State,” in which she shared research on links between terrorist groups like ISIS and organized crime and detailed examples of cooperation and collaboration between the two, such as transcontinental drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms trafficking and financial crimes. Afterward, Professor Realuyo finished with a separate lecture explaining the national security strategies of the Trump administration against transnational organized crime.

The seminar concluded with a panel on “The Challenges of Mexico: Violence, Organized Crime and Debates on the National Security Law,” which was led by Yadira Gálvez and Gerardo Rodríguez Sánchez-Lara, professor at the University of the Americas Puebla’s (UDLAP) Department of International Relations and Political Science and academic coordinator at the Center for Impunity and Justice Studies at UDLAP. During the panel, speakers discussed the impact of growing violence and increased criminal group activity in Mexico, its implications for national and transnational security, and the proposed Mexican National Security Law.

For the more than 100 security and defense professionals, academics and students in attendance, the seminar created awareness of the threats and risks posed by the convergence of terrorism and organized crime and underscored the importance of Mexico and the United States working together to develop new strategies to address these evolving threats.