The Clandestine Hands of the State: Dissecting Police Collusion in the Drug Trade.

This article examines the nature and dynamics of police collusion with drug market organizations in Argentina, based on an original archive of 53 court cases involving wiretapped conversations and judicial documents from 2013 to 2021. It reveals that police corruption extends beyond simple protection-for-payment schemes to include active participation in drug trafficking, theft, transportation, and selective enforcement, often embedded within trust networks formed by kinship, friendship, residential proximity, and professional ties. The study highlights that such collusion is deeply relational, involving reciprocal exchanges and social commitments that complicate traditional understandings of corruption and challenge policy approaches focused solely on financial incentives. These findings underscore the importance of considering clandestine state actions as integral to the functioning of the modern state and suggest that addressing police corruption in drug markets requires attention to the social contexts that sustain it.