Armed rebel groups and organized criminal actors are often using violence to control economic activities.
The agreement signed on 27 June 2025 between the DRC and Rwanda represents an opportunity to make progress in resolving the M23 crisis in eastern DRC. However, the US administration’s success in sponsoring this agreement might prove short-lived, primarily because it does not prioritize the fight against organized crime. The benefits that all the national and international protagonists in the conflict derive from their involvement in illicit economies have over the years become the most structural factor of this conflict. While armed rebel groups like the M23, and other militias, may not embody the essence of the archetypal criminal organization as we normally conceive of it, they are nevertheless sustained by illicit activities, like other organized criminal actors, using violence to control economic activities, the revenue from which has enabled them to set up a parallel administration. The conflict in the DRC has thus become structurally criminalized by all armed actors...
