The recruitment of children into criminal organizations throughout Latin America via the use of social media platforms and online video games is booming. But government responses to this problem are failing current and future generations.
While criminal organizations once focused their efforts on obtaining young labor by offering money to low-income minors to carry out targeted killings or smuggle drugs, the rise of digital messaging services, entertainment apps, and online video games frequently used by young people have changed the rules of the game.
Fake jobs posted on forums, extortion and threats through online messaging are common denominators in digital recruitment. Boys usually face coercion into roles like hitmen, extortionists or micro-traffickers. When it comes to girls, they are often forced into online prostitution and sexual exploitation via dating applications like Tinder or content platforms like OnlyFans.
The rise of TikTok, online video games, and the general increase in the use of digital platforms among minors gave organized crime an incentive to exploit these entertainment services.
But it was the global COVID-19 pandemic that was one of the main catalysts for the transition to digital recruitment, according to research from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
“Due to the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic, criminal groups started to explore ways to recruit digitally. This has happened in nearly all Latin American countries, in a very hegemonic manner,” said Oscar Balderas, a Mexican journalist specialized in organized crime issues.
This emerging dynamic was particularly evident in Colombia, where armed groups used WhatsApp to lure minors to clandestine parties designed to secure new recruits during national lockdowns. These encounters served as entry points into criminal structures, where young people were either enticed with small loans or coerced through abduction.
The trend continued as the pandemic subsided. Between 2022 and 2024, armed groups in Colombia recruited children using social media platforms like TikTok and Facebook, according to a recent report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia.
But the forced recruitment of minors is not exclusive to Colombia and its armed conflict. Earlier this year, Mexico’s Security Secretary deleted 200 criminal-linked digital accounts thought to be used for recruitment efforts.
In one recent case in the state of Michoacán, a 17-year-old was attracted by a fake job opportunity on Facebook by an unnamed criminal group that promised 7,000 pesos (almost $400) per week. He went to a bus station to meet his potential recruiters, but was picked up by the police before he could be taken.
And near the end of 2024, a 14-year-old boy was lured into going out with a supposed friend he met through the online video game Free Fire. The recruiter traveled to Oaxaca after maintaining contact with the minor for several months, trying to gain his trust so that they could meet in a friendly context. Thanks to the GPS location of the minor’s phone, authorities rescued him before he could be taken.
Another 12-year-old-boy named Ángel was also manipulated through Free Fire, his favorite video game. But before he could be abducted, allegedly by the Sinaloa Cartel, authorities rescued the boy and returned him to his relatives.
Digital recruitment is also on the rise in Ecuador, where police estimate that as many as 60% of gang members are teenagers. At least 27% of minors in gangs were recruited via social media, according to a 2025 survey of nearly 3,000 at-risk youth conducted by the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory.
Government Responses Fall Short
Mexico, Ecuador, and Colombia have all implemented measures against child recruitment, but efforts to address the growing digital component have been deficient in some cases, and entirely absent in others.
In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum suggested regulating social media to prevent young people from joining criminal structures. However, identifying and tracking digital accounts on cyberspace is like finding a needle in a haystack. New accounts are constantly being created, so even if some are deleted, many more will always be generated.
“I find it hard to see how social media might be regulated. [It] has been tried in many countries and it has not worked yet,” said Balderas.
In June, Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa created an inter-institutional committee against child recruitment by organized crime, aiming to attack the problem via public policies and social aid programs.
In Colombia, meanwhile, the Total Peace Plan aims to prevent child recruitment by establishing dialogue with non-state armed groups and ultimately reducing competition between criminal structures for child labor.
However, neither of these government initiatives takes into account the new reality of digital recruitment and the unique challenges it poses, particularly the difficulties associated with regulating these online spaces.
Featured image: A child soldier with Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas. Credit: CNC Noticias