Existing research on the political economy of international migration often assumes that emigration and remittances result from the state’s inability to provide quality public goods, including security, and that non-state actors, like organised crime groups (OCGs), inherently oppose state authority. However, OCGs do not always act in opposition to the state, in many cases, they collaborate with authorities to achieve shared objectives. Criminal governance can therefore take various forms, some of them can be peaceful and economically prosperous. Yet, scholars have thus far investigated how (criminal) violence shapes emigration decisions or the political behaviour of remittances recipients. The study provides new insights into the political economy of international migration by distinguishing different criminal governance scenarios. We employ municipal-level data from Mexico and distinguish between different types of OCG presence, whether monopolistic or competitive, as well as competing and collaborative relationships between OCGs and the state. Using panel models with difference-in-differences regression, we examine how different criminal governance scenarios relate to emigration rates in a municipality, as well as tax collection and public goods spending in migrant-sending communities. We complement the analysis with survey data from 18 Latin American countries, and examine how the presence of OCGs and their role in public service provision in respondents’ neighborhoods relates to their emigration intentions, as well as the satisfaction with public goods and support for taxation of those with members living abroad.