Europol; European Union. Publications Office

From the document: "This edition marks 10 years since the release of Europol's first IOCTA [Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment]. Throughout this time, the threats posed by cybercrime have evolved dynamically in terms of volume, intensity and harm potential. The number of cybercriminals entering the market continued to grow steadily, thanks to the adoption of new technologies as well as the increasing complexity of digital infrastructures, which expands the potential attack surface. In 2023, millions of victims across the EU were attacked and exploited online on a daily basis. Small and medium businesses were increasingly popular targets for cyber-attacks, while e-merchants experienced the most digital skimming attacks. Adults were victimised through phishing, investment and romance frauds, and more and more minors were targeted by child sexual exploitation offenders and online sexual extorters. In parallel, a number of worldwide law enforcement actions shook the cybercriminal underground through continued arrests of ransomware affiliates and operators. Law enforcement also carried out coordinated disruption operations against cybercriminals' digital infrastructures. Notwithstanding the growing presence of law enforcement in the dark web, this environment continues to function as an enabler for cybercrime, allowing offenders to share knowledge, tools and services in a more concealed way. In addition, the use of cryptocurrencies in a wider variety of crime areas has become more noticeable in 2023, alongside the growing number of requests for investigative support in cryptocurrency tracing received by Europol. Cybercriminals are keen to leverage Artificial Intelligence, which is already becoming a common component in their toolbox and is very likely to see even wider application. Law enforcement agencies are expected to build a robust capacity to counter the growing threats stemming from this, both in terms of human resources and technical skills."

Europol; European Union. Publications Office . 2024. 38p.

By GALEOTTI, MARK

From the webpage description: "'Since 2012, Russia has strategically used criminal networks to evade sanctions, conduct intelligence, and destabilize the West. Under Putin's 'mobilization state,' illegal activities--from smuggling to cyberattacks--are seen as essential tools of warfare. This report delves into the Kremlin's alarming integration of organized crime into statecraft.' Russia's transition from a 'conscription state' to a full 'mobilization state', after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has intensified the involvement of criminal groups in operations tied to sanctions-busting, cyber warfare, and intelligence. Organized crime networks provide Russia with access to restricted goods, such as advanced electronics for its military, and facilitate money laundering and illegal financial flows. Notably, Russian intelligence services have relied on criminal syndicates to supplement their espionage activities, including sabotage, cyberattacks, and assassinations. The report also highlights Russia's weaponization of migration, using smuggling networks to create political instability across Europe. Meanwhile, Putin's regime has blurred the lines between state and criminal actors, using them as tools to evade international sanctions and expand Russian influence globally. 'Gangsters at War' reveals how Russian-based organized crime operates as a tool of Kremlin foreign policy, focusing not just on profits but on weakening geopolitical rivals. From sanctions evasion to destabilizing societies, criminal networks have become a key element in Russia's geopolitical arsenal. The report calls for increased vigilance, international cooperation, and stronger countermeasures to address this growing threat to global stability."

GLOBAL INITIATIVE AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME. November. 2024. 82p.

By Najla Nassif Palma

The idea that Rio de Janeiro has been plunged into an actual “war” against organized crime is widely discussed and is supported by an ever-increasing number of people in Brazil. Not surprisingly, such discourse has led to less protection for the civilian population, particularly in the so-called favelas, while allowing security forces to carry out operations with even greater relative impunity. This article argues that although urban violence in Rio de Janeiro is indeed a serious problem, it does not reach the threshold required to be considered a non-international armed conflict.

International Review of the Red Cross (2023), 105 (923), 795–827.

By Marcena Hunter

While gold is often referred to as a blood mineral due to its role in conflict financing, the relationship between the gold sector, instability and violence is far more nuanced, with complex regional dynamics. In the gold production hub of West Africa, where artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is pervasive, an increasing tide of insecurity and violence in recent years adds to the complexity of the sector. Woven into the region’s convoluted web of actors, activity and supply chains are criminal networks that link local mines to international trade hubs, exploiting the gold sector for financial gain and power. The analysis in this report demonstrates that the reality of the relationships between gold, conflict and criminality challenges the simplistic narrative of ‘blood minerals’ used to finance conflict, offering a far more nuanced understanding of the significance of the gold sector in West Africa. Rather, gold is closely intertwined with survival, money, power and criminality. Criminality, fragility and violence While literature on the relationship between gold and instability has often focused on conflict financing, the interplay between gold, governance and criminality can contribute to instability and violence before any form of conflict financing takes place. Criminal exploitation of the gold sector is fostered by persistent and widespread informality, due in part to the significant barriers to entry in the formal sector, and the lack of support for informal miners and gold traders. As a result, corrupt and criminal elites in the political and business spheres can capture illicit gold flows, further contributing to community frustrations that can give rise to conflict. Limiting access to the gold sector by restricting access to mine deposits or conducting crackdowns on unlicensed ASGM can also undermine the legitimacy of state actors. Thus, efforts to stabilize West Africa must account for complex criminal interests while also addressing the long-standing grievances and expectations of local communities.1 Such efforts are critical in both conflict-laden areas and stable areas to reduce the risk of conflict spreading. Where the gold sector contributes to conflict financing in West Africa, it can vary significantly in form and value. In locations where conflict and gold mining overlap, armed groups may target the gold sector by taxing mining and trade activities, demanding payment from miners for providing security, or establishing checkpoints along roads to mine sites and trade hubs for payment collection. Members of armed groups may also directly engage in gold mining, either for personal financial gain or to benefit the group. Yet in many regions, gold is not the primary source of revenue for armed groups; other industries like the livestock sector are also targets. Sitting in the space between increased fragility and conflict are local self-defence and identity militia groups, which can act in cooperation or in competition with the state.2 In West Africa, these groups fall on a spectrum ranging from hybrid security institutions to mafia-style protection rackets run by ‘violent entrepreneurs’. There is a heavy overlap between these groups and the gold sector, with many instances of groups providing security at gold mine sites and along transportation routes. Yet, the origins of the different groups, their roles in local communities and the gold sector, and their role in conflict dynamics vary greatly.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2022. 61p.

By Stephen Merchant, Greg Wilson

In 2023 the Government commissioned a ‘first principles’ independent review of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) and associated Commonwealth law enforcement arrangements.

The review assessed the effectiveness of the ACIC’s legislative framework and found that comprehensive reform was needed to ensure ACIC could operate effectively as Australia’s national criminal intelligence agency. The review recommended ACIC shift away from its existing law enforcement and investigative functions towards providing unique intelligence on serious and organised crime to Commonwealth, state and territory law enforcement agencies.

The independent review’s recommendations set out a blueprint to transform the ACIC in response to the significant and ongoing threat of serious and organised crime. The Government has agreed or agreed in-principle with 27 of the 29 recommendations - as set out in the government response.

Key recommendations

• Undertake robust legislative reforms to address significant deficiencies in the existing legislative frameworks and ensure the ACIC has appropriate powers for the collection of intelligence.

• Incorporate appropriate oversight and safeguards for the ACIC, including in relation to its use of coercive powers.

• Reinvigorate national governance and coordination arrangements for responding to serious and organised crime.

• Reinforce the independence of the Australian Institute of Criminology.

BARTON, ACT : Attorney-General's Department (Australia), 2024. 68p.

By Nicolás Zevallos Trigoso, Jaris Mujica, and Christian Campos Vásquez

Coca legalization in Peru could reshape the economy, drug control policies, and even the influence of organized crime, but the implications are complex. This report explores how moving from prohibition to a regulated market affects not only the legal framework but also the ground reality for coca growers, consumers, and law enforcement. Legalization doesn’t just mean lifting restrictions; it involves constructing a regulatory structure that acknowledges coca as both a cultural staple and a consumer good.

The study reveals that while legalization could reduce the criminalization of coca production, it also creates new challenges. Ensuring a legal supply chain for coca derivatives, from cultivation to sale, demands extensive state oversight—a task complicated by limited resources and a history of challenges with other legal commodities like timber and gold. Moreover, organized crime could exploit the gaps in regulation, adapting to the legal framework while maintaining parallel illegal operations.

The analysis dives into four major areas of impact: changes in drug policy, shifts in organized crime dynamics, effects on the local economy of coca growers, and potential shifts in consumer patterns. The findings suggest that legalization could reduce repressive policing but require intensified regulatory control, putting immense pressure on Peru’s state capacity. Organized crime may also adapt to the new structures, blending illegal activities with legal coca businesses.

This study also highlights lessons from other industries that have moved from illicit to regulated markets, providing a balanced view of possible outcomes. While coca legalization could offer a path away from prohibition’s punitive approach, the transition to a regulated market could mean ongoing challenges.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024 24p.

By Phil Williams

By 2040, organized crime may thrive like never before, exploiting climate crises, geopolitical conflicts, and technological advancements. Our latest report reveals a chilling forecast where criminal networks operate as shadow governments, shielded by authoritarian regimes and empowered by rapid technological evolution.

This “fifth wave” of organized crime, as coined by author Phil Williams, will capitalize on scarcity markets, leveraging disruptions in essential resources like water, minerals, and energy caused by climate change. Criminal networks are expected to infiltrate legitimate markets, blurring lines between lawful and illicit activities and using scarcity as a driving force for growth.

The report suggests that by leveraging emerging tools such as artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and 5G technology, criminal organizations will achieve new levels of sophistication, making it difficult for law enforcement to counter their reach and resilience. Meanwhile, geopolitical tensions are likely to exacerbate the situation, as some authoritarian regimes utilize criminal networks as extensions of state power, offering them safe havens and strategic support in exchange for destabilizing activities abroad.

The findings raise urgent questions about global readiness to combat organized crime’s possible evolution. “The Fifth Wave” challenges policymakers, law enforcement agencies, and international organizations to rethink their approach to organized crime in a rapidly shifting world. It underscores the importance of proactive strategies that go beyond traditional crime-fighting tactics, advocating for comprehensive international collaboration, adaptive policy-making, and innovative technology to address this deeply entrenched threat.

As crime increasingly infiltrates legal economies, emerging as a powerful economic and social force, international collaboration and innovative strategies will be vital to mitigate this emerging threat. This threat requires an unprecedented global response.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024. 30p.

By Jo‑Anne Kramer, Arjan A. J. Blokland·, Edward R. Kleemans, Melvin R. J. Soudijn

In order to launder large amounts of money, (drug) criminals can seek help from financial facilitators. According to the FATF, these facilitators are operating increasingly business-like and even participate in professional money laundering networks. This study examines the extent to which financial facilitators in the Netherlands exhibit business-like characteristics and the extent to which they organize themselves in money laundering networks. We further examine the relationship between business-like behavior and individual money launderers’ position in the social network. Using police intelligence data, we were able to analyze the contacts of 198 financial facilitators who were active in the Netherlands in the period 2016–2020, all having worked for drug criminals. Based on social network analysis, this research shows that financial facilitators in the Netherlands can be linked in extensive money laundering networks. Based on the facilitators’ area of expertise, roughly two main types of professional money laundering networks can be discerned. Some subnetworks operate in the real estate sector, while others primarily engage in underground banking. Furthermore, the application of regression models to predict business-like behavior using individual network measures shows that facilitators with more central positions in the net work and those who collaborate with financial facilitators from varying expertise groups tend to behave more business-like than other financial facilitators.

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27:314–341

By Paolo Campana, Cecilia Meneghini

This paper explores the structure of organised crime movement across local communities and the drivers underpinning such movement. Firstly, it builds on network analysis to offer a novel methodological approach to empirically and quantitatively study the movement of organised crime offenders across geographical areas. The paper then applies this approach to evidence from Cambridgeshire in the United Kingdom. It reconstructs the movement of organised crime members across local areas based on a large-scale police dataset that includes 41 months of recorded crime events. It identifies organised crime “turf” and “target” areas and then explores the drivers of movement from the former to the latter using Exponential Random Graph Models. Findings confirm that geographical distance matters; however, socio-demographic, urban, economic and crime-related characteristics of communities play a key role. Organised crime group members target urban communities with higher than average illegal market opportunities (proxied by drug-related activity). The work also finds the effect of socio-demographic homophily between turf and target communities, suggesting that organised crime group members might target territories that are similar to their own. While a high level of deprivation makes a community more likely to send organised crime members, its impact on a community’s probability of being a receiver is less clear. Finally, the paper offers a way to identify communities (local areas) at risk of being targeted by criminal organisations, thus providing practitioners with a tool for early interventions

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27:286–313

By United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime - UNODC

Fraud has evolved significantly over the years, adapting to technological advancements and changes in society. It has become increasingly sophisticated, often using psychological manipulation, enabled by information and communications technologies (ICTs). The high volume and severity of fraud pose a significant risk to people, economies and prosperity worldwide, and have a negative impact on the public’s confidence in the rule of law. However, developing an accurate understanding of fraud presents several challenges. Victims often underreport fraud due to feelings of shame, self blame or embarrassment, as well as a lack of recognition that a crime has occurred. Moreover, a significant portion of fraud targets businesses, many of which choose not to report these crimes to avoid damaging their reputation. The anonymity and remoteness often associated with fraud perpetration conceal the identities of offenders from both victims and authorities, hindering efforts to assess underlying patterns, factors of vulnerability and associated risks. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of fraud — which is constantly being adapted to changes in legal, social, commercial and technological systems — means that new and innovative methods of the offence may go unnoticed within static official data. In many cases, domestic law enforcement entities do not have the capacity to investigate and uncover the offenders and the organized criminal groups behind the crime: international cooperation is required, suggesting the need to give greater prominence to fraud in the policy framework and legislation against organized crime.

The international community has recognized the worrying scale of fraud and the need for joint efforts in preventing and combating it. The General Assembly, in its resolution 78/229, reaffirmed the importance of the work of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in the fulfilment of its mandate in crime prevention and criminal justice, including providing to Member States, upon request and as a matter of high priority, technical cooperation, advisory services and other forms of assistance, and coordinating with and complementing the work of all relevant and competent United Nations bodies and offices in respect to all forms of organized crime, including fraud. Nevertheless, the intersection between fraud and organized crime is not well understood and is further complicated by overlaps with other key areas, including cybercrime, white-collar crime, money-laundering and corruption. An understanding of organized fraud is necessary to inform the decisions of policymakers and other stakeholders and drive effective responses. The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the main global legally binding instrument to prevent and fight all forms and manifestations of transnational organized crime and protect the victims thereof, provides a framework to understand the nature of organized fraud and how the response to it can be integrated into the response to the different threats presented by transnational organized crime.

Scope of the issue paper

Fraud is an expansive category of crime. One of the greatest challenges to understanding it is its scope. It encompasses a range of criminal behaviours that are bound together by the common principle of dishonesty. The opportunities to employ dishonesty for the purposes of fraud span the full range of social, commercial, financial and technological settings, which can vary in different regions of the world. These opportunities are exploited by criminals from highly diverse backgrounds, ranging from professionals exploiting a legitimate corporate position to cybercriminals from within deprived communities. In this way, fraud is distinct from many other criminal categories that cover more discrete criminal behaviours occurring in specific settings (e.g. burglary). This diversity creates challenges in terms of developing a single, cohesive and comprehensive picture of fraud. The present issue paper covers fraud perpetrated by organized criminal groups (i.e. organized fraud). The role of organized crime can vary depending on the type of fraud, although, to a greater or lesser extent, it has a footprint in nearly all types of fraud. For the purposes of containing the scope of the issue paper, the following elements are not included:

• Other crimes in which fraud plays an enabling role, including the fraudulent use of identity to prevent a perpetrator from being traced, such as opening financial accounts to launder the proceeds of crime; fraudulent communications to enter into a relationship with a victim for the purpose of blackmailing or extorting money from them;1 and fraudulent job advertisements for recruiting and trafficking victims into forced labour and servitude.

• Fraud targeting the financial interests of the State (e.g. tax regimes), such as missing trader intra-community fraud (otherwise known as MTIC or VAT fraud); excise fraud, in which duties on imported products are not paid (e.g. fuel); public procurement fraud; and fraudulent applications for government grants and subsidies. The policy and response landscape for addressing these types of fraud can be distinct, being made up of various agencies and regulatory powers beyond law enforcement (e.g. the tax authority). The links between these types of fraud and organized crime are more well established in the literature.

The focus of the issue paper is organized fraud that targets individual members of the public or private institutions for the purposes of obtaining a financial or other material benefit.

Vienna: UNODC< 2024. 82p.

By Christopher Blattman, Benjamin Lessing, and Santiago Tobón

Organised crime poses one of the greatest threats to national security and development in the 21st century. Despite this, most policy, data collection, and scholarly research focuses on individuals and disorganised violence. Our work addresses several critical gaps in knowledge:

• What are the incentives for gangs to engage in violence and socially costly behaviour?

• Which are the trade-offs that practitioners face when deciding how to engage with organised violence?

• What type of information do relevant decision-makers need to inform their policies?

• Which are the most relevant tools for tracking down gang behaviour and use of violence?

We address these questions in the context of Medellín, Colombia’s second largest and most important city. Over the past six years, our work has covered a broad methodological spectrum, including:

• qualitative data collection through interviews with dozens of criminals and criminal justice experts;

• quantitative data collection from thousands of citizens in surveys representative at highly localised levels;

• active collaboration with local relevant stakeholders such as the city administration and the local police department;

• quasi-experimental evaluations of long-running policies dating back to the 1980s; and

• experimental evaluations of marginal improvements in state presence in violent and gang controlled areas.

Our preliminary findings point to terrible trade-offs, where authorities face plausibly impossible questions when balancing short-term gains in violence reduction and sacrifices in state legitimacy, with long-term uncertainty concerning both violence and state legitimacy. We highlight preliminary recommendations for guiding policy decisions.

Birmingham, UK: The Serious Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE) 2022. 9p.

By Tena Prelec

The research paper that this briefing note summarises introduces a new framework for assessing the relationship between information manipulation and organised crime. Through applied real-world case studies from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova (Transnistria), and Albania, the framework reveals diverse patterns in these relationships, and the varying intensity of the information manipulation employed at a granular level. An emerging hypothesis emerging from the research suggests that authoritarian states may wield greater freedom in misusing information when they have intermediate – rather than high – levels of integration with the organised crime groups (OCG’s) executing disinformation campaigns on their behalf. The paper also identifies several areas for further research, including public receptivity to information manipulation, the mercurial nature of ties between elite actors and the use of information manipulation by elites, to create confusion amongst the public rather than to change their minds.

SOC ACE Research Paper. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham. 2024. 7p.

By Huma Haider

Organised criminal actors can extend their influence over security sector officials through corruption, paying them to selectively enforce the law. In some cases, the rise of organised crime (OC) has eroded the state’s capacity to deliver security and justice. In other contexts, criminality is associated with a strong state that can protect corrupt officials and criminal actors. Strengthening the capabilities of corrupt security institutions can, in turn, be counterproductive in the fight against OC. The linkages between corruption, OC, the functioning of security and justice institutions, and their reform processes, call for integrated analysis, planning and implementation of initiatives to achieve security sector reform and governance (SSR/G) and to counter OC. There is, however, a gap in scholarship analysing connections between SSR/G and OC. In seeking to address this gap, this paper adopts an inter-disciplinary approach, reviewing scholarly and practitioner literature across a wide range of research disciplines. Key findings from the evidence review include:

• Delayed or weak implementation of security sector reform (SSR) in transitional contexts can result in the entrenchment of corruption in security sectors, alongside new forms of corruption (for example, from privatisation processes), which in turn risks the rise of illicit activities.

• OC can thrive where state institutions are absent or weak and where they are present or strong. A binary focus on strong versus weak states, with inadequate attention to context, has led at times to counterproductive interventions aimed at strengthening state institutions and the capabilities of security forces.

• The political context in which SSR and initiatives to counter OC take place can have a significant influence on outcomes. Such reforms and initiatives require political will and support. Elites in authoritarian contexts may block reforms that could hold them accountable and undermine their ability to profit from OC.

• Many SSR studies indicate that programming often prioritises less politically sensitive capacity building interventions. Yet, reforms that increase deterrent capacity can reinforce militarisation and increase violent crime by OC actors.

• Higher levels of popular trust in the military have often been accompanied by greater state reliance on the military to perform civilian law enforcement and/or militarisation of the police to address OC and restore public order.

• The militarisation of law enforcement has typically failed to counter OC, producing greater violence and criminality in many fragile and violent contexts.

• Relying on armed forces to counter OC has often reduced incentives and resources for strengthening police institutions

• Community-oriented policing is often employed to improve public trust in the police, yet there is limited systematic or comparative evidence that this is achieved.

• Mass incarceration, from law and order approaches, has frequently strengthened the cohesion of organised crime groups (OCG), giving them a territorial base for power projection.

• Overcrowded prison facilities and insufficient state staffing levels have often resulted in the rise of criminal governance and prisoner syndicates as parallel powers.

• Inadequate reintegration of ex-combatants, or gang members in situations of urban violence, can encourage their involvement in criminal activities.

• Conventional approaches to investigating and prosecuting criminal activity can be ineffective against complex OC networks. A proactive approach is required that seeks to disrupt and dismantle such networks, beyond arresting individual criminals.

• Criminal justice actors need to recognise that women can be both victims and perpetrators in the context of OC, possibly allowing for legal leniency.

• Judicial reforms tend to be more effective when they produce institutional change and empower new personnel to push through reforms.

• Special courts, established to tackle OC and corruption, may divert resources from elsewhere in the judicial sector. It can also be challenging to reconcile accountability for past gross human rights violations and the need to counter contemporary OC.

• Transitional trials, selective prosecutions and vetting, which remove officials guilty of corruption, OC and/or human rights violations from security and justice institutions, can help to reform abusive institutions and build trust.

• There is evidence that failure to properly vet military officials and ex-combatants prior to their entry into a civilian police force has resulted in corrupt police forces with links to criminality.

• There is debate as to whether transitional justice activities enable institutional reform and rule of law programming that can help to counter OC, or whether they are isolated from domestic capacity building.

• Developing accountability and oversight of security sector institutions (for example, anti-corruption mechanisms and civilian oversight) can help to reduce OC infiltration.

• Citizen security, a concept that extends to non-security sectors (for example, education, infrastructure and livelihoods), can be a helpful lens in designing more comprehensive interventions required to counter OC.

• Where gender-responsive SSR is advocated, it is often reduced to adding women to programming and institutions, without addressing the structural, institutional and cultural barriers to meaningful engagement.

• An effective system for combatting transnational OC requires the development of entities and mechanisms aimed at building operational cooperation and coordination among the security agencies of different states.

This Evidence Review Paper demonstrates the importance of adopting an OC-informed perspective in SSR/G and a SSR/G-informed perspective in addressing OC. By exploring the interlinkages, complementarities and trade-offs between security and justice sectors and their reforms, on the one hand, and countering OC, on the other, this paper seeks to provide insights into these perspectives.

SOC ACE Evidence Review Paper No. 05. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham 2024. 97p.

By Nicholas Barnes

How Do Organized criminal groups (OCGs) respond to military interventions intended to weaken and subdue them? In many cases, such crackdowns have proven counterproductive as OCGs militarize, engage in violence, and confront state forces directly. Existing studies have pointed to several explanations: inter-criminal competition, unconditional militarized approaches, and existing criminal governance arrangements. Much of this work, however, has focused on national, regional, or even municipal level variation and explanations. This article takes a micro-comparative approach based on 18 months of ethnographic research in a group of Rio de Janeiro favelas (impoverished and informal neighborhoods) divided between three drug trafficking gangs and occupied by the Brazilian military from 2014 to 2015. It argues that an active territorial threat from a rival is the primary mechanism leading OCGs to respond violently to military intervention. It also demonstrates that geographic patterns of recruitment play an important role in where OCG rivalries turn violent during intervention.

Comparative Political Studies 2022, Vol. 55(5) 789–831

By Alice Fereday

Niger’s location at the crossroads of key trans-Sahelian routes has positioned it at the heart of migratory flows for decades. The country’s role as a transit hub for migrants heading north towards Libya with the aim of reaching Europe has also attracted the focus of extensive international efforts to curb irregular migration. In 2023, however, it was the major political and security developments at national and regional levels that had the greatest impact on human smuggling in Niger. On 26 July, a military coup overthrew the president, Mohamed Bazoum, and transitional authorities were formed under the Conseil National pour la Sauvegarde de la Patrie (National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland – CNSP). The military takeover resulted in the closure of the country’s borders with Benin and Nigeria, further complicating movement into Niger, which was already severely affected by growing insecurity in Burkina Faso and south-west Niger. Rather than preventing movement, however, the border closures led to an increased demand for smuggling services, particularly at the Benin border, from both migrants and those transporting commodities. By March 2024, the Nigerian border had reopened, while the Benin border remained closed at the time of writing. An even more significant change came in November, when the CNSP repealed the 2015 anti-smuggling law that had caused the collapse of the industry in northern Niger. This led to one of the most profound shifts in the dynamics of human smuggling since 2015. Since the repeal of the law, passeurs – the colloquial name in the Sahel for transporters involved in human smuggling – across the country have been able to transport foreign migrants legally. The effects were immediately felt in Agadez, which had been the main focus of anti-smuggling operations, resulting in the demise of its human smuggling economy in 2016. With the repeal of the law, departures to Libya have risen steadily since November, as have departures to Algeria. Rather than a sharp spike in foreign movements, the repeal appears to have caused steady, though not exponential, growth since November. Some of the key factors that influenced human smuggling before the legislation change remain in place, such as a preference for routes to Algeria and persistent challenges on regional routes to reach Niger. As a result, the migration landscape in the country is unlikely to return to what it resembled pre-2015. In particular, the westbound displacement of routes, which led to the increased use of Algeria as a transit country to reach Tunisia and to a lesser extent Morocco, is now firmly established and unlikely to shift back. Insecurity linked to the expansion of violent extremist groups in Mali, Burkina Faso and south-west Niger also remains a major constraint on regional mobility, and could further deteriorate amid continued political and security upheaval in the Sahel.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2024. 38p.

By Felipe Botero Escobar

Cannabis is the most widely consumed illicit drug globally, with around 219 million users in 2021, according to the UNODC. It is also the illicit drug that is being legalized most rapidly for medicinal or recreational use. While Colombia has taken steps toward regulation, such as legalizing medicinal cannabis in 2015, the complete legalization of recreational cannabis is still under discussion.

This report draws on experiences from countries like Uruguay, Canada, and the United States, which have already implemented cannabis legalization, to explore the possible outcomes for Colombia. It concludes that while legalization could reduce the size of the illegal cannabis market, a grey market supplying both local and international demands is likely to persist.

A key focus is on how criminal control over cannabis production areas could hinder the transition of growers to a legal market. The report emphasizes the need for coordinated cannabis regulatory and security policies to protect small-scale and traditional growers and integrate them into the legal market. Furthermore, the potential for reduced violence is explored, though the report notes that this is unlikely to happen immediately. Criminal groups may resist the establishment of a legal market, leading to short-term increases in violence as they compete for control over remaining illicit markets.

Another significant finding is the potential transformation of Colombia’s criminal justice system. Legalization could free up resources, allowing law enforcement to prioritize more serious public safety issues and reducing low-level cannabis prosecutions and prison overcrowding.

This report offers crucial insights for policymakers, emphasizing that while cannabis legalization is not a cure-all for crime and violence in Colombia, it is a critical step toward more effective drug policy reform and organized crime reduction.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024. 35p.

By Antônio Sampaio

In the past decade, the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan area has witnessed, consecutively, some of the world’s most intense clashes between criminal groups over territorial control, implemented one of the most innovative urban security strategies and, later, reverted to a classic militarized, iron-fisted approach to fighting crime. At the core of these clashes, strategies and crackdowns is a long-standing armed struggle involving criminals, militias and state forces for territorial control in the second largest city in Brazil, one of the world’s top 10 economies. In the main, the security actor that responds to criminal groups’ grip over the city’s large, densely populated hillside slums (known as favelas in Portuguese) is the military police, which has acquired a reputation for a ‘shoot-first-askquestions-later’ approach. The force is also often associated with its elite special-operations squad, BOPE (Special Police Operations Battalion, translated from the Portuguese). This is a deadly force of heavily armed officers placed at the spearhead of police operations engaging with gang-controlled favelas. Its insignia is a skull perforated by two pistols and a knife. The state security forces, therefore, have been described as brutal and militarized – with good reason. Brazil’s new political leaders, sworn in in early 2019, both at the federal and state level, unleashed upon the country a vision of further repressive policies on public security without the accompanying governance and developmental approaches to the urban areas where armed criminal groups are concentrated. President Jair Bolsonaro’s security proposals have been thin on longterm solutions; he has resorted instead to deregulating gun possession and reducing penalties for police officers shooting suspects. The president’s lack of strategy to tackle the problem has not hindered his ‘tough-on-crime’ rhetoric: in August 2019 he said his proposals would make criminals ‘die in the streets like cockroaches’. Bolsonaro’s ally, the governor of the state of Rio, Wilson Witzel, has gone further. Witzel has ordered an increase in the use of snipers, deployed to shoot suspected criminals from helicopters. These kinds of policies mark a return to a long tradition of repressive security approaches in Rio (as analyzed in the second section of this report) and represent a radical reversal of previous governmental approaches focused on improving marginalized urban areas and communities where the grip of organized crime has been stronger. Despite this excessive focus on repression, the core security issue in Rio de Janeiro is not the authorities’ militarized policies on security. Rather, this, and the police, is just one part of the core issue, namely the consolidation of an illicit order in marginalized territories amid the declining legitimacy of the state. The militarization of security policies, which is part of declining state legitimacy, is a reaction that intensified and probably reinforced the core problem. Meanwhile, the rise of violent, armed non-state actors has been partially a response to the heavy-handed police crackdowns, but it is also a response to other criminal actors, one that serves the purpose of establishing, enforcing or defending the illicit order. (The term ‘illicit order’ refers to a situation in which an armed criminal actor has a permanent presence in a given urban territory, and establishes rules and punishments enforced by the threat or exercise of violence. The effectiveness and severity with which those rules are enforced may vary over time.) Another distinctive feature of Rio’s security landscape over the past decade has been experimentation with a stabilization strategy in gang strongholds, referred to locally as pacificação (‘pacification’). This strategy had been around for 10 years by 2018, showing that it is possible to reclaim areas from gangs (at least for a time). It also distinguished itself by the authorities’ attempt – successful for some time – to reconcile the use of armed force with socio-economic development initiatives, such as urban infrastructure and educational programmes. To break a vicious cycle of recurring police incursions in slums, which often resulted in intense gunfights and deaths, local authorities combined a heavily armed ‘occupation’ of slum areas with a gradual push for community policing, state-managed public-service delivery and development. In doing so, the government introduced a political element in its urban security policy, the thinking being that neither policing nor social development were sufficient by themselves to achieve the desired results. Instead, authorities recognized that urban security could be combined with a profoundly political purpose – to recover the allegiance of local residents, introduce state institutions and establish state governance. No wonder the pacification programme was compared to counterinsurgency by US diplomats and academics, given its parallels with the counterinsurgency principle of wrestling population support away from rebel groups and towards government authority. In the pursuit of this local political objective, policing, infrastructure investment, public services and social development programmes were deployed – with impressively positive results during the first five years or so of the pacification process (approximately from late 2008 to 2013). The programme marked a watershed moment in the perception of what is the goal of an urban security strategy: the transition of violent territories to stability through institutions, governance and security. An important reason why the programme has received worldwide attention as a case study on urban security is that it worked – for a time. A 2012 World Bank study, for instance, is titled ‘Bringing the state back into the favelas of Rio de Janeiro’....etc....

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2019. 40p.

By Carla Álvarez

Ecuador is experiencing an unusual growth in violence and criminality. In addition to being among the 10 countries with the greatest incidence of criminality in the world,1 it currently has the highest rate of violent deaths in Latin America, 47.25 for every 100 000 residents,2 eight times higher than in 2016, the year Ecuador recorded its lowest rate since 1980.3 In less than a decade, it has gone from being the second safest country in South America (after Chile)4 to becoming the most violent. Firearms play a central role in this security crisis. According to the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index,5 arms trafficking is one of the largest-growing criminal markets in the country. Firearms have become an instrument for strengthening the capacity of criminal organizations dedicated to drug trafficking and illegal mining, as well as a way to assert territorial control. In 2023, firearms were involved in nine out of every 10 violent deaths in the country.6 As shown in Figures 1 and 2, since 2020 the number of homicides has virtually doubled year after year, as well as the recurrence of the use of firearms. These figures exceed the regional and worldwide averages of violence committed with these devices.7 In addition, while young men have accounted for the majority of the violent deaths recorded, the assassinations of women have also grown significantly in recent years. In the case of the femicides recorded in 2023, a total of 321 violent deaths of women were gender-related, 37% of which were committed using firearms.8 The centrality of firearms in the dynamics of violence in Ecuador is the result of the loosening of internal regulations that permit the import, manufacture, commerce and carrying of weapons. Despite the growth in armed violence, on 1 April 2023 the Ecuadorian government relaxed several measures that expanded the legal market for firearms. These decisions were adopted despite the institutional inability of the state to exercise effective control over the permits to carry and possess weapons;9 the growing corruption in security-related institutions;10 and the harsh criticism by some sectors of civil society of the government for having fostered the adoption of measures on self-protection and the privatization of security instead of promoting a public security policy.

This change has facilitated the proliferation of arms amid a process of expansion of criminal activities in the country, which has in turn led to the growth of an active and concerning market for arms. Without a doubt, the increase in violence is related to the increase in arms trafficking, which, in addition to being lucrative, facilitates other crimes, such as drug trafficking, extortion, illegal mining, contract killings and kidnappings.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime., 2024. 31p.

By the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

The Americas have the highest regional homicide rate in the world, and high rates of homicidal violence related to organized crime. This research brief, excerpted from the UNODC Global Study on Homicide 2023, notes several recurrent patterns with respect to factors shaping criminal homicides in Latin America and the Caribbean: › Homicides related to organized crime and gangs are significantly more volatile than homicides perpetrated by intimate partners or other family members. › Subregions, countries and cities with a high homicide rate tend to be associated with a larger proportion of firearm-related homicide. › Settings with a high homicide rate also typically report a large proportion of homicides involving male victims. › High homicide rates are also usually associated with a proportionately higher number of homicides related to organized crime. Where there is a higher density of criminal organizations, there is a higher risk of homicidal violence. › Drug markets alone do not predict homicide but they are frequently associated with lethal violence, especially in the context of multiple competing criminal factions. Amid mounting public concern with violent crime and low trust in police, some Latin American and Caribbean governments are enacting “states of emergency” in response to organized crime and violent gangs. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has expressed concern about the human rights impacts of states of emergency introduced to address organized crime and violence1, while the Secretary-General’s New Agenda for Peace policy brief 2 notes that over-securitized responses can be counterproductive and can reinforce the very dynamics they seek to overcome, as their far-reaching consequences – blowback from local populations, human rights violations and abuses, exacerbation of gender inequalities and distortion of local economies – can be powerful drivers for recruitment into terrorist or armed groups.  

Vienna: UNODC, 2024. 42p.

By Fabian Zhilla

This study asserts that the repatriation of foreign fighters from the conflict in Ukraine poses a significant threat to the peace and stability of Southeast Europe within the realm of organized crime. It contends that Southeast Europe serves as fertile ground for foreign fighters during times of war crises, facilitating their exploitation by organized crime for illicit purposes. Regarding the context of Southeast Europe, the study argues, firstly, that serious organized crime groups demonstrate a propensity to recruit individuals with military experience. Secondly, it underscores the historical roots of foreign fighters presence in the region, including the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Lastly, it highlights the inadequate response and policies at both national and European Union levels to address this concern in the region.

Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 6(1): pp. 30–41. 2024.