By Meenakshi Fernandes and Lenka Jančová  

  Corruption, which can be defined as the 'abuse of entrusted power for private gain', poses a significant threat in the European Union. Corrupt practices can lead to a misuse of public funds and can contribute towards an erosion of democracy and the rule of law. The European Union can do more to tackle corruption and curb its negative impacts on society. This report draws on a quantitative analysis of corruption in the EU with a focus on three aspects: i) democracy and the rule of law; ii) public trust in institutions; and iii) public procurement. Further EU action to tackle corruption could strengthen trust in public institutions and enhance regulatory certainty. In quantitative terms, the social and economic gains could reach up to €58.5 billion per year.  

 Brussels: EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service, 2023.  78p.

By Ilia Gaglio, Jacopo Guzzon, Katarina Bartz, Luca Marcolin, Rrap Kryeziu, Emma Disley, Jirka Taylor, Shann Hulme

The present study to strengthen the fight against corruption in the EU aims at providing recommendations for possible EU measures in the area of corruption prevention and repression and to assess and compare the impacts of the identified policy options. The core problems, drivers and issues of the EU anti-corruption acquis, the need for and added value of EU action and the relevant policy objectives were identified through detailed desk research and numerous consultation activities. Overall, the assessment pointed to legislative and operational barriers that hinder both the prevention and the fight against corruption in the EU. Main barriers include significant differences in terms of legislative and administrative arrangements in place at the national level to fight against corruption, as well as a lack of adequate data collection and monitoring of corruption data and trends that prevents sufficient prevention of corruption in the EU. …

Publications Office of the European Union, 2022. 193p.

Edited by Alina Mungiu-Pippidi and Jana Warkotsch

This last title in the series covers the most important findings of the five yearsEU sponsored ANTICORRP project dealing with corruption and organized crime.How prone to corruption are EU funds? Has EU managed to improve governance in the countries that it assists? Using the new index of public integrity and a variety of other tools created in the project this issue looks at how EU funds and norms affected old member states (like Spain), new member states (Slovakia,Romania), accession countries (Turkey) and the countries recipient of development funds (Egypt, Tanzania, Tunisia). The data covers over a decade of structural and development funds, and the findings show the challenges to changing governance across borders, the different paths that each country has experienced and suggest avenues of reforming development aid for improving governance.

Opladen: Verlag Barbara Budrich, 2017. 128p.

Edited by Enrico Carloni, Diletta Paoletti  

The challenge of fighting corruption is strategic at a global and European level, and the inadequacy of the repressive and penal response alone has now been evidenced: corruption must not only be fought, but understood, and preventive administrative measures must be taken. Anti-corruption is not an issue that concerns only the judiciary branch, the legal system, and police authorities, but it is, above all, a challenge for society and institutions as a whole. And it is a challenge to be transformed, in particular, into a change in administrations and institutions, in their way of organizing and operating. This volume the result of the Project “Administrative Prevention through Targeted Anti-corruption MODels for candidate countries” – APTAMOD, co-funded by the European Union’s HERCULE III programme, which has conducted comparative law studies and high-profile research activities in the field of administrative prevention of corruption, with specific focus on Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2022.  178p.

Edited by Peter Larmour and Nick Wolanin 

There is new international attention being given to the old problem of corruption. It has been taken up by international organisations, and driven by economic analysis. It is impatient of cultural justifications, and suspicious of state action. It is concerned with corruption prevention as much as detection, investigation and prosecution. Corruption and Anti-Corruption deals with the international dimensions of corruption, including campaigns to recover the assets of former dictators, and the links between corruption, transnational and economic crime. It deals with corruption as an issue in political theory, and shows how it can be addressed in campaigns for human rights. It also presents case studies of reform efforts in the Philippines, India and Thailand. The book explains the doctrines of a well-established domestic anti-corruption agency. It is based on research to develop a curriculum for a unique international training course on ‘Corruption and Anti-Corruption’, designed and taught by academics at The Australian National University, the Australian Institute of Criminology and public servants in the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption. Versions have been taught in Canberra, and several countries in South East Asia.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2013.  286p.

By Federico Ceschel  · Alessandro Hinna  · Fabian Homberg

Corruption is widespread and preventive strategies to reduce corruption need to be adapted within the local context. Considering the United Nations (UN) Convention against corruption as our starting point, the paper presents a literature review based on 118 articles on corruption prevention initiatives in the public sector. The analysis indicates a substantial alignment between the guidelines deriving from the UN Convention, except for a lack of work on the risk-based approach to corruption prevention. Further, the review indicates problems with research designs. Based on the insights generated from the analysis, we develop an agenda for future research. 

Public Organization Review (2022) 22:571–591 

By Viktoriia Poltoratskaia and Mihály Fazekas  

  Our research on corruption risk assessments (CRAs) identifies three main approaches: centralised, decentralised, and transparency-oriented methodologies. Case studies from the Netherlands, Lithuania, Mexico, and Italy highlight the role of resource and institutional constraints in the choice of approach, and the importance of ensuring high-quality, complete, and accessible data. To ensure the mitigation of the identified risks, CRA should include systematic and explicit recommendations for assessed entities to follow up.   

  Oslo: U4 - Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), 2023. 43p.   

By W. Travis Hanes III and Frank Sanello

In this tragic and powerful story, the two Opium Wars of 1839–1842 and 1856–1860 between Britain and China are recounted for the first time through the eyes of the Chinese as well as the Imperial West. Opium entered China during the Middle Ages when Arab traders brought it into China for medicinal purposes. As it took hold as a recreational drug, opium wrought havoc on Chinese society. By the early nineteenth century, 90 percent of the Emperor’s court and the majority of the army were opium addicts.Britain was also a nation addicted-to tea, grown in China, and paid for with profits made from the opium trade. When China tried to ban the use of the drug and bar its Western smugglers from its gates, England decided to fight to keep open China’s ports for its importation. England, the superpower of its time, managed to do so in two wars, resulting in a drug-induced devastation of the Chinese people that would last 150 years.In this page-turning, dramatic and colorful history, The Opium Wars responds to past, biased Western accounts by representing the neglected Chinese version of the story and showing how the wars stand as one of the monumental clashes between the cultures of East and West.

Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2004.  352p.

By Mark Galeotti

Mark Galeotti is the go-to expert on organized crime in Russia, consulted by governments and police around the world. Now, Western readers can explore the fascinating history of thevory v zakone, a group that has survived and thrived amid the changes brought on by Stalinism, the Cold War, the Afghan War, and the end of the Soviet experiment.

Thevory—as the Russian mafia is also known—was born early in the twentieth century, largely in the Gulags and criminal camps, where they developed their unique culture. Identified by their signature tattoos, members abided by the thieves’ code, a strict system that forbade all paid employment and cooperation with law enforcement and the state. Based on two decades of on-the-ground research, Galeotti’s captivating study details thevory’s journey to power from their early days to their adaptation to modern-day Russia’s free-wheeling oligarchy and global opportunities beyond.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018. 344p.

Edited by Frank Bovenkerk and Michael Levi

In his social investigative writings on "the serious crime community" which describes the loose merger of corporate interests, organized crime and political crime, professor Alan A. Block of Penn State University has proven to be one of the most inspiring criminologists in the field. An international group of pupils and friends dedicate this book to him which contains original contributions on the troubled concept of organized crime, the social history of crime groups in the United States, corruption in the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program in Iraq, the struggle against identity fraud, the world of drugs and the adverse consequences of criminalization, the money-laundering control movement, International Tribunals against war crimes and a Jewish studies chapter on the role of bystanders during the Holocaust.

New York: Springer, 2007. 246p.

By Eduardo Sáenz Rovner and Russ Davidson

A comprehensive history of crime and corruption in Cuba, The Cuban Connection challenges the common view that widespread poverty and geographic proximity to the United States were the prime reasons for soaring rates of drug trafficking, smuggling, gambling, and prostitution in the tumultuous decades preceding the Cuban revolution. Eduardo S?enz Rovner argues that Cuba's historically well-established integration into international migration, commerce, and transportation networks combined with political instability and rampant official corruption to help lay the foundation for the development of organized crime structures powerful enough to affect Cuba's domestic and foreign politics and its very identity as a nation.S?enz traces the routes taken around the world by traffickers and smugglers. After Cuba, the most important player in this story is the United States. The involvement of gangsters and corrupt U.S. officials and businessmen enabled prohibited substances to reach a strong market in the United States, from rum running during Prohibition to increased demand for narcotics during the Cold War.

Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2008. 247p.

By Walter Kemp

The report “Crooked Kaleidoscope – Organized Crime in the Balkans” by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, urges countries and organizations that have invested so much economically and politically over the past 25 years to stay engaged in the region and help it avoid back-sliding. In particular, it calls for stronger measures to fight corruption, enhance justice, and go after the proceeds of crime rather than just focusing on police reform.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2017. 44p.

By Lucia Bird

On 1 February 2022, gunshots at the governmental palace in Bissau signalled the beginning of a reported failed coup attempt in Guinea-Bissau, a country long known for its prominent role in international cocaine trafficking. Had the incident resulted in a military overthrow of power, it would have been the fifth successful coup in Guinea-Bissau’s history, and also the fifth coup in West Africa in the preceding 12 months, hot on the heels of the seizure of power in Burkina Faso in late January.1 Hours after the gunfire had begun, President Umaro Sissoco Embaló addressed the press, condemning the incident and declaring the perpetrators had failed. In press statements, he indicated that those behind the attack were involved in the drugs trade.2 This implication appeared to echo history: a 2012 coup in Guinea-Bissau was so clearly motivated by competition for control over the country’s lucrative cocaine markets that it has been dubbed the ‘cocaine coup’.3 The nature of the February attack, and the identity of the perpetrators, is still unclear – as explored further below. However, arrests announced by the government following the attack include individuals with known links to the cocaine trade – most prominently Admiral Bubo Na Tchuto – underscoring the drug connection implied by the president. Guinea-Bissau is a key entry point for cocaine into West Africa, a region that operates as a transit point on international cocaine trafficking routes between cultivation countries in Latin America and consumer end-markets in Europe. The country has played an important role in international cocaine trafficking dynamics since the late 1990s. The close involvement of Guinea-Bissau’s political-military elite in the cocaine market over the years has been a critical factor in Guinea-Bissau’s repeated cycles of political turmoil. In turn, profits from the cocaine market have bankrolled a remarkably resilient elite protection network composed of elements of the state infrastructure. Guinea-Bissau is at a critical juncture once again. The curious February incident has brought to the fore the country’s cyclical tendency towards political volatility, and the president has deemed the country to be in ‘political crisis’ and dissolved the National Assembly. This report explores the role, past and present, of the cocaine trade both as a driver of political instability in the country and as a source of resilience for elite power-sharing arrangements.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 50p.

By International Crisis Group

Coca stands at the heart of a fierce debate over Colombia’s worsening rural insecurity. The plant’s leaves are the sole raw material from which cocaine, an illegal drug that generates outlandish profits and finances armed and criminal groups, can be manufactured. Colombian President Iván Duque argues that the whole narcotic supply chain – from coca cultivation to global cocaine trafficking – is the scourge behind rising massacres, forced displacement and assassinations of community leaders in Colombia. With cultivation hitting new highs in recent years, Bogotá has vastly expanded campaigns that involve sending in the army and police to pull up or otherwise eradicate coca crops. It also threatens to restart aerial fumigation. Yet an approach based on forceful eradication of coca, which the U.S. has stoutly backed, tends to worsen rural violence, while failing to reduce drug supply. A new strategy is needed that persuades coca farmers to abandon a plant that offers a stable income and an attractive alternative to other legal crops.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2021. 44p.

By InSight Crime

Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia and Nicaragua represent an illuminating cross section of criminal organizations and types of elites. Elite dynamics in each of these countries are different, but with important commonalities; the makeup, role and penetration of criminal groups into intellectual, societal, legal, government and economic circles is varied, but interrelated. The study findings show local and national dynamics that influence intersections between organized crime and elites, and enable inferences and conclusions about what unifies these examples. The case studies reach the upper echelons of government and impact how the state deals with organized crime.

Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2016. 51p.

By George W. Grayson.

The United States has diplomatic relations with 194 independent nations. Of these, none is more important to America than Mexico in terms of trade, investment, tourism, natural resources, migration, energy, and security. In recent years, narco-violence has afflicted Mexico with more than 50,000 drug-related murders since 2007 and some 26,000 men, women, and children missing. President Enrique Peña Nieto has tried to divert national attention from the bloodshed through reforms in energy, education, anti-hunger, health-care, and other areas. Even though the death rate has declined since the chief executive took office on December 1, 2012, other crimes continue to plague his nation. Members of the business community report continual extortion demands; the national oil company PEMEX suffers widespread theft of oil, gas, explosives, and solvents (with which to prepare methamphetamines); hundreds of Central American migrants have shown up in mass graves; and the public identifies the police with corruption and villainy. Washington policymakers, who overwhelmingly concentrate on Asia and the Mideast, would be well-advised to focus on the acute dangers that lie principally below the Rio Grande, but whose deadly avatars are spilling into our nation.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2014. 103p.

By Jon Spencer, Rose Broad, Kauko Aromaa et. al.

This report was completed some time ago but for reasons beyond our control its publication has been delayed until now. The issue of the illegal movement of people retains its topicality and continues to be equally relevant as it was at the time of the project fieldwork. For example, recently, HEUNI has completed a further report on the FLEX project (Trafficking for Forced Labour and Labour Exploitation in Finland, Poland and Estonia, HEUNI Publication No. 68), and the report on trafficking for sexual exploitation published by The Swedish Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), accompanied by a Finnish country report published as HEUNI report No. 62 also indicate the importance of this area of research. The research reported on here was innovative as it included law enforcement practitioners and authority representatives in a constant dialogue with researchers. The aim was that this would allow for discussion of the data as it was gathered throughout the project. The intention was that data collection and interpretation formed a permanently iterative, self-correcting process and to some extent this was achieved. It was also an aim that the Expert Groups created for the project would continue once the research phase was completed in order to maximise the sharing of information and to sustain a dialogue between different professional groups. This aim proved to be over optimistic as there were too many problems caused by information sharing. It would seem that without external pressure and support, such formal cross-authority forms of co-operation do not survive spontaneously. The same could be observed in the context of the FLEX project. Our conclusion is that should such “horizontal” groups be created they will only continue if there is a budget and a responsible coordinating body established on a permanent basis. If not, the sustainability of such co-operative relationships is low.

Helsinki: European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control (HEUNI), 2011. 110p.