Global Challenges Facing Humanity
12. Transnational Crime: How can transnational organized crime networks be stopped from becoming more powerful and sophisticated global enterprises?
The Nuclear Security Summit has focused attention on preventing organized crime and terrorist organizations from getting access to the 500 tons of highly enriched uranium stored around the world. Although the world is waking up to the enormity of the threat of transnational organized crime, it continues to grow, while a global strategy to address this global threat is still lacking. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has called on all states to develop national strategies to counter TOC as a whole and shift enforcement from drug users to organized crime suppliers, acknowledging that the current approaches to drug control are not working. It also notes states’ are not seriously implementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. INTERPOL is collaborating with Australia to open the International Anti-Corruption Academy by the end of 2010, and its 188 member countries can now gain access to the organization’s central database management system (I-link), speeding investigations and cooperation. INTERPOL is also collaborating with the private sector to counter Internet-related crime and terrorism and their ability to bring down national information infrastructures. OECD’s Financial Action Task Force has made 40 recommendations to counter money laundering.
Havocscope.com estimates world illicit trade to be just over $1 trillion per year, with counterfeiting and intellectual property piracy accounting for $300 billion to $1 trillion, the global drug trade at $386 billion, trade in environmental goods at $63 billion, human trafficking and prostitution at $141 billion, smuggling at $96 billion, and weapons trade at $12 billion. The FBI estimates that online fraud cost U.S. businesses and consumers $560 million in 2009, up from $265 million in 2008. These figures do not include extortion or organized crime’s part of the $1 trillion in bribes that the World Bank estimates are paid annually or its part of the estimated $1.5–6.5 trillion in laundered money. Hence the total income could be $2–3 trillion—about twice as big as all the military budgets in the world. Governments can be understood as a series of decision points, with some people in those points vulnerable to very large bribes. Decisions could be bought and sold like heroin, making democracy an illusion.
The financial crisis and bankrupt financial institutions have opened new infiltration routes for TOC crime. The world recession has increased human trafficking and smuggling. Human body parts for transplantation are a new element in TOC. There are up to 27 million people being held in slavery today (the vast majority in Asia), more than during the peak of the African slave trade. UNICEF estimates that 1.2 million children are trafficked every year. The online market in illegally obtained data and tools for committing data theft and other cybercrimes continues to grow, and criminal organizations are offering online hosting of illegal applications. Computer transfers of $2 trillion per day make tempting targets for international cyber criminals.
It is time for an international campaign by all sectors of society to develop a global consensus for action against TOC. Two Conventions help bring some coherence to addressing TOC: the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which came into force in 2003, and the Council of Europe’s Convention on Laundering, which came into force in May 2008. Possibly an addition to one of these conventions or the International Criminal Court could establish a financial prosecution system as a new body to complement the related organizations addressing various parts of TOC. In cooperation with these organizations, the new system would identify and establish priorities on top criminals (defined by the amount of money laundered) to be prosecuted one at a time. It would prepare legal cases, identify suspects’ assets that can be frozen, establish the current location of the suspect, assess the local authorities’ ability to make an arrest, and send the case to one of a number of preselected courts. Such courts, like UN peacekeeping forces, could be identified before being called into action and trained, and then be ready for instant duty. When all these conditions are met, then all the orders would be executed at the same time to apprehend the criminal, freeze access to the assets, open the court case, and then proceed to the next TOC leader on the priority list. Prosecution would be outside the accused’s country. Although extradition is accepted by the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, a new protocol would be necessary for courts to be deputized like military forces for UN peacekeeping, via a lottery system among volunteer countries. After initial government funding, the system would receive its financial support from frozen assets of convicted criminals rather than depending on government contributions.
Challenge 12 will be seriously addressed when money laundering and crime income sources drop by 75% from their peak.
Regional Considerations
Africa: The West Africa Coast Initiative is a partnership among UNODC, UN Peacekeeping, ECOWAS, INTERPOL, and others to address the problems that have allowed traffickers to operate in a climate of impunity. The drug traffic from Latin America through the West African coast to Africa and Europe has been declining but is still around $1 billion annually. Piracy along the Somalia's coast and moving out as far as 1,000 miles is beginning to be taken over by TOC. The 15 million AIDS orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, with few legal means to make a living, constitute a gigantic pool of new talent for the future of organized crime. Links between African rebel factions, organized crime, and terrorism are increasing. Corruption remains a serious limit to economic development in many African countries.
Asia and Oceania: Afghan opium production, revenues, and GDP share (reportedly about one-third) are down for the second year in a row, according to UNODC. Much of this may be attributed to the shift in U.S. policy from eradication to development. Domestic addiction is spreading, however. North Korea is perceived as an organized crime state backed up by nuclear weapons involved in illegal trade in nuclear materials and equipment, weapons, counterfeit currency, sex slavery, drugs, and a range of counterfeit items. China has freed 35,000 children and 7,400 women in a nine-month anti-trafficking campaign. Myanmar is accused of deporting migrants to Thailand and Malaysia, where they are exploited, and has reportedly become a center for the ivory trade and elephant smuggling. Its opium production is also up by a factor between 1.5 and 5. Myanmar and China remain the primary sources of amphetamine-type stimulants in Asia, producing hundreds of millions of tablets annually. The Asian Organized Crime Project launched by INTERPOL is targeting Asian organized crime groups worldwide as complex adaptive networks.
Europe: INTERPOL held its 39th European Regional Conference, developing a European strategy. Europol has been established as a formal EU Agency, now benefitting from increased powers it did not have as an independent organization over the past 15 years. The EU has strengthened controls on money transfers across its borders to address trafficking and money laundering, especially in Eastern Europe. The use of cheap, low-quality drugs in the UK is on the rise. In Italy the police broke up a €6-million 'Ndrangheta-run Indian immigrant scam. 'Ndrangheta was also involved in $2.7 billion in ICT frauds. Russia will allow drug informants to make plea deals. Organized crime networks have grown 58% in Spain from 2004 to 2008.
Latin America: Governments in the region are changing their anti-drug programs to treating rather than imprisoning users, while pursuing traffickers, while the U.S.'s Mérida Initiative continues to focus on improving policing in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. UNODC says crime is the single largest issue impeding Central American stability. Mexico's cartels receive more money (an estimated $25–40 billion) from smuggling drugs to the U.S. than Mexico earns from oil exports. Its war on drugs continues with inter-cartel, government/cartel, and even police/military violence accounting for about 7,000 deaths in 2009, up from 5,700 in 2008. $1 billion worth of oil was stolen from pipelines (396 taps) and smuggled into the U.S. over the past two years. There is a trend for Mexican drug operations to move south, into Central America. Cocaine production in Colombia has dropped by two-thirds and is now done by small gangs, using farms hidden in the jungles. The drug gangs have largely replaced the paramilitaries. Ecuador has become an important and growing center of operation for TOC gangs, serving as a meeting place and part of a massive illicit goods pipeline. Port authorities are seizing more drug consignments and counterfeit goods along container routes thanks to the UNODC/World Customs Organization–backed Container Control Programme.
North America: The International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center integrates U.S. efforts to combat international organized crime and coordinates investigations and prosecutions. The Department of Justice states that in 2009 more than 200 U.S. cities reported cartel-related drugs flows. During the last decade the surrogates of Mexican drug cartels have expanded their presence across the United States and dominate the U.S. drug trade. The Canadian Committee on Justice and Human Rights is integrating counterorganized crime strategies, expected in October 2010. Drug trafficking is also linked to terrorist activities in the region. Criminal gangs have also swelled in the U.S. to an estimated 1 million members, responsible for up to 80% of crimes in communities across the nation. Organized crime and its relationship to terrorism should be treated as a national security threat.