By Mark Shaw

Foreign criminals are a significant presence in Africa. Four typologies of foreign criminal actors are identified, allowing an exploration into why some actors develop more successful criminal enterprises than others. Success appears to be the result of a slow embedment in the local criminal economy, avoiding displays of wealth and the targeted corruption of officials. It also depends on the expansion of ethnic networks where high levels of trust or coercion of members prevent law enforcement penetration. Eroding these successful criminal operations requires an ability to disrupt recruitment into the networks and ultimately their more effective integration into legitimate economic activities.

ENACT-Africa, 2028. 24p.

By Mohamed Daghar

Kenya faces a scourge of illegal and unregulated sand mining, a crime which is leaving irreversible scars on ecosystems, lives and livelihoods. Sand mining has been driving inter-communal conflict and has ushered in a violent cartel market protected and controlled by state actors. Weak legislation, ineffective controls and an insatiable demand for sand, fuelled mainly by the construction industry, all contribute to the problem. With lack of a formidable alternative, sand remains the only option for mass concrete production. But it must be harvested sustainably and not mined – as promising practices in communities suggest. Key findings • The sand trade is driven by organised criminal cartels that enjoy protection from powerful state actors. • Communities play a crucial role in ensuring sustainable sand harvesting, which can provide long-term employment opportunities and help to reduce job scarcity for Kenya’s youth. • Sand mining in Kenya is fuelling environmental degradation, affecting livelihoods and increasing inter-communal conflict. • A lack of strong regulations and sufficiently mandated authorities means that there is no effective framework to oversee sand activities. • Properly regulated sand harvesting and trading could generate much-needed revenue for local governments.

ENACT-Africa, 2022. 24p.

By Olwethu Majola and Darren Brookbanks

This paper uses data and analysis to assess the UNTOC's effectiveness in addressing transnational organised crime on the continent. The international community prescribed the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC) as the treatment to slow the global spread of TOC. However, current diagnoses suggest that this has not been as effective as anticipated. This paper assesses the efficacy of the UNTOC and recommends some changes to the treatment that are likely to yield more successful results.

ENACT-Africa, 2023. 32p,

By Lila Abed

o contribute to a reduction and, ultimately, the eradication of femicide in Mexico, the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute launched its “Engendering Safety: Addressing Femicide in Mexico” Initiative in 2022 to bring together key stakeholders to raise awareness, explore the driving factors and enabling environment, and outline action items for both government and civil society. Since the launch of the initiative, the Mexico Institute has organized a series of events and consultations to help inform a report to the Mexican Senate on the policy options available to Mexico’s legislature to effect positive change for women’s safety.

In October 2022, the Mexico Institute, in partnership with the Mexican Senate’s Special Commission to Investigate Cases of Femicide of Girls and Adolescents, organized a National Forum titled Femicide: Visions and Solutions. During the one-day session, more than two dozen federal and state-level public officials, lawmakers, civil society organizations, activists, experts, and academics discussed preventive measures, best practices, and legislative actions that can reduce and eradicate femicide in Mexico. The data and research shared has informed the drafting and introduction by Mexican lawmakers of several legislative proposals.

This report is a compilation of the data, best practices, preventive measures, and public policy recommendations presented during the National Forum. The objective of this report is to summarize the findings of the conference in an effort to raise awareness and so that Mexican lawmakers can utilize this information when drafting and approving bills to prevent, reduce, and eliminate femicide and gender-based violence in Mexico.

Washington, DC: Wilson Center, Mexico Institute, 2023. 64p.

By Grahame Allen, Zoe Mansfield

This briefing paper looks at homicide statistics for England and Wales. It also covers equivalent statistics for Scotland and Northern Ireland, and other international comparisons. The paper examines statistics on the characteristics of victims and offenders, the methods used to kill and the outcomes for offenders.

London: House of Commons Library, 2023. 40p.

by Suzana Sawyer

In 2011, an Ecuadorian court issued the world’s largest environmental contamination liability: a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron. Within years, a US federal court and an international tribunal determined that the Ecuadorian judgment had been procured through fraud and was unenforceable. In The Small Matter of Suing Chevron Suzana Sawyer delves into this legal trilogy to explore how distinct legal truths were relationally composed of, with, and through crude oil. In Sawyer’s analysis, chemistry proves crucial. Analytically, it affords a grammar for appreciating how molecular, technical, and legal agencies catalyzed distinct jurisdictional renderings. Empirically, the chemistry of hydrocarbons (its complexity, unfathomability, and misattribution) significantly shaped competing judicial determinations. Ultimately, chemical, scientific, contractual, and litigating techniques precipitated this legal saga’s metamorphic transformation, transmuting a contamination claim into an environmental liability, then a racketeering scheme, and then a breach of treaty. Holding the paradoxes of complicity in suspension, Sawyer deftly demonstrates how crude matters, technoscience, and liberal legality configure how risk and reward, deprivation and disavowal, suffering and surfeit become legally and unevenly distributed.

Durham, NC; London: Duke University Press, 2022. 416p.

By Raouf Farrah

The civil society of the Libyan northwest city of Zuwara has led several efforts over the last years to tackle criminal governance with notable successes and failures. In 2014-2015, Zuwara’s CSOs took an impressive stand against human smuggling, providing assistance to migrants, raising awareness of the impact and dangers of smuggling, and leveraging elites to strengthen local taboos against human smuggling. Although community efforts continue to fight against criminal governance through awareness-raising and education campaigns via media, religious discourse and university campuses, the 2014-2015 momentum has been lost. Zuwara’s civil society has the means to reignite its stance against criminal governance. To do so, it needs more political recognition, more assistance from international stakeholders and better cooperation between local stakeholders with clearer boundaries between law enforcement and CSOs.

Geneva: e Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) and Migrant Network., 2021. 29p.

Juan Diego Cárdenas - Javier Lizcano Villalba - Lara Susana Loaiza - Laura Alonso , etc.

There were always going to be dissident elements from the FARC, from those who were unconvinced by the peace deal or simply refused to consider it. However, the ex-FARC mafia is now growing at such a rate that Colombia’s entire peace process is at risk. Almost every peace process has had combatants who refuse to give up their arms. There was no reason that the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) should be any different. Looking abroad first, the Northern Ireland peace process saw the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA, more commonly known as the IRA) reach the “Good Friday Agreement” with the British government in April 1998. It did not take long for the “Continuity IRA” and the “Real IRA,” which has now morphed into the “New IRA,” to appear. But while a series of bombs have been set off and some isolated killings have taken place, Irish dissident groups have been unable to win any significant support or rebuild the military capacity of the PIRA. …

Washington, DC: Insight Crime, 2019. 72p.

By Alastair MacBeath and Julia Stanyard

The consequences of wildlife trafficking go beyond the threat it poses to ecological integrity and the survival of many wild species. Wildlife trafficking is also a public health threat, through its role in the emergence of zoonotic pathogens, and a national and local security threat, generating revenues for organized criminal groups and militias, and contributing to the breakdown in rule of law that exacerbates local conflict and undermines livelihoods. Effective transnational communication, cooperation and coordination between law enforcement and criminal justice agencies and other stakeholders along illicit commodity chains are fundamental components of a successful counter-wildlife trafficking strategy. This could include many activities, but a priority is that front-line enforcement and judicial officers have the ability to share information and intelligence with their counterparts. This could be through joint investigations and prosecutions or in the form of coordinated strategic actions to prevent the operation of wildlife trafficking networks. Effective international cooperation must facilitate secure, accountable, fast and efficient communications. It must be durable and create continuity, not rely on single individuals who may change roles, and it must build trust between officers and agencies

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and Wildlife Conservation Society, 2023. 49p.

By Julia Stanyard | Thierry Vircoulon | Julian Rademeyer

The Wagner Group has rapidly become the most influential form of Russian engagement in Africa today. Principally a private military company – the group is a supplier of mercenary troops – it also comprises a network of political influence operations and economic entities such as mining companies. Controlled by a historically close ally of Vladimir Putin, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner has a seemingly mutually beneficial relationship with the Russian state. The group has been accused of using whatever means necessary, including criminal activity, to achieve its aims: from indiscriminate use of violence against civilians in its military engagements, to disinformation campaigns and election-rigging to industrialscale smuggling of natural resources, like gold and diamonds. The group operates in the grey zone, spanning both legal and illegal economies. In late January 2023, the US government designated Wagner as a ‘transnational criminal organization’, allowing for wider sanctions against Wagner and its enablers. The Wagner Group is unique as an organization in the breadth, scale and boldness of its activities. However, as this report aims to show, Wagner did not emerge in a vacuum. …

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime., 2023. 92p.

By Uglješa Ugi Zvekić, Sunčana Roksandić and Bojan Dobovšek,

This report uses the term ‘organized corruption’ to explain how corruption is embedded in the political economy of many countries in the region. Organized corruption is a ‘a symbiosis of organized crime, criminal methods and high-level corruption, which creates a crooked ecosystem that enriches and protects those with access to power’. Organized corruption is not only about systemic illicit financial gains and undue influence in decision-making, but also the systemic buying and influencing of social support to gain or maintain political and economic power.

Organized corruption is particularly evident in the political context of transitions towards democracy, when key parts of the economy are in the public domain, as is the case in the Western Balkans. In this context, control of politics and control of the economy are interlinked. Being in power means controlling the strings of the public purse. Political parties utilize political power to acquire economic influence through the control of public finances and public officials. Political victory enables the use of state funds and enterprises for patronage and to gain financial, political and social benefits. In such an environment, elections are often a winner-take-all contest, not only for the political parties but also for those who benefit from patronage. It therefore follows that those who profit from power have an interest in financing political parties and elections.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), 2023. 72p.

By Francisco Cuamea

Until 2012, when the United States gradually began the regulation and decriminalization of marijuana, Mexican cartels had secured a decades-long monopoly on the US cannabis market. As they became displaced from that market, the cartels scaled up their production of synthetic drugs, such as crystal methamphetamine, which is produced in clandestine laboratories that are generally set up in remote locations in the mountains, rural areas or small towns. The rich biodiversity that surrounds these sites is affected by the chemical waste resulting from crystal meth production that is dumped near these labs. In addition to the crystal meth market, Mexican organized crime groups also entered the black market in endangered marine species and industries built on other high-value species. Organized crime groups have begun to leave a significant environmental and social footprint, accelerating the disappearance of certain marine species and the disintegration of fishing communities.

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  One of the affected regions is the Sea of Cortez, also known as the Gulf of California, made up of the Mexican states of Baja California, Baja California Sur, Nayarit, Sinaloa and Sonora, which together contribute 11% of the country’s gross domestic product and are united by the immense gulf of north-western Mexico, declared a world heritage site by UNESCO. According to UNESCO, the Sea of Cortez comprises 244 islands, islets and coastal areas. It contains 695 vascular plant species and 891 types of fish, of which 90 are endemic. The number of plant species is much higher than those recorded at any other island or marine site on the World Heritage List. The region is home to 39% of the world’s total number of marine mammal species and 33% of the global number of cetacean species. The region also contains a wealth of endangered land flora and fauna as well as examples of intangible cultural heritage, many of which come from the indigenous peoples of north-western Mexico, such as the Yaqui, the Cora and the Cucapá.6 This brief explores the threat that illicit economic activities pose to biodiversity and ecosystems in the Sea of Cortez region, as well as to some of the area’s most vulnerable communities, those that depend on the fishing industry.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), 2023. 17p.

By Anastasia Austin and Douwe den Held

The Dominican Republic prides itself on its openness to the world. As one of the first countries to open up during the COVID-19 pandemic, it seeks to be ever welcoming to tourism and business. But criminals may feel welcome as well. In this three-part series, InSight Crime dives into the infrastructure, the trafficking networks, and the corruption facilitating organized crime in the Dominican Republic.

Washington, Insight Crime, 2022. 26p.

By The Wildlife Justice Commission

Rhino horn trafficking remains a severe problem that needs to be addressed with a new sense of urgency as transnational organised crime. Over the past 10 years, the illegal killing of rhinos and trafficking of their horns has grown as a global criminal enterprise, comprising multiple criminal components dominated by greed and the pursuit of substantial profits. This threat assessment presents a comprehensive analysis of rhino horn trafficking during the decade from 1 January 2012 to 31 December 2021. It was compiled following analysis of 674 rhino horn seizure incidents collected from open-source reports that occurred globally during this decade, in addition to seven years of criminal intelligence and findings from Wildlife Justice Commission investigations into rhino horn trafficking conducted since 2015, and other open-source research. This assessment aims to examine the driving forces behind the trade and changes in the criminal landscape. It also considers the threat to rhinos in 2022, with recommendations to help inform interventions to address this issue and ensure the global response is commensurate and appropriately targeted to current and future needs.

The Hague: Wildlife Justice Commission, 2022. 27p.

By The Wildlife Justice Commission

Over the last century, the wild tiger population has decreased to alarmingly low levels. While tigers are adversely affected by climate change, habitat loss and human-wildlife conflict, the illegal tiger trade is said to be the most imminent threat. For the past six years, the Wildlife Justice Commission has been investigating tiger-related crime in the Greater Mekong Subregion under Operation Ambush. Tigers are classified as a CITES Appendix I species, meaning they are threatened with extinction. Despite this, the world’s biggest cat is still being trafficked – particularly in parts of Asia – to meet an unrelenting demand for traditional medicine, jewellery, décor, and pets. Although international trade in tigers has been prohibited since 1975, during the six-year investigation of Operation Ambush, we identified numerous organised crime networks which supply the entire spectrum of the illegal tiger trade, ranging from canines and claws to skin and bones, and even live tigers.  Tigers also continue to be bred in both legal and illegal captive facilities – otherwise known as tiger farms. Our new report closely examines the role of such facilities in enabling tiger-related wildlife crime in Southeast Asia. While poaching remains a significant concern, the intelligence and evidence we collected under Operation Ambush suggests that tiger farms in the Greater Mekong region – especially in Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam – present a significant threat to the survival of tigers across Southeast Asia.  Contrary to claims that captive tiger breeding facilities promote and encourage conservation, the Wildlife Justice Commission’s findings suggest the opposite; tiger farming actually perpetuates the supply and demand for the illegal tiger trade run by organised crime networks. 

The Hague: Wildlife Justice Commission, 2022. 18p.

By The Wildlife Justice Commission

The report presents a collection of case studies to illustrate the mechanisms and modalities of corruption in real terms - how it facilitates the movement of wildlife shipments through all stages of the supply chain from source to market, and how it obstructs the criminal justice response, allowing criminal networks to operate with impunity. This report also highlights the harm caused by corruption and urges strong coordinated action to counter it. Wildlife crime and corruption must be addressed in a more connected way, rather than being treated as two separate issues in law enforcement responses. Levelling the playing field will require an innovative and collective approach on the part of all stakeholders to identify the high-risk areas for corruption, develop the means to prevent, investigate, and prosecute corrupt activities, and establish a robust framework to tackle corruption along the wildlife supply chain.

The Hague: Wildlife Justice Commission, 2023. 44p.

By Tersia Oosthuizen, Loene M. Howes, Rob White

Items of litter such as chewing gum, cigarette butts, and dog droppings are each small but collectively have considerable negative environmental impacts. Accordingly, governments at all levels have used media campaigns to raise awareness of the environmental issues associated with litter in efforts to prevent its proliferation. In a similar vein, artists have developed thought-provoking works about waste and litter, including some about the potential to identify litter culprits through DNA analysis. In a case of life imitating art, recent advances in DNA analysis techniques make possible a range of ways in which DNA taken from litter could be used, including for purposes of social regulation. This article discusses examples of the use of litter as a source of DNA for analysis and the resulting genetic surveillance. In doing so, it raises questions about proportionality and justifications for such uses of DNA analysis techniques in regard to regulation and enforcement objectives, with particular concerns about permissions, privacy and the public interest.

Forensic Science International: Animals and Environments. Volume 2, December 2022

By A. Pragatheesh , Vinita Sharma , C.P. Sharma , H.V. Girisha

The fine wool Shahtoosh obtained from the Tibetan Antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii Abel, 1826) which is endemic to Tibetan Plateau, is highly valued for its rarity, warmth and lightness. The illegal trade in Shahtoosh may lead to extinction of this species. The Tibetan Antelope is protected from commercial trade throughout its range, both nationally and internationally thereby prohibiting any commercial use or trade of any product in India and in the international market. Though globally banned the illegal trade of Shahtoosh driven by international demand has continued to be actively operational undercover in India. In order to bypass this trade ban, the traffickers mis-declare Shahtoosh consignments as Pashmina, Cashmere or conceal by mixed them in shipments between look-alike woolen products. In the present study the illegal Shahtoosh trade was analysed from 2009 to 2020. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau has envisaged Operation Soft Gold to curb this. A total of 62 confirmed Shahtoosh cases were detected in India from 2009 to 2020. Most of them were detected at exit points and intended for international smuggling. The Indri Gandhi International airport New Delhi in India was the most preferred airport, while Air Cargo and Air Courier were often used by the traffickers. Our analysis shows that the illegal Shahtoosh trade network is going on between the Western Asian countries, Oman, China, Japan, Pakistan, UK, Spain, Hong Kong and Switzerland are either destination or transit countries for illegal Shahtoosh products.

Forensic Science International: Animals and Environments. Volume 2, December 2022.

By Jos´e Luis Carpio Domínguez , In´es Arroyo Quiroz , María Teresa Villarreal Martínez , Jesús Ignacio Castro Salazar

This study examines the possession of Tigers (Panthera tigris) as pets in Mexico through statistical analysis of governmental seizures on a period of 11 years, a review of socio-political factors related to this phenomenon and an analysis of a particular illicit supply network of a Tiger (P. tigris) specimen seized from a criminal group in northern Tamaulipas, Mexico. We found that socio-political factors such as the prohibition on the use of animals for circuses; environmental regulation strategies; the dominance of criminal groups in most of the Mexican territory and their traditional interest in exotic animals have an influence in the presence of tigers in private homes and ranches. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of the possession of exotic animals, wildlife illegal networks and wildlife trafficking in Mexico.

Forensic Science International: Animals and Environments. Volume 2, December 2022,

By Annika Mozer and Stefan Prost

Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) is among the most lucrative illegal industries in the world. Its consequences go far beyond direct effects on the species in trade. In this review, we outline the basics of IWT and discuss its cascading consequences on environments, human lives and communities, national stability, and the economy. In addition, we outline structures used in IWT, from subsistence and local use to more complicated configurations, which can include multiple players. Furthermore, while a small fraction of poaching is opportunistic, most of the international IWT is run by organised crime groups. We outline how IWT can be associated with many different crimes like drug trafficking, corruption, or whitewashing. Additionally, many studies have observed a rapidly increasing trend of online trade with endangered and protected species. Moreover, this review gives a short overview of the situation in the European Union (EU) regarding laws and implementation of CITES and highlights that the EU acts as a major source, transit hub, and consumer in IWT. To address the highly dynamic and complicated problem of IWT, research, knowledge exchange, funding, and collaborations in all fields are necessary.

Forensic Science International: Animals and Environments. Volume 3, December 2023