By Cruz, J. M., Coombes, A., Mizrahi, Y., Vorobyeva, Y., Tanyu, M., Campie, P., Sánchez, J., & Hill, C

Can a gang member in Honduras leave the gang, abandon criminal activities, and rehabilitate? What factors facilitate the process of disengagement from gangs in Honduras? To answer these questions, the American Institutes for Research (AIR), the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University (LACC-FIU), and Democracy International (DI) conducted a study with Honduran gang members and former gang members across the country. The study is based on a survey with a sample of 1,021 respondents with a record of gang membership and 38 indepth interviews with former gang members and other community members. Active gang members do disengage from the gang and its activities, but this disengagement depends on a myriad of factors, including the types of social relationships which the individual establishes outside the gang, the type of gang organization, and the availability of faith-based programs willing to reach out to the individual. This study, funded through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Latin America and Caribbean Youth Violence Prevention project, builds on previous academic scholarship on gangs in Honduras and Central America. We conducted the survey interviews in three adult penitentiaries, three juvenile detention centers, two juvenile parole programs, and several faith-based centers which work with former gang members in Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula. We complemented the information with semistructured interviews with 14 former gang members in the metropolitan areas of San Pedro and La Ceiba. We also interviewed 24 subject-matter experts and community members in Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula, and La Ceiba. We contracted a local firm, ANED, to conduct the survey interviews and trained a local team of interviewers, who collected the information under our direct supervision. For the in-depth interviews, we contracted and trained two local specialists. Data collection was conducted between October and December 2019. PRIMARY RESULTS The results indicate that gangs remain a predominantly male phenomenon, and the average age at which males join a gang is 15. Interviewed females joined the gang at an average age of 13.2. Nearly 46 percent of the subjects interviewed for this study are active members of a gang, while the rest are in different stages of gang membership. Approximately 54 percent of the subjects interviewed in the survey belong—or have belonged—to Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), while 35 percent expressed their loyalty to the 18th Street Gang, also known as Pandilla 18 (or 18th Street Gang). The rest of the interviewees indicated membership in smaller gang groups: Los Chirizos, El Combo que no se deja, Los Olanchanos, Los Vatos Locos, etc. Education The average number of years that individuals with a record of gang membership spent in school was 9.6 years, and 90 percent of our respondents never finished high school. Half of the respondents have a household income of less than 250 USD, and 84 percent did not have a regular job, either in the formal or informal sector, even before going to prison. One in every four gang members lived with their parents or step-parents, while 31 percent lived with other relatives or alone. Furthermore, 56 percent of gang members had children of their own, and 45 percent were married or in a stable relationship. Gang Activities Violence and criminal activities are essential components of gang life. Extortion, murder, and drug trafficking are the most common crimes of which gang members are accused. Nearly 69 percent of the respondents were accused of committing these types of crimes in addition to assaults, robberies, and illicit association. In Honduras, both gangs control territories through the use of extortion, drug trafficking, and violence. Such activities, in combination with seniority as an active gang member, are critical components for ascending the gang structure ranks. Contrary to the common assumption that gang members had to complete a “mission” to join the gang, evidence collected by the study suggests that most of them did not have to go through rites of initiation or perform a mission. Rather, “missions” become an important mechanism by which to ascend the gang ranks once the individual has joined the gang. Gang Structure Over the past two decades, the structures of MS-13 and Barrio 18 seem to have evolved and “mutated.” Gangs appear to be more structured and mandated by a system of unwritten norms and rules common to each organization and shared by the diverse subgroups who share the same gang affiliation. Gangs preserve a regionally fragmented structure (sectors and cliques) which enables them to operate with certain autonomy while adhering to the rules established by membership. The structure of both MS-13 and Barrio 18 include different levels of management, which typically start with the clique as its lowest operational level (i.e., at the neighborhood level). Cliques are the basic gang unit and are composed of several members. On average, cliques are composed of 36 male members, but they vary by size. However, cliques from other gangs (Los Chirizos, El Combo que no se deja, etc.) tend to be larger on average, with 45.8 male members per clique. Cliques are clustered in regional groups called sectores (sectors). Both cliques and sectores are run by a senior member of the gang. Senior members of the MS-13 gang are known as Compas and Palabreros, and Barrio 18 leaders are known as Toros and Homies. Half of the survey respondents (49 percent) held what can be considered a soldier position within the structure of the gang, 17 percent held some position of leadership, and 25 percent were aspiring members of the gang who served as collaborators or informants. Gang leaders do not consider collaborators or informants to be official members of the gang, yet they participate in core activities and play a significant role in the dynamics of gang survival and operation. Joining the Gang From the standpoint of former and active gang members, most (63 percent) joined the gang because of the “pull forces” which peers in the gang exert over them in their teenage years. Gang involvement revolves around the opportunity of disenfranchised teens to join a group which provides them with affection and care, which many do not find at home. Thus, gang members value the “solidarity,” “social respect,” and resources the gang provides, which otherwise would be absent if they were not part of the organization. Evidence suggests that several gang members grew up in environments in which problematic families, lack of opportunities, and lack of respect and affection from their communities were common. Gang recruiters appeal to youth by promising to supply such needs to grow and exert stronger control inside their territories. Thus, findings suggest that most people end up joining gangs in Honduras for “innocent” reasons rather than because of criminal intent. Gang Disengagement The findings of this study suggest that many members do in fact disengage from gangs, but they go through a process in which the interaction of several conditions determines how soon or how complicated the separation could be. More than half of active gang members want to leave the gang. There are four significant predictors of active gang members’ intentions to leave a gang: the type of organization to which the person belongs, the number of years that the person has been active in the gang, the individual’s religious affiliation, and the person’s immediate social circle. Members of the two major gangs expressed less intention of leaving the gang compared to members of the smaller gangs. Active members of MS-13 demonstrated fewer intentions of leaving the gang compared to their rivals in Barrio 18. Additionally, there is a U-shaped curve relationship between the number of years in the gang and intentions to leave. During the first years of gang membership, intentions to leave are stronger; then they subside for a while and start growing again after six years of being in the gang. This pattern suggests that the early months and years of gang life are probably full of doubts about membership. These doubts are later quenched by gratifying experiences as a gang member and then re-emerge as the individual matures. This finding is significantly different from that in Cruz and colleagues’ 2018 study in El Salvador, in which researchers found that intentions to leave the gang are low during the first years of gang membership and then grow as time passes. Religion plays an important role in the process of leaving the gang, although comparatively, this role seems less prevalent than in El Salvador. Belonging to an evangelical church not only contributes to one’s intention to disengage from the gang but also is approved by leaders of the gang (more specifically, MS-13). Further, evangelical churches seem to be more successful than other denominations in connecting with the spiritual needs of the gang population. In the in-depth interviews, half of the respondents referred to a connection to God as the most powerful change mechanism which enabled gang members to disengage from the gang. Survey data also reveal that one of the most important factors in an individual’s intention to leave a gang is social interaction. Gang members who spent the most time with non-gang individuals (their family, non-gang friends, or even alone) before they were detained in prison were more prone to thoughts about leaving the gang. Thus, one’s social circle has a significant influence on the intent to disengage. Gang members who are exposed to social groups different from the gang appear to be more willing to abandon gang life. Reintegration The process of leaving a gang doesn’t end there. Rather, being a defector is the beginning of a series of challenges and obstacles which a former gang member has to face. The most common reintegration challenges by a former gang member include lack of opportunities, insecurity, police abuse, social discrimination, poverty, and lack of family support. Most study participants (69.2 percent) said that church or faith-based organizations are the appropriate institutions to lead rehabilitation and reintegration programs. Otherwise, 14.6 percent of respondents said that nongovernmental organizations should lead rehabilitation programs. Few people interviewed saw government agencies leading rehabilitation efforts, and experts interviewed thought there was little to no political will to approach the gang phenomenon from a rehabilitation standpoint. RECOMMENDATIONS Our research indicates that violence prevention efforts should target the root causes of joining a gang, which are mostly related to absence of positive youth development opportunities in their communities, including lack of employment, insufficient access to education, weak family structures, and negative peer influences. We recommend that programming focus on providing relational, educational, community, and economic supports to young people from an early age to both prevent youth from joining gangs, as well as to support those who have disengaged. Prevention strategies should include efforts to support disengagement from the gangs during the first years of gang membership, when many youth are considering disengagement. Finally, once gang members disengage from gangs, we recommend supporting rehabilitation and reintegration of former gang members to help them become productive members of society and prevent their reinsertion into gang activity.

Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research & Florida International University. 2020. 91p.

By De Souza Oliveira, Elenice De Souza; Natarajan, Mangai; and da Silva, Bráulio

Abstract This study examines the spatial patterns and other situational determinants leading to the high number of bus robberies in Belo Horizonte. Main research questions include patterns of robberies, spatial concentration, locations prone to robberies, and environmental characteristics therein. This study also provides a variety of safety measures based on the Situational Crime Prevention approach. The Rapid Assessment Methodology (RAM) was employed using both quantitative and qualitative data. It involves spatial analysis, direct observation of hot spots using a safety audit protocol, and focus group discussions with key participants. Bus robberies involve minimum risk and low detection and arrest. The “hottest products” to be stolen include electronic devices and cash. The robberies occur at specific times and locations depending on opportunity. As many crimes go unreported, police data have inaccuracies. Therefore, it is impossible to verify the exact location of the robberies. This study concludes that for safe travel preventive measure should focus on reducing crime opportunities. A collaborative effort is needed from agencies and individuals alike. Further research should focus on examining why the majority of bus robberies are concentrated in only two main bus routes. Are these hot spots just recent spikes or are they chronic?

Crime & Delinquency 1–25 © The Author(s) 2019, 26p.

By Ernesto Schargrodsky and Lucía Freira

The purpose of this paper is to study the relationship between inequality and crime, with a focus on the Latin America and Caribbean region. We find a significant, positive, and robust association between these variables.

The results persist if one instruments for inequality with historical variables in crime regressions, suggesting that a causal interpretation of the estimated effect is reasonable. Moreover, inequality is the only variable showing this robust regularity. Education levels, economic activity, income per capita, and poverty show weaker and unstable relationships with crime. The analysis of the distribution of crime victimization indicates that men and youth suffer more crime than women and the elderly. By socio-economic strata, high-income groups suffer more victimization relative to poorer groups in LAC countries, but the poor suffer more homicides.

UNDP LAC Working Paper 13.

Panama City, Panama: United Nations Development Programme, Latin America and the Caribbean , 2021. 48p.

By Huma Haider

Organised crime actors can be spoilers in peace processes or partners in peace. Policymakers and practitioners have in some cases engaged in a strategic trade-off – accepting organised crime as part of the political settlement to achieve short-term stability. However, the relationship between illicit markets and conflict can deepen over time, entrenching criminal structures in the post-conflict state. As Kemp and Shaw (2014, p. 16) argue, ‘failure to integrate issues of organised crime into mediation strategies and peace processes will leave the international community with a potentially dangerous blind spot.’ Negotiating with organised crime groups and addressing criminal agendas in peace processes has become a reality in practice. There is, however, limited research on negotiating with criminal actors in peace processes. In seeking to address this gap, this paper reviews scholarly and practitioner literature across a wide range of research disciplines. 1 Key findings from this evidence review include: • Confrontation approaches have failed to resolve the problem of serious organised crime (SOC) and, in some cases, have fuelled more violence and criminality. • Organised crime groups that have strong internal cohesion and hierarchical leadership are more likely to be considered potential partners in negotiation. • Negotiation can be a necessary approach when criminal groups have strong territorial control – serving as de facto authorities that fill governance gaps. • Socio-economic and financial opportunities, and legal leniency, can encourage criminal actors to come to the negotiating table and agree on a deal. • A criminal group’s demand for legal leniency tends to be higher when they are expected to make larger concessions, such as to disarm and demobilise. • It is challenging to determine an ‘end state’ to a criminal group and to achieve complete resolution of the criminal agenda. • Lack of political will, inadequate resources, and weak long-term planning constrain positive outcomes of negotiation processes and deal implementation. • Negotiators and mediators need to mitigate the risks of moral hazard and strengthening of criminal groups. • The lack of broad public support for negotiating with SOC actors can undermine and destroy such processes. • A balance is needed between satisfying the interests of victims and of perpetrators to avoid alienating victims and producing public backlash for negotiated deals. • Many negotiations tend to occur in secret, yet lack of transparency can undermine the legitimacy and sustainability of outcomes. This review demonstrates the importance of creating a framework for engaging with criminality and organised crime groups that extends beyond confrontation – allowing for accommodation and incorporating a wider societal change agenda through transformation. This requires an understanding of when to address SOC and engage criminal groups in peace processes; how to motivate actors to negotiate, conclude and implement deals; how to increase the likelihood of positive outcomes; and how to mitigate risks associated with negotiation. Drawing on a wide breadth of interdisciplinary literature, this paper aims to provide insights into these crucial questions. The case studies illustrate key themes and findings from this review (see Appendix 1). In El Salvador, ineffective confrontation, the internal cohesion of gangs, and an opportune moment contributed to the the successful conclusion of a gang truce. It ultimately failed, however, due in large part to public outrage that translated into political pullback. In Colombia, negotiations with the FARC2 produced an innovative transitional justice mechanism that, alongside security guarantees, served as an effective inducement for disarmament. In contrast, the absence of a requirement to disarm and demobilise was a key criticism of negotiations with gangs in Jamaica, where violence has continued. In Mali and in Kosovo, international actors were initially hesitant to address organised crime in peace processes, yet this was subsequently recognised as contributing to longer-term instability, resulting in new strategies to address SOC actors.

SOC ACE Evidence Review Paper No. 3.

Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham. 2023. 88p.

By Richard Matzopoulos, Sarah Truen, and Ian Neethling,

Violence as a health priority impacts low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) disproportionately, which experience mortality rates almost 2.5 times greater than in high-income countries.

South Africa is among the LMICs most affected by violence with homicide rates six times global averages and among the world’s highest rates of gender-based violence, including rape and intimate partner violence. Several historical drivers have contributed, including colonialism, apartheid race-based social control policies, civil unrest and armed struggle, and the violent oppression of social justice movements. Some social drivers have endured, and income inequality—which still largely follows the apartheid-era race profiles and geography—has continued to be entrenched within society.

Within this milieu, certain progressive policies such as the 1996 National Crime Prevention Strategy and the 2020 National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide have sought to holistically address South Africa’s problem. However, uptake has been sub-optimal and violence has become so normalized that the extent of its harm to society is no longer fully recognized.

The authors in this study present evidence for the prevention of violence including examples from South Africa, and document the enormous toll of violence in terms of both its health impact on mortality and morbidity and its economic cost. In doing so, the study illustrates the costs of prevention are not prohibitive and emphasizes the urgent need to implement effective policies and interventions.

Recommendations in this study include highlighting the urgent need to provide financial and technical support for intersectoral collaboration, multilateral research cooperation, and research capacity to address violence, which in South Africa imposes a significant threat to development. Key aspects to support this agenda include: an integrated violence prevention approach to prevent violence at a societal level; and research to improve the evidence base for violence prevention and the quality of future costing studies.

New York: Center on International Cooperation, New York University, 2023. 54p.

By Li Li, Anke Hoeffler, and Teresa Artho

Background: Switzerland is a high-income country with low rates of fatal and nonfatal violence. Possibly due to these low prevalence rates, the costs of violence to Swiss society have received relatively little attention. Objective: This report aims to establish the prevalence rates of homicide and assaults (both physical and sexual) in Switzerland and assess their related tangible and intangible costs. Furthermore, it aims to estimate the economic cost of violence in Switzerland while specifically delving into the economic impact of domestic violence and intimate partner violence (IPV). Methods: We employ a comprehensive approach to categorize violence-related costs into three categories: (1) tangible direct costs; (2) tangible indirect costs; and (3) intangible costs. Within each category, we further classify costs based on the outcome of injuries, distinguishing between fatal and nonfatal violence. To estimate these costs, we use official crime data from the Federal Statistical Office for homicide and assaults. Recognizing the issue of underreporting in physical and sexual assault offenses, victimization surveys are employed to estimate the number of unreported cases. In the absence of Swiss data on the cost of injuries, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides estimates on medical costs, work loss costs, and the value of a statistical life (VSL)/quality of life loss costs. To ensure comparability, violence types are mapped, and costs are adjusted for purchasing power parity between the US and Switzerland. We also make adjustments to reflect the relative size of medical spending between the two countries. For comparison, we use prevalence rates of physical assault from Gallup. Using the same methodology, we also estimate the costs of domestic violence and IPV. Results: Our estimates suggest that the economic cost of violence in Switzerland is about USD 66.3 billion, equivalent to 8.3 percent of the country’s GDP, according to Swiss data. However, the costs could be as high as USD 73.4 billion, representing 9.2 percent of GDP, based on the Gallup World Poll data. Further, domestic violence alone accounts for at least 4.4 percent of Swiss GDP, while IPV accounts for at least 3.2 percent. Conclusions: Despite low Swiss prevalence rates of violence, the estimated costs of said violence are high. However, there is considerable uncertainty regarding our estimates due to missing Swiss data on medical and criminal justice costs, as well as the severity of injuries due to assault.

New York: NYU Center on International Cooperation, 2023. 36p

By Perez-Vincent, Santiago M.; Puebla, David; Alvarado, Nathalie; Mejía, Luis Fernando; Cadena, Ximena; Higuera, Sebastián; Niño, José David

Crime and violence have plagued Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) for decades. For the region’s inhabitants, living amid violence disrupts everyday life, while also complicating the operations of the State and private companies, and reducing societal well-being in multiple ways. The fear and experience of being a victim of crime can affect people’s physical and mental health, lower productivity, and shape fundamental decisions, such as where to live and how to pursue academic and professional development. For the Inter- American Development Bank (IDB) Group, the leading development institution in LAC, the high levels of crime and violence in the region pose a serious obstacle to achieving its strategic objectives of strengthening sustainable economic growth, reducing poverty and inequality, and addressing climate change. Quantifying the cost of crime is fundamental to understanding the gravity of the situation and aligning the dialogue to find concrete actions to remedy it. However, doing so is not a simple task. Measuring the cost of crime requires estimating what the lives of LAC citizens would be like if they were not exposed to crime and violence, and comparing this alternative scenario with the current situation. The complexity of the phenomenon of crime and violence—which affects and is affected by multiple individual and social factors—makes such a comparison difficult. The lack of accurate, up-to-date, and comparable data on crime and victimization in most countries in the region further complicates the task. Moreover, crime generates costs not only from the occurrence of criminal acts but also from the anticipation and fear of them, underscoring the importance of incorporating perceptions of insecurity in analyses of its costs and in shaping public policies. The response to crime also implies a reorientation of resources. Thus, these analyses should also include a review of the allocation and efficiency of public spending on security. Despite these difficulties, but mindful of them, the IDB has promoted a series of publications to aid in quantifying the cost of crime and violence in LAC. The most recent of these publications (Jaitman et al. , 2017) estimated that the direct costs of crime (in terms of (i) human capital lost due to homicides, reported non-lethal crimes, and deprivation of liberty; (ii) expenditures by private firms to prevent crime; and (iii) public spending to respond to and prevent crime) averaged between 3 and 3.5 percent of GDP in 17 countries in the region in 2014. This publication continues that line of research. Prepared in partnership with Fedesarrollo, the document expands, updates, and refines the estimates of these three direct costs of crime and violence. The updated results—covering 22 countries in the region—show that the costs of crime remain high, at around 3.4 percent of GDP in 2022. This is roughly equivalent to 78 percent of the public budget for education, twice the public budget for social assistance, and 12 times the budget for research and development in these countries. The new estimates also show the evolution of these costs over time. In addition to updating the estimates for these three direct costs, this new publication explores the indirect costs of crime and violence (i.e., dimensions affected by fear or by the experience of being a victim of crime or violence). It summarizes recent advances in the academic literature focused on quantifying the impact of crime and violence on various dimensions of development. The evidence, much of it from our region, reveals that crime and violence directly affect the objectives of the IDB Group’s new Institutional Strategy. They impact business and investment, reducing economic growth. They affect human capital accumulation and the health at birth of the most vulnerable populations, deepening poverty and inequality. And they are linked to the unrestricted exploitation of natural resources and ecosystem degradation, thus contributing to climate change. The study concludes with the analysis of three complementary studies, carried out within the framework of this publication, that seek to show how crime imposes costs on our region, affecting tourism activity, migration, and business productivity. Together, the analyses presented in both parts of the paper complement each other to provide a comprehensive look at the costs that crime and violence impose on LAC societies. However, much remains to be learned. Emerging dynamics, such as cybercrime, and complex ones, such as organized crime, pose challenges with likely profound impacts for the LAC region. These issues are evolving in a worrisome way. Organized criminal groups, which account for 50 percent of homicides in the Americas (UNODC, 2023), are increasing their presence and influence, raising concerns about rising violence across the region. In LAC, 54 percent of households report the presence of local criminal groups (Uribe et al. , 2022), and between 20 and 50 percent consider organized crime to be the greatest threat to their security (LAPOP, 2012, 2014, 2019). Improving the measurement of these phenomena and the quantification of their impacts should be an essential part of efforts to achieve an effective public policy approach. The IDB seeks to promote sound public sector institutions and policies that translate into more effective, efficient, and transparent governments that serve the needs of the people and foster sustainable and inclusive growth. The main objective of this publication is to provide information to support these objectives by raising awareness of the magnitude and variety of the impacts of crime and violence in our region. We also hope that it will promote debate and the development of new studies to deepen this complex but urgent research agenda.

Washington, DC: Inter-American Development Bank (“IDB”) 2024. 170p.

By Paul M Bisca, Vu Chau, Paolo Dudine, Raphael A Espinoza, Jean-Marc Fournier, Pierre Guérin, Niels-Jakob H Hansen, and Jorge Salas

Violent crime and insecurity remain major barriers to prosperity in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). With just 8 percent of the global population, LAC accounts for a third of the world’s homicides. Building on the existing literature, this paper aims to support economic policymakers and development partners by exploring the interplay between insecurity and macroeconomic outcomes, with emphasis on the relationship between violent crime and growth, the business climate, and public finances. The analysis shows that national-level crime indicators mask huge internal disparities, and that municipalities with 10 percent higher homicide rates have lower economic activity by around 4 percent. The paper develops an innovative measure of insecurity—the share of crime-related news—and shows its association with lower industrial production. Using firm-level data, it also estimates that the direct costs of crime, for firms, are around 7 percent of annual sales, and these are much higher when gangs and drug-trafficking organizations are present. Violent crime rises with macroeconomic instability, inequality, and governance problems. Using a large cross-country panel, the analysis finds that homicides increase when a country is affected by negative growth, high inflation, or a worsening of inequality. Victimization surveys indicate that where populations are concerned with the rule of law—impunity and police corruption—only one in five victims file their case with the police. Lack of trust and crime can be mutually reinforcing. Finally, the paper documents the fiscal burden of security provision and finds that spending tends to be inelastic to crime and that spending efficiency could be improved. The paper concludes with policy lessons and areas for additional collaboration between national authorities, international partners, and key stakeholders. These focus on data collection and analysis, economic policies that may address the root causes and manifestations of crime, strengthening rule of law institutions, and intensifying regional exchanges on security and public finance issues.

Washington, DC: : International Monetary Fund. 2024. 60p.

By Gregorio Gimenez, Liubov Tkacheva, Katarína Svitková and Beatriz Barrado

The world’s urban population is booming; by 2050, six and a half billion people will be living in urban areas (World Bank, 2011a). On the one hand cities are significant population, infrastructure and economy hubs, as well as centers of political power; on the other hand, according to a time-proved assumption provided by the social sciences, the growth of cities tends to lead to disruption and crime (Shaw and McKay, 1942). The focus of this study on the city level is in line with the gradual transformation of governance and the growing importance of urban political economies (Sassen, 2006). In a public policy domain, the urban lens is useful for addressing site-specific issues – especially in the field of security (UN-Habitat, 2012; Jaitman and Guerrero, 2015). Crime rates tend to reveal geographic patterns, with higher concentration in urban areas (Eck and Weisburd, 2015; Johnson et al., 2007; Curman, Andersen and Brantingham, 2015; Gill, Wooditch and Weisburd, 2017). Understanding the degree to which urban concentration affects crime incidents is a fundamental issue to better plan crime prevention strategies and reduce violence. Focusing on the urban dimension of violent crime, the main aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the degree of urban concentration and the number of serious offenses, particularly homicides. Most existing research is focused on developed countries1 and often has methodological problems, mostly due to the use of databases with poor data quality. This problem is especially acute in developing countries, where crime statistics are usually fragmented, inconsistent, and aggregated only to the most macro levels. The lack of information and the weak national statistical systems are an important challenge for conducting rigorous research. It is important to emphasize that our contribution is not only in terms of providing additional evidence, but also in terms of the type of context that we analyze. As Ajzenman and Jaitman (2016:9) remark, providing empirical evidence from developing countries is crucial, given that “developing and developed countries are different in many dimensions, and also because crime levels tend to be much higher in the developing world and, in particular, in Latin America”. Specifically in Latin America, one of the main characteristics of the phenomenon of crime and violence is the degree of geographic concentration. Urban homicide rates are much higher than the average homicide rate, and almost half of all homicides are concentrated in 10% of municipalities (IDB, 2017). Violence in cities is not only homicidal and includes all types of crimes. Among the main causes associated with the concentration of crimes in urban areas, Alvarado and Muggah (2018) highlight those linked to the existence of large poor and peripheral neighbourhoods, the presence of disorderly urbanization and youth unemployment. Regarding our case study, Costa Rica, Vilalta Perdomo, Castillo and Torres (2016) highlight a series of specificities in the link between urbanization and delinquency. They point out that the Costa Rican population is largely concentrated around so-called Gran Área Metropolitana (GAM). They remark that, according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INEC), in 2011 this area occupied 4% of the national territory and concentrated 53% of the population. Most of the country’s crimes take place in this area, which is characterized by higher unemployment, but also higher education and income levels. Higher education is related to higher earnings, which means that there are more potential victims for crimes against property. The authors also indicate that, within the GAM, San Jose is considered the most important zone of the country for the cocaine trade. Consequently, the GAM as a whole, and San Jose in particular, present the greatest challenges for public policies, especially in relation to urban development and public safety. Our in-depth econometric analysis of Costa Rica – a country of the Global South with significant urbanization and inequality rates – uses highly disaggregated socioeconomic data. It focuses on a wide range of types of crimes, in combination with econometric techniques which test for the presence of endogeineity, which constitutes a significant empirical contribution to the existing literature. The article is organized as follows. The next section presents a literature review in the field of urban violence in Latin America and Costa Rica. Its main objective is to provide a general context of citizen insecurity in the region and, particularly, the country, before presenting the case study in the third section. This empirical part develops an econometric model in order to demonstrate the connection between urban concentration and crime, particularly homicides.

DADOS, Rio de Janeiro, vol.64 (1): e20190127, 2021, 35p.

By Andrés Fernández Arauz , and Camelie Ilie

Costa Rica faces an unprecedented challenge in the form of escalating violence concentrated within specific regions of the country. This report delves into the country's administrative divisions, shedding light on its eighty-two cantons, where critical security data is localized. Recent statistics up to September 2023 underline a concerning situation. While violence in Costa Rica remains lower than the regional average for Latin America, it is the country in the region where violence has grown the most since 1995. Levels of intentional homicide have surpassed the threshold of 10 per 100,000 people, which makes it an epidemic in the country according to the World Health Organization’s classification. Moreover, while violence remains a localized issue, the number of cantons surpassing ten homicides per 100,000 inhabitants has increased, especially in coastal and border regions Much of this increase can be attributed to organized crime and the proliferation of illegal weapons, which is made clear by the fact that the cantons that saw the most increase in violence are territories through which the entry and transit of drugs occur in the region. Beyond homicide, non-lethal assault and intimate partner violence are issues that have their own effects in society. While official statistics put the rate of assault at less than one percent, survey data shows the number to be close to 4 percent, and evenly spread between men and women. Intimate partner violence affects 7 percent of adult women, and has increased over the last few years. These statistics add to a diminishing perception of safety, with 65 percent of the population reporting feeling that the country is not safe. For women, the feeling of unsafety is even higher, with 73 percent of female respondents expressing that they feel a high likelihood of being assaulted, compared to 57 percent of male respondents. Specific recommendations are delineated to counter these challenges. First, a thorough reevaluation and update of previous social programs is imperative. This evaluation should delve deep into identifying flaws in the existing programs. Such scrutiny enables timely corrections and reveals valuable lessons to be gleaned from previous work. Second, a regional focus for targeted interventions is proposed. By channeling efforts into the six cantons witnessing the steepest rise in homicides, particularly those strategically located along coasts and borders, Costa Rica can address the problems at their source. These areas often serve as primary entry points for drug trafficking, requiring concentrated and specialized interventions. Finally, an integrated strategy involving local, national, and international stakeholders is emphasized. Present programs often lack alignment and coordination to address recent violence patterns, emphasizing the need for cohesive collaboration. This strategy should foster a cooperative spirit between local governments, ensuring harmonized and effective efforts. These joint initiatives can significantly curb violence in specific cantons by integrating local insights with national expertise

New York: NYU Center on International Cooperation, 2023. 46p.

By Hale Utar

This paper examines how firms in an emerging economy are affected by violence due to drug trafficking. Employing rich longitudinal plant-level data covering all of Mexico from 2005–2010, and using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits plausibly exogenous spatiotemporal variation in the homicide rate during the outbreak of drug-trade related violence in Mexico, I show that violence has a significant negative impact on plant output, product scope, employment, and capacity utilization. Resilience to violence differs widely across different types of employment within firms and across firms with different characteristics. Employment decline is driven by blue collar employment only. Dissecting within- and cross-plant heterogeneity points to a local labor supply channel where particularly plants utilizing low-wage, female, blue-collar workers are impacted. Consistent with a blue-collar labor supply shock, the results show a positive impact on average blue-collar wages and a negative impact on average white-collar wages at the firm level. Output elasticity of violence is also shown to be larger among low-wage, female-intensive but also domestically buying and selling plants. These findings show the rise of drug violence has significant distortive effects on domestic industrial development in Mexico and shed light on the characteristics of the most affected firms and the channels through which they are affected.

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2022. 121p.

By Robert Leiter

  In debates over the Second Amendment, the conventional view is that the government ought to possess a monopoly of legitimate force, subject to the right of individuals to act in emergency self-defense. Many treat the non-defensive circumstances in which our system decentralizes force as holdovers from the days of nonprofessional police and soldiers. When it comes to the Second Amendment, many believe that the only legitimate reason individuals may bear arms today is for individual self-defense against isolated criminal violence (e.g., to resist a home invasion). This Symposium Essay attacks the monopoly-of-force account, justifying the continued relevance of American law’s decentralization of legitimate force. This Essay argues that decentralization of force remains important for three reasons. First, despite the rise of professional police, American law enforcement still enforces core crimes below desirable levels, particularly in disadvantaged and rural communities and during times of civil unrest. Decentralization of force mitigates this underenforcement problem. And decentralization may be a better solution than providing more police because many areas where law is under-enforced also (paradoxically) suffer from the effects of overcriminalization. Second, American law has a mismatch between public duties and private rights. Providing effective law enforcement is only a public duty. Individuals have no private claim that the government adequately enforce the law or protect them against unlawful violence. Self-help and private law enforcement are the best remedies when governments undersupply needed levels of police protection. Third, even if the government has a monopoly of force, it does not follow that government officers are the only ones in whom the government’s monopoly may be vested. The “government” is an incorporeal entity whose power must be exercised by human agents. Agents do not perfectly carry out the tasks of their principals; some government officers commit malfeasance and nonfeasance. The decentralization of force provides a remedy for such abuses of office. Ultimately, this Essay concludes that the individual right to bear arms still has relevance for public defense and security. This fact should warrant consideration when determining the scope of the right, including that the  arms protected by the Second Amendment should continue to include those arms that are primarily useful for public security.   

 116 Nw. U. L. Rev. 35 (2021), 46p.

By Michael Picard and Colby Goodman

As armed conflicts surge and organised crime activity rises, a new report from Transparency International Defence & Security (TI-DS) and Transparency International US (TI-US) reveals how corruption is quietly but consistently enabling weapons to fall into the wrong hands.

Under the Radar: Corruption’s Role in Fueling Arms Diversion investigates over 400 cases of diversion across 70 countries and shows how corruption, including bribery, embezzlement, and abuse of authority, serves as a key enabler of illicit arms flows.

The report’s release comes at a time of intensifying global concern over weapons diversion. It shows how corruption-fuelled diversion has empowered organised crime, fuelled armed conflict and violence, weakened military effectiveness, and undermined governance and security around the world.

“Despite greater recognition of corruption’s corrosive effect on arms control policies, corruption has often been sidelined in efforts to assess risks of arms diversion like a detective ignoring key clues in a recurring crime,” said Colby Goodman, Senior Researcher at TI US and TI-DS and one of the report’s authors. “Some states’ actions in recent years to add corruption risk assessments are a critical first step to better tackling this global scourge.”

The report provides critical information and tools for states to help identify and mitigate corruption-fuelled arms diversion as they develop new national arms control policies and engage in ongoing discussions within the United Nations on curbing arms diversion.

“The vast amounts of weapons diverted to terrorist groups in the past war on terror is a stark reminder of what happens when governments lose sight of corruption risks in the name of national security,” said Dr. Francesca Grandi, Head of Advocacy at Transparency International Defence & Security. “As demand for arms imports grows amid increasing global insecurity, this report offers practical and effective tools for arms exporting countries to strengthen integrity in their export control systems. It should also help spark more serious conversations globally, at the United Nations and in other fora, about sharing corruption-related information to prevent arms diversion.”

Some of the reports key findings include:

• The theft or embezzlement of state-owned weapons for private gain is the most common type of corruption-fuelled diversion, accounting for over 350 cases. Bribery and abuse of authority remain a serious concern for diversion.

• Corruption facilitates diversion at each stage of a weapon’s lifecycle, including production, international transfers, active use and storage, and disposal. The active use and storage stage had the most corruption-fuelled diversion cases followed by the disposal, international transfer, and production stages.

• Many of the corruption-fuelled diversion cases resulted in devastating consequences for civilians. In more than 200 cases, military or security personnel reportedly colluded with illicit actors, such as insurgents or terrorists, in connection with arms diversion, which resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries.

To address this urgent issue, the report offers key analysis and recommendations for states engaged in arms exports and imports:

• Strengthen national policies by explicitly identifying corruption as a key risk for arms diversion and developing implementation guidelines that incorporate targeted risk assessment questions that measure key, often overlooked defence and security institutional controls.

• Improve international collaboration on corruption in arms transfers by sharing information on corruption risks in arms transfers within the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) framework and establishing working groups within the ATT and other multilateral for deeper discussions on the topic.

• Support research and foreign aid to curb corruption-fuelled arms diversion, including funding studies on related issues and efforts to strengthen the integrity of defence and security institutions.

London: Transparency International, 2025. 50p.

By Marcena Hunter and Lynda Lawson

Known for their beauty, coloured gemstones have been used in jewellery, to adorn clothing and in religious ceremonies for centuries. Fuelled by demand from jewellers and investors, the coloured gemstone sector is an international trade linking supply countries in Africa and traders in Thailand and elsewhere in Asia. Today, there are more than 50 source countries and over a hundred gemstone varieties. In 2015, a conservative estimate of the global annual market for rough coloured gemstones – the term used to describe uncut, unpolished stones – valued the sector at between US$17 billion and US$23 billion. Africa is a prominent supplier of gemstones, which are shipped across the Indian Ocean to Asia for beneficiation. Rough coloured gemstones are mined throughout Africa, largely by artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) operators. Small-scaling mining will continue to be a vital source of gemstones for the international market because many gem deposits are small, which means they are short-lived and therefore not appropriate for large-scale mining operations. From Africa, the rough stones are shipped mainly to Thailand, India and Sri Lanka, which are home to long-established, traditional processing centres, and are the main global hubs for cutting and polishing stones for the global retail market. China is also expanding its market share of this industry through increasing use of machine cutting (a process traditionally done manually). Dubbed the ‘ruby trading kingdom’, Thailand is one of the world’s major processing centres for coloured gemstones. The country has been the world’s leading exporter of precious coloured gemstones for the last eight years consecutively,5 with overall exports in 2017 valued at US$1.9 billion. Thailand plays an especially prominent role in ruby and sapphire supply chains. The Thai gemstone industry is known to be heavily dependent on African rough coloured gemstones (see the map); however, official trade records fail to reflect the immense scale of the trade. This is because of the clandestine nature of flows, which are of both an informal and illegal nature. Most African coloured gemstones are moved undeclared through informal channels or are under-declared in official channels. African rough-gemstone traders play a significant role in these supply chains, and have been able to exploit their knowledge of the gemstone industry, as well as their close social and ethnic networks, to buy and export stones from Africa to Asia with ease. In Thailand it is openly acknowledged that the country’s import figures for coloured gemstones from Africa are underreported. For example, according to participants in this research, Madagascar has been an important source of sapphires and other gemstones supplying the Thai industry for over 20 years. After the discovery of brilliant-blue sapphires in the 1990s, numerous gem rushes ensued and Madagascar became the centre of the sapphire universe, but has only recently started to be included as a source country in official Thai trade records. The informal nature of the coloured-gemstone trade, combined with the inherent difficulty in valuing rough stones at the site of extraction, provides ample opportunity for criminal and corrupt actors to exploit and profit from it. This includes large-scale smuggling of stones, resulting in significant underreporting of export and trade figures. Based on Thai trade figures and estimates of authorities and stakeholders, there is a strong likelihood that hundreds of millions of dollars of coloured gemstones are smuggled annually from Africa to Thailand. According to authorities and those engaged in the trade, coloured gemstones may also be being used in money-laundering schemes.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) 2020. 56p.

By Mark Shaw, Tuesday Reitano, Simone Haysom, Peter Tinti

  I llicit trade is an umbrella term that covers multiple crimes and commodities, including the theft, diversion, adulteration, counterfeiting, and production of substandard goods, all acts which can occur at multiple points along a supply chain. It is initiated, enabled, and protected by a wide range of actors, from unethical corporations and corrupt officials at all levels of government to armed violent groups in conflict zones and organized crime networks operating locally and transnationally. As global trade routes increasingly encompass developing economies—as a source, transit, and market for consumer goods—they present unique challenges to creating effective national and, by implication, regional and global regimes against illicit trade. For many states around the world, and especially in the Global South, these challenges threaten to destabilize social, economic, and political structures. These states are the world’s “states on the cusp.” The term illicit trade, for the purpose of this report, refers to illegal production, movement, or sale of normally legal goods. Such illegal movement is often carried out to derive profit by avoiding costs such as those imposed by taxes or customs duties. There is a particularly strong incentive for illicit trade in cases where goods are subject to high duties, or where goods are subsidized to be cheaper in one jurisdiction (food, sugar, and flour are examples) but not in another, providing incentives for illegal cross-border trade. The phrase “licit goods traded illicitly” captures this phenomenon neatly. Importantly, however, this definition also includes some goods that are counterfeited to pass off as being licit, and then traded either illicitly (avoiding scrutiny) or, on occasion, in legal markets. The trade in counterfeit goods alone has been estimated to be worth between 3 and 7 percent of global GDP. Many forms of illicit trade, including counterfeit medicines, substandard goods, and the falsification or adulteration of food and agricultural commodities, medical equipment, and consumer and industrial goods have serious public health and safety implications. Other forms of illicit trade have huge environmental, social, and economic impacts, not least of which is reduced revenue collection which weakens state institutions, creating a downward spiral of higher illicit trade intertwined with weaker state capacity. Reversing this trend, therefore, must be a global public good. This complex mix of products and commodities being traded illegally raises the important question of whether advances in technology can assist in more effective regulation. At the core of these efforts is ensuring that commodities are both produced and traded legally to protect consumers from harm. Here, “harm” refers to harms to the public (arising from poor quality or counterfeit products) and to the state (such products harms the state’s ability to collect essential revenues and to control markets in accordance with democratic processes). Global economic trends in international trade and ever more complex supply chains are, however, reducing the role that governments can play in monitoring and regulating trade, creating both greater vulnerabilities and increasing the importance of the private sector as a critical actor. This poses significant new challenges. With an estimated 80 percent of global trade travelling by sea, the trend toward the privatization of ports and other critical infrastructure and the proliferation of free trade zones have created a growing blind spot for governments seeking to understand and regulate supply chains and illicit trade. For some forms of illicit trade, the role of small air shipments through private carriers has had a similar effect, eroding law enforcement’s ability to monitor, predict, and interdict where and how illicitly traded goods will reach the hands of their consumers. Online marketplaces and small package shipping are replacing the physical spaces where illicit transactions used to take place; their market size and reach are expanding while at the same time reducing the stigma of illegality. In short, the scope for illegality is growing, just as the capacity for states to respond is weakening. Can advances in technology fill the gap? Sophisticated and rapidly evolving technologies are bringing new ways to track, trace, monitor, and maintain records with integrity. They are steadily reinforcing law enforcement’s capacity to identify criminality in the vastness of the surface and dark web. Despite the promise that technology has to offer, some longstanding stumbling blocks need to be overcome. Some of these are particularly acute in developing economies. At the most basic level, for example, no system can provide quality control over data entry when those responsible for entering the primary data are either willfully or through lack of capacity corrupting that content. More generally, the lack of global standards and effective and consistent legal frameworks, and, increasingly, questions about jurisdiction caused by cyber-enabled trade and global supply chains, may limit the impact of purely national regimes of oversight and enforcement regimes. Lack of capacity, insecurity, and multiple forms and levels of corruption are pertinent features of developing economies that  compound the inherent challenges of responding to illicit trade. Evidence from case studies around the world, as well as two commissioned for this report—examining the political economy of illicit tobacco in Southern Africa and of counterfeit medicines in Central America—reveal that political actors and state institutions are complicit in enabling, promoting, and protecting illicit trade at the very highest levels of the state. They also show that it is often the most vulnerable and underserved in society who rely on illicit markets to meet basic needs. While there are clear distinctions by commodity and context, the perpetuation of illicit markets and trade within developing economies often can be exacerbated by systematic and serious failures in governance and political will, rather than technical shortcomings that can easily be overcome. Technical solutions also may have unintended consequences for governance and the poor. That does not mean that they should not be used, rather that a better understanding of the economic, political, and social context in which they are implemented is desirable. Implemented effectively, they hold great promise in taking forward steps to undercut illicit markets and improve citizens’ well-being. However, the changing landscape for infrastructure, investment, and development assistance also has reduced the leverage of more traditional multilateral institutions to insist upon the governance and policy reforms that would address these issues. These changes have had contradictory outcomes: increasing trade on the one hand but weakening regulatory systems and conditionalities (that had been a growing part of traditional multilateral development bank practices) on the other. Requirements for transparency, broad-based development benefits for the citizenry, or democratic governance have been weakened, although not removed, in the new financing landscape. Against this backdrop, private sector innovation for providing technology-based tools to enhance regulatory capacity combined with citizen empowerment is key. Such innovations, however, should be grounded in an understanding of the context into which they are introduced and be governed by effective oversight systems, including effective and transparent public-private partnerships. How to address illicit trade in developing economies, therefore, remains unsurprisingly complex. Wins often will be incremental and setbacks frequent. The overall goal simply may be to constrain the enabling environment for illicit trade rather than allowing it to endlessly expand, to target efforts where they have the greatest chance of sustained success, and to prioritize those commodities where the harmful implications are the greatest. This is a volatile time in global history, marked by rapid technological and political changes plus a global COVID-19 pandemic. We must develop a better understanding of the political economy of illicit trade and craft an active monitoring capacity for intervenening. In this report, we put forward a commodity- and context-specific political economy approach to achieve this and conclude with some guidance for policy makers from any sector, public or private, to assess when and how to respond to i o illicit trade, and to work in and with developing economies.  

Washington, DC: Atlantic Council,  Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security , 2020. 57p.

By Fatjona Mejdini

Organized crime groups from the Western Balkans have over the last 20 years established a remarkably strong foothold in South America in their pursuit of cocaine that they ship to and distribute in Europe and beyond. They have evolved from minor European players into prominent international criminal enterprises in this illicit global commodity trade, building durable relationships at both ends of the highly lucrative supply chain. Their rise has been spurred, in part, by luck. Two key factors have favoured them: an unprecedented surge in cocaine production in South America and insatiable demand for the drug in Europe. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)’s European Drug Trends Monitor suggests that after reaching record high levels in 2023, and despite a drop in seizures in the beginning of 2024, cocaine availability remains stable, if not on the rise, in Europe.1 Indeed, record seizures are being documented at key EU ports and the bloc’s drugs monitoring agency, the European Union Drugs Agency, announced in March 2023 another annual increase in the levels of cocaine detected in wastewater, continuing an upward trend that began in 2016.2 But guile has played an equally important role in the success of these groups, which have leveraged the smuggling expertise and paramilitary training established during the Balkan ethnic conflicts and civil unrests of the 1990s. Playing the long game, they have learned from and won the respect of the Italian mafia, among others, while retaining an agility that has allowed them to seize market opportunities. This has largely been achieved – so far, at least – without provoking debilitating blowback from rival players. The research for this report focused on Western Balkan organized crime groups and was conducted within this framework. Consequently, the dynamics observed in South American countries are explored solely in relation to these criminal groups. The report aims to provide a detailed understanding of their presence in South America and the broader implications that this has for their future in the context of the Western Balkans. Balkan brokers have been crucial to their success in establishing symbiotic local relationships. They have forged strong and enduring connections in the cocaine-producing countries of Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, from cartels to coca farmers. They have also been able to establish strong bases and key relationships in dispatching countries such as Brazil, Ecuador and, more recently, the neighbouring Caribbean region. Not only have they managed to navigate the South America’s criminal environment with relative ease, but in some cases they have also proved able to forge relationships within high-level business and political circles in the countries where they operate.3 To avoid disruptions to their operations at the wholesale source, they have intentionally maintained a professional working distance from other foreign criminal organizations operating in South America, especially the infamous Mexican cartels. However, they have managed to expand their footprint in global cocaine markets, partly through arrangements with some of Europe’s most prominent criminal organizations, such as the Dutch–Moroccan networks, the Kinahan cartel and Italian mafia groups like the ’Ndrangheta and the Camorra. They have also displayed creativity by employing various forms of trafficking methods. These extend beyond the use of container ships, to also encompass cargo and leisure vessels and planes. Their presence in South America and the international cocaine supply chain has left a conspicuous footprint that has been tracked by law enforcement activity. Over the past three years, half of the targets of Europol-coordinated cocaine operations have been linked to individuals and networks from this region, thanks in part to the crackdown on communication platforms such as EncroChat and SKY ECC, which were widely used by criminal organizations from the Western Balkans.4 Western Balkan criminals have been accused of transporting tens of tonnes of cocaine from South America to major ports in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and elsewhere. Although these major European entry hubs appear to be the primary channels for criminal organizations from the Western Balkans, these actors also utilize ports in the Balkans region as transit points for trafficking cocaine elsewhere in Europe. Their involvement in the global illicit cocaine trade is not confined to the European consumer market, however. Western Balkan groups have been linked to significant seizures on other continents as well, including one of the largest cocaine seizures in US history (more than 20 tonnes, worth more than US$1 billion).5 Western Balkans groups have also, in recent years, been using their strong presence in South America to target even wealthier markets, such as Australia, using Africa and Southern Europe as transit regions.6 These criminal entities have also left a trail of blood. Since 2010, at least 19 people from the Western Balkans believed to be linked with cocaine trafficking have been killed in South America, according to GI-TOC records. Their activities have exacerbated instability in certain South American countries such as Ecuador, as they relentlessly secure supplies of cocaine and its safe shipment – at any cost. This research report identifies the links between criminal actors from the Western Balkans and the South American cocaine trafficking market. It provides an overview of the factors that have impelled the region’s organized crime groups towards South America and addresses the implications arising from their presence in that region. The study sheds light on their origins and operations, revealing common patterns despite the diverse backgrounds from which they have emerged. The study finds that links between the Western Balkans and South America have existed for around three decades but have significantly intensified in the last two. It predominantly focuses on organized crime groups from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, but also makes reference to those from other countries in South Eastern Europe where relevant, in relation to their collaboration in the cocaine trade. It is important to note that international law enforcement organizations, in their reporting, often refer to criminal groups from the Western Balkans as ‘Albanian-speaking networks’7 or the ‘Balkan Cartel’.8 The former is used to denote criminal groups of Albanian nationality that speak Albanian, while the latter refers to criminal groups of Slavic origin that speak the Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian language.9 These terms indicate ethnicity and linguistic variations among actors rather than their organizational characteristics. Inter-ethnic cooperation between organized crime groups in the Western Balkans has a long history, particularly in the trafficking of weaponry and ammunition, cigarettes, fuel and drugs, and human smuggling. In some cases, integrated organized crime groups have emerged bringing together members from different countries within the region. But these groups prefer to retain their independence, and there is no evidence of the creation of cartels in the Western Balkan region.10 Organized crime groups in the region generally have a clear leadership structure, but Balkan organized crime groups operating in South America appear to prefer a horizontal organizational structure that allows flexibility. Due to the transnational nature of cocaine trafficking, these groups have become adaptable. Often, their trafficking operations in South America are seen as ‘joint ventures’ or ‘projects’ that bring together organizations or groups of criminals from different countries and ethnic backgrounds who happen to be in the right place and have the necessary resources and skills to achieve the desired outcome. The extensive supply chain coordination needed to procure, transport, process and distribute the drug has prompted enhanced flexibility within these groups. Therefore, in this report, the terms ‘organized crime groups’ and ‘criminal networks’ will be used interchangeably.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime , 2025. 48p.

By Vanda Felbab-Brown 

Over the past several decades, the U.S. opioid epidemic has spanned four phases:  Oversupply of prescription opioids in the 1990s.. A significant increase in heroin supply and use in the 2000s.  A supply-driven explosion of fentanyl use after 2012.  Most recently, polydrug use, with fentanyl mixed into/with all kinds of drugs. Since fentanyl entered the U.S. illegal drug market, more than a million people in the United States have died of opioid overdose. The costs of fentanyl use go beyond the tragic deaths and drug-use-related morbidity, however. In addition to having significant implications for public health and the economy, the fentanyl crisis intersects in many ways with U.S. foreign policy. U.S. overdose deaths began declining in 2023. But there is little certainty as to which domestic or foreign-policy interventions have been crucial drivers. The wider availability of overdose-reversal medication is fundamental, as is expanded access to evidence-based treatment. It is also possible that the Biden administration’s actions toward international supply from Mexico and China are contributing to this reduction in overdose deaths: since the start of 2024, China has become more active in suppressing the flow of precursor chemicals, and Mexican cartels, perhaps purposefully, are now trafficking a less lethal version of fentanyl. A wide array of policy measures as well as structural factors outside of policy control could be cumulatively and interactively reducing mortality. The fact that the declines in mortality are not uniform across U.S. ethnic, racial, and social groups or geographic areas suggests the importance of access to medication for overdose reversal and the treatment of opioid use disorder, as well as the influence of structural factors. There is strong bipartisan support for preserving access to medication-based treatments. But crucially, access depends on medical insurance coverage, such as that provided through Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. There are strong ideological divides about the financing and structure of the U.S. insurance industry as well as other aspects of drug policy. On February 1, President Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada and a 10% tariff on imports from China until each country stops the flow of fentanyl (as well as migrants, in the cases of Mexico and Canada).1 He gave all three countries a month-long reprieve before implementing the tariffs in March to see if they satisfied his counternarcotics demands. Canada adopted a robust package of anti-fentanyl measures. Mexico too tried to appease the United States through a set of law enforcement actions, though it held out on perhaps the most important form of cooperation—expanding the presence and mandates of U.S. law enforcement agents in Mexico to levels at least approaching those enjoyed during the Felipe Calderón administration. Unlike Mexico or Canada, China did not take any further counternarcotics actions and instead responded with counter-tariffs of its own, even as Trump threatened to add additional tariffs on imports from China of up to 60%.2 On March 4, 2025, Trump dismissed Canada’s and Mexico’s law enforcement actions as inadequate, implementing the 25% tariffs. He also added an additional 10% tariff on China, meaning the second Trump administration has now placed a 20% tariff on Chinese goods.3 Apart from increasing the cost of goods for U.S. customers and driving up inflation, these tariffs will have complex effects on anti-fentanyl cooperation. Any large U.S. tariffs on China will likely eviscerate Beijing’s cooperation with the United States, resetting the diplomatic clock  back to the bargaining of 2018 and noncooperation of 2021-2023. As crucial as it is to induce the government of Mexico to start robustly and systematically acting against Mexican criminal groups, whose power has grown enormously and threatens the Mexican state, Mexican society, and U.S. interests, Mexico has no capacity to halt the flow of fentanyl. Mixing the issues of migration and fentanyl risks Mexico appeasing the United States principally on migration while placating it with inadequate anti-fentanyl actions. Further, U.S. military action in Mexico, which has been threatened by Republican politicians close to Trump, would yield no sustained weakening of Mexican criminal groups or fentanyl flows. It would, however, poison the political atmosphere in Mexico and hinder its meaningful cooperation with the United States. Strong law enforcement cooperation with Canada is crucial. Canada has been facing law enforcement challenges, such as the expansion of Mexican and Asian organized crime groups and money laundering operations in Canada. But disregarding the domestic and collaborative law enforcement efforts Canada has put on the table is capricious. At home, Trump’s favored approach, which renews focus on imprisoning users and drug dealers, and dramatically toughening penalties for the latter, would be ineffective and counterproductive. And while providing treatment is very important, the dramatic effect of treatment modality on effectiveness cannot be overlooked. Approaches to treatment should be designed based on evidence, not ideology.

Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 2025. 49p.

By J. R. Nicolás-Carlock and  Luna-Pla

In recent years, the analysis of economic crime and corruption in procurement has benefited from integrative studies that acknowledge the interconnected nature of the procurement ecosystem. Following this line of research, we present a networks approach for the analysis of shell-companies operations in procurement that makes use of contracting and ownership data under one framework to gain knowledge about the organized crime behavior that emerges in this setting. In this approach, ownership and management data are used to identify connected components in shell-company networks that, together with the contracting data, allows to develop an alternative representation of the traditional buyer-supplier network: the module-component bipartite network, where the modules are groups of buyers and the connected components are groups of suppliers. This is applied to two documented cases of procurement corruption in Mexico characterized by the involvement of large groups of shell-companies in the misappropriation of millions of dollars across many sectors. We quantify the economic impact of single versus connected shell-companies operations. In addition, we incorporate metrics for the diversity of operations and favoritism levels. This paper builds into the quantitative organized crime in the private sector studies and contributes by proposing a networks approach for preventing fraud and understanding the need for legal reforms.   

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27: pages 412–428

By The International Crisis Group 

Over half a century on from the declaration of a “war on drugs”, Latin America is struggling to manage the eruption of violence tied to the narcotics trade. Though drugrelated organised crime has brought notorious peaks of violence in the past, above all in Colombia and Mexico, never has it spread so wide, and rarely has it penetrated so deeply into states and communities. Criminal groups have splintered, multiplied and diversified, adding lethal synthetics like fentanyl to the traditional plant-based supply of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, as well as moving into new rackets like extortion. Where communities are poor and unprotected, criminal groups act as employers and overlords; where state officials are present, they coerce and corrupt them. With Washington pushing for a fresh military-led crackdown on drug cartels, perhaps involving U.S. forces, Latin American leaders face difficult decisions. Despite the pressure to comply, experience suggests that a balance of improved policing, alternative livelihoods, gun control and, under specific conditions, negotiations would be more effective in reducing violence. The map of the drug trade in Latin America has been transformed in the decades since supply routes from the Andes to the U.S. first emerged. Demand for narcotics outside the region remains at record highs, with newer markets booming – particularly for cocaine in Europe and fentanyl in the U.S. At the same time, waves of U.S.- backed law enforcement, based on capture and extradition of crime bosses (known as kingpins), drug seizures and forced eradication have revolutionised the supply chain. Although Colombia and Mexico remain at the heart of the drug business, a main route to the U.S. and Europe runs down the Pacific, passing through countries that were largely untouched by illicit trafficking such as Costa Rica and Ecuador. Each of these has seen rates of violence rise sharply; in 2024, Ecuador was South America’s most violent nation. Across the region, surges of bloodshed have marked the new hubs of a fast-shifting, hyper-violent drug trade. Understanding how this rolling crime wave came about is fundamental to arresting it. Drug-related organised crime has adapted to the threat posed by law enforcement by becoming more flexible and resilient. In place of hierarchical syndicates that could be dismantled once their leaders were identified, the trade increasingly functions through networks of providers who subcontract each step of the route to lower tiers of operators. High-level financiers engage sophisticated international traffickers, who oversee drug exports to user markets. These in turn partner with national and local crime groups to meet the orders. National groups manage production or ensure safe passage of the drug along a particular trafficking corridor. At the local level, urban gangs are contracted by larger criminal allies for small-scale logistical services like smuggling drugs through ports. All the layers of these networks have learned that capturing state officials is a business asset. Using a mix of threats and payoffs, they target police officers, judges, prosecutors and politicians who can ensure that business runs smoothly, without the risk of arrest or seizure of shipments. Likewise, prisons in some of Latin America’s roughest settings are run by inmates, who manage their criminal enterprises behind bars and carry out vendettas against rivals inside and outside.

Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2025. 51p.

By Ruggero Scaturro | Giorgio Fruscione

In the Western Balkans, religious radicalization gained international attention in the early 2010s, with around 1 000 people travelling to Syria and Iraq to join jihadist groups between 2012 and 2016. The roots of this radicalization trace back to the Yugoslav wars, the presence of mujahideen networks in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Islamist charities spreading Salafi jihadism in the 1990s.

However, not all fighters from the Western Balkans are religiously motivated. Between 2014 and 2021, around 300 people fought in eastern Ukraine, mainly for political reasons, with Serbia being a major source of combatants supporting pro-Russian separatists. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, this trend has resurged, with more individuals reportedly joining mercenary units like the Wagner Group.

Instability in the Western Balkans has also fuelled the spread of organized crime beyond the region, first across Europe and later to other continents. In the 1990s, the Yugo Mafia gained significant media attention in Northern Europe. Meanwhile, violent extremists from the Western Balkans maintain transnational connections through diaspora networks and using online platforms.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2025. 45p.