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

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

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

By Paolo Campana, Cecilia Meneghini

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

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

By David Bright, Giovanni Sadewo, Timothy I. C. Cubitt, Christopher Dowling, Anthony Morgan

Outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs) have become synonymous with organised crime through engagement in criminal activities including illicit drug production and distribution, firearms trafficking, and serious violent crime. These crimes contribute significant social and economic harms in countries that feature a presence from these groups. The current paper uses network analytics to analyse the extent of co-offending within and across established clubs in Australia, including the relative involvement of senior, or office-bearing, members. The majority of affiliates in this sample co-offended with another OMCG affiliate within the sample period, with office bearers, members, nominees and associates represented proportionally among co-offending networks to in the sample at large. However, within these clubs, criminal activities were conducted in small cliques or components of affiliates. This research supports the role of OMCGs as important facilitators of crime, and the role of co-offending in the criminal offending of affiliates. The findings hold important implications for understanding how offending is organised among OMCGs, differences between groups, differing levels of engagement from the club hierarchy

Trends in Organized Crime (2024) 27:263–285

By Christopher Blattman, Benjamin Lessing, and Santiago Tobón

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Tena Prelec

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

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

By Huma Haider

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By: Marc Champagne

On September 11, 2010, after presenting selected technical aspects of a Randian ethic at a prominent academic conference, I was confronted with the following objection, somewhat belligerent in tone: “But what about suicide bombers?” What about them? Despite the objection’s contextual timeliness, my initial reaction was to question its topical relevance. So I politely requested that the criticism be further unpacked. My interlocutor duly obliged, and I eventually gleaned that murder-suicide (say, in the name of some otherworldly posit) was being adduced as a supposed counterexample to the rational egoist account of values I had just expounded.

I don’t recall my exact response, only that I was dissatisfied with it afterwards. The audience member clearly thought he had unearthed a powerful criticism, and the objection, though crude, had the rhetorical merit of brevity. Such an intuitively attractive “sound bite,” I later thought, deserves to be answered in kind.

The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 11, no. 2 (Issue 22, December 2011): 233–36.

By: Jesem Douglas Yamall Orellana, Geraldo Marcelo da Cunha, Bárbara Christie de Souza Brito, Bernardo Lessa Horta

Objective: to identify characteristics, magnitude and factors associated with homicide in Manaus-AM, Brazil.

Methods: cross-sectional study, with data from the Mortality Information System (SIM); homicide rates and odds ratio (OR) were estimated, comparing to other external causes, for 2014; logistic regression was used.

Results: of the 1,657 violent deaths, 913 were due to homicide; homicide rate was of 55.8/100 thousand inhabitants (95%CI 52.1;59.7); odds ratio was higher among males (OR 3.4; 95%CI 2.3;5.1) when compared with females; among single (OR 1.6; 95%CI 1.1;2.5) and widowed individuals (OR 4.1; 95%CI 1.1;15.6), when compared with married individuals; at night/early hours (OR 2.1; 95%CI 1.6;2.9) and in the afternoon (OR 1.7; 95%CI 1.2;2.4), when compared with the morning period; the probability was higher among individuals under 35 years, with less schooling.

Conclusion: homicide mortality in Manaus was high, especially among males and young individuals with less schooling.

Epidemiol. Serv. Saude, Brasília, 26(4), Oct-Dec 2017

By: Salma Hamza, Imran Khan, Linlin Lu, Hua Liu, Farkhunda Burke, Syed Nawaz-ul-Huda, Muhammad Fahad Baqa and Aqil Tariq

The geographical concentration of criminal violence is closely associated with the social, demographic, and economic structural characteristics of neighborhoods. However, few studies have investigated homicide patterns and their relationships with neighborhoods in South Asian cities. In this study, the spatial and temporal patterns of homicide incidences in Karachi from 2009 to 2018 were analyzed using the local indicators of spatial association (LISA) method. Generalized linear modeling (GLM) and geographically weighted Poisson regression (GWPR) methods were implemented to examine the relationship between influential factors and the number of homicides during the 2009–2018 period. The results demonstrate that the homicide hotspot or clustered areas with high homicide counts expanded from 2009 to 2013 and decreased from 2013 to 2018. The number of homicides in the 2017–2018 period had a positive relationship with the percentage of the population speaking Balochi. The unplanned areas with low-density residential land use were associated with low homicide counts, and the areas patrolled by police forces had a significant negative relationship with the occurrence of homicide. The GWPR models effectively characterized the varying relationships between homicide and explanatory variables across the study area. The spatio-temporal analysis methods can be adapted to explore violent crime in other cities with a similar social context.

Pakistan. Sustainability 2021, 13, 5520.

By: Dr. Arshad M. Khan

If there is a mass shooting and anyone is asked where, the answer is likely to be the United States. The reason of course is the easy availability of guns, even guns that fire like machine guns. The Second Amendment allows the 'right to bear arms' -- to prevent tyranny say the proponents. Yet, the world has moved beyond guns for the tyranny we face today is a tyranny not of guns but of the mind.

Modern Diplomacy Oct 07, 2017

By Holly E. Porter

This thesis explores responses to rape in the Acholi sub-region of northern Uganda, based on three years of participant observation plus in-depth interviews with a random sample of 187 women from two villages. The issues examined lie at the intersection of two ongoing discussions in scholarship and practice and contributes to each of them: wrongdoing and justice, and sexual violence and rape.

Northern Uganda is at the heart of international justice debates. Fierce controversy followed the 2005 announcement of the International Criminal Court’s intervention in ongoing conflict between the Lord’s Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda. Two opposing representations of Acholi society emerged: that Acholi were innately forgiving—able to deal with mass crime through traditional justice; or that they needed and often supported formal legal justice. But this missed crucial aspects of Acholi realities, which this study illustrates, most basically the profound value of social harmony, and a deep distrust of distanced authorities to dispense justice in their interest.

Many scholars and practitioners assume that in the aftermath of crime, justice must be done. Amongst Acholi, I have found, the primary moral imperative in the wake of wrongdoing is not punishment of the perpetrator or individual victim’s rights but the restoration of social harmony.

Experience of rape and harm it causes are predicated on understandings of wrongdoing related to challenges posed to social harmony. Similarly, an appropriate remedy depends not only on the act of forced sex itself, but also on the social role of the perpetrator and social context.

This thesis adds empirical, locally-grounded, and culturally-specific evidence in support of a more complicated and nuanced explanation of rape and its aftermath than is familiar in the analytical/normative frameworks familiar in post-atrocity justice debates or anti-rape feminist activist discourse. It suggests reimagining the meanings of these phenomena along lived continuums: before, during, and after war; and acknowledging the role of sex, power, and politics in all sexual experiences on a spectrum of coercion and enthusiastic consent.

London School of Economics and Political Science, April 2013

By Safer Communities Directorate

Executive Summary

• There is an ongoing cost of living crisis in Scotland, and the rest of the United Kingdom, which is characterised by higher energy costs, higher food and other household costs and real term pay decreases. This paper focuses on the relationship between this cost crisis and crime in Scotland.

• The academic evidence is by no means conclusive in favour of a certain economic variable having a relationship with overall or total crime. This is an important finding as it dispels the idea that worsening economic conditions will inevitably result in a rise in crime.

• Unlike the recessions of the 1980s, the 1990s and 2008 which brought periods of higher unemployment and decreasing inflation, the current cost crisis is characterised by increasing levels of inflation, combined with low levels of unemployment. Therefore, whilst the existing literature helps us to understand how previous economic shifts have impacted upon crime in the past, any attempts to use this literature to predict the impact of the cost crisis on crime is methodologically unadvisable. We must rely on present day data to monitor crime trends during this current period of cost crisis in Scotland.

• Gross Domestic Product is too broad a measure when it comes to determining the impact of the economy on crime. Therefore, we must specify and explore how changes in specific economic variables impacts upon crime.

• For example, analysis undertaken by Scottish Government statisticians explored the relationship between levels of unemployment in Scotland, all recorded crime, and some specific crime types from 1971 until the present day. The analysis found a strong positive linear correlation between unemployment and overall recorded crime, housebreaking and, theft of a motor vehicle. Considering forecasted increases in unemployment, this relationship is noteworthy.

• We know from the academic evidence that relative falls in the wages of low wage workers increases rates of property and violent crime. This finding has present-day relevance given recent real-term falls in wages as a result of the cost crisis.

• The academic evidence also tells us that increases in inequality and poverty rates increase the rates of property crime and violent crime. However, it is not yet clear how these two economic variables are being affected by the cost crisis and therefore if, and how, they may impact upon crime.

• Non-economic factors play a significant role with regard to fluctuations in overall crime rates as well as rates of specific crime types and are impossible to precisely disentangle from the economic factors that impact upon crime. Such factors include the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of police officers, and population demographics.

• For example, analysis undertaken by Scottish Government statisticians found a strong, positive, linear correlation between the proportion of young men (16-24) in the population and overall recorded crimes of housebreaking and theft of a motor vehicle. Population forecasts tell us that over the next 10 years the size of this group is projected to steadily increase.

• This paper's case study on housebreaking further explores this phenomenon of economic and non-economic factors impacting upon the rates of specific crimes. The case study suggests that housebreaking, an acquisitive crime, may not be susceptible to the cost crisis. This contrasts with findings from the academic evidence review and suggests the presence of non-economic factors that are acting to limit any rise in housebreaking.

• That being said, analysis demonstrates a rise in overall recorded crime and Crimes of Dishonesty that may be the result of cost crisis pressures. It is unclear, however, whether crime is simply returning to pre-pandemic levels. Of particular note is the large uplift in shoplifting, which increased by 21% in the year ending June 2023, when compared to the previous year.

• With regard to next steps, a second occasional paper will be published in 2024 which will draw on the latest Police Recorded crime data and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey data and will focus on the impact of the cost crisis on violent crime and domestic abuse in addition to revisiting the crime types identified in this paper.

Edinburgh: Scottish Government, Social Research, 2023. 28p.

By Nicholas Barnes

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

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

By Thomas Greminger and Nayef Al-Rodhan

Pirates have existed in different guises since ancient times, from Cilician pirates seizing olive oil cargoes from Roman ships to corsairs seeking spoils along North Africa’s Barbary Coast and buccaneers attacking Spanish treasure ships in the Caribbean. Currently the Gulf of Guinea is the world’s hotspot for maritime piracy. Over the last 15 years container ships, fishing vessels, and oil tankers in the region have been the targets of numerous armed attacks and kidnappings.

The past year has seen some positive developments regarding global maritime security. According to the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Maritime Bureau (IMB), global piracy and armed robbery incidents are at their lowest recorded figure in three decades. The IMB’s last annual report showed a 32% drop in overall attacks in 2021 compared to 2020. These promising trends are also evident in the Gulf of Guinea. Of the 90 global piracy and armed robbery incidents reported between January and September 2022, 13 have been reported in the Gulf of Guinea region, compared to 27 over the same period in 2021. The decline in the number of reported incidents in West African waters should be welcomed, but this progress is likely to be short-lived unless the international community increases its focus on the region.

The threat level in the Gulf of Guinea region remains high, as highlighted by United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2634 on Piracy and Armed Robbery in the Gulf of Guinea, which was unanimously adopted in May 2022. Spearheaded by Ghana and Norway, the resolution expressed the UNSC’s deep concern about the “grave and persistent threat” posed by piracy and transnational organised crime in the Gulf of Guinea. The resolution correctly stressed that unless tackled head-on, piracy will continue to impede international security and navigation, and the sustainable development of states in the region. These challenges are particularly important given the Gulf of Guinea’s geopolitical significance.

Bordering 20 countries and with 6,000 kilometres of coastline, the Gulf of Guinea is a key shipping route for a region that relies heavily on imports. This is why the costs of piracy weigh so heavily on the region’s economic and trade potential, with direct and indirect costs estimated at US$1.925 billion annually for 12 Gulf of Guinea countries. Tackling piracy in the Gulf of Guinea will require both sustained political will at the national and regional levels and deeper and more effective cooperation among members of the international community. All sea-faring nations have a stake in improving the security of the region – including Switzerland, which assumes its seat on the UNSC at the start of 2023, with the aim of promoting global peace and security.

Geneva Centre for Security Policy, 2022. 12p.

By Tasnim Abderrahim

Morocco is a key departure point for both local and foreign migrants embarking on irregular sea crossings to Europe. The country is strategically linked to Spain in particular through three main migratory pathways. These include the land passages into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, a maritime route to mainland Spain and a maritime route to the Canary Islands. Furthermore, substantial numbers of migrants cross in and out of Morocco over the border with Algeria.

In 2023, human smuggling trends in Morocco were broadly stable, although the dynamics differed by route. There was a significant rebound in movements from northern Morocco to Spain across the Alboran Sea and the Strait of Gibraltar. According to Frontex data, Moroccan arrivals in mainland Spain jumped from 4 307 in 2022 to 7 910 in 2023.1 Moroccan nationals dominated this route, as security measures restricted foreign migrants’ access to the north of the country.

This rise is especially notable given this heightened enforcement, which began during the COVID-19 pandemic and increased further following Spain’s endorsement of Morocco’s position on the Western Sahara conflict in 2022. Border controls along the northern coast remained tight in 2023 and security forces continued to crack down on smuggling networks. In addition, the government persisted in the forced transfer of undocumented migrants from the northern coastal areas to cities in the interior.

The other main northern Moroccan route to Spain, involving land crossings to Ceuta and Melilla, saw a dramatic drop in 2023. Only 467 arrivals were recorded from 1 January to 31 December, a 75% reduction compared to the same period in 2022.2 Despite this, persistent efforts to reach the enclaves continued, including attempts to climb over fences or swim around barriers, underscoring that the decline was largely due to heightened security operations by Spanish and Moroccan forces. To the south, in the Canary Islands, arrivals from Morocco rebounded slightly in 2023, after falling by almost a third between 2021 and 2022. This moderate increase appears to have been driven primarily by foreign migrants, as Moroccan arrivals decreased. Specifically, only 5 817 Moroccan migrants, the most easily identifiable of those departing from Morocco, arrived in the Canaries in 2023, down from 6 411 in 2022. This was likely due to heightened security and the perception among Moroccan migrants that the route was dangerous and costly, with an uncertain chance of success.

Finally, cross-border movement into Morocco from Algeria also continued. Although reliable estimates were limited, there were indications of a slight increase in arrivals through this route, particularly Algerians planning to attempt the sea crossing to the Spanish enclaves. Movement in the opposite direction, from Morocco to Algeria, also appeared to rise. This mainly involved Moroccans heading to Algeria’s north-west coast, from where smuggling to Spain is prevalent.

Over the course of 2023, irregular migration from and through Morocco was influenced by a combination of factors, with intensified enforcement playing a significant role. Morocco had moved to stem migratory flows in 2022, with the government orchestrating a structured crackdown on irregular migrants across the country. Throughout 2023, authorities continued to implement counter-migration measures, including restrictions on migrants’ mobility and the forced relocation of undocumented people.

Despite these efforts, poor economic prospects for both Moroccans and foreign migrants drove departures higher. In 2023, Morocco began to bounce back from the overlapping shocks the economy had experienced in the previous year, including a severe drought, rising commodity prices and the global economic slowdown, all of which derailed growth. However, despite the nascent recovery, many Moroccans continued to grapple with the effects of the successive economic blows that have been occurring since 2020, chiefly price hikes, which have strained the purchasing power of citizens and residents alike, especially low-income populations.

This is the latest Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) monitoring report on human smuggling in Morocco. It builds on the series of annual reports that has been issued since 2021, tracking the evolution of human smuggling in Morocco, as well as the political, security and economic dynamics that influence it.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024. 28p.

By The International Crisis Group

What’s new? Farmer-herder conflict in Chad has reached unprecedented levels during the political transition following the former president’s death in 2021, leaving more than 1,000 people dead and more than 2,000 injured. This violence is exacerbating the country’s perceived north-south divide.

Why does it matter? A growing number of cattle owners are from the north. The sedentary populations of the south and centre see the northerners as protected by the central authorities, fuelling resentment. The farmers’ grievances, sharpened by May’s disputed presidential election, could lead them to take the law into their own hands.

What should be done? President Mahamat Déby should make resolution of farmer-herder conflict a priority during his term. His government should provide security and impartial justice in the affected areas, involving residents in mediation efforts to help restore their confidence in the authorities.

New York: International Crisis Group, 2024. 24p.

By Alice Fereday

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

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

By Team of Analysts at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC)’s Observatory

In 2023, Tunisia emerged as the primary country of embarkation for irregular migrants seeking to reach Europe, eclipsing Libya, which had long been the main North African departure point. In total, some 97 306 migrants arrived in Italy from Tunisia, just over three times as many as in 2022. Tunisia’s new status as North Africa’s leading embarkation hub followed four years of constant growth in irregular migration and human smuggling. In previous years, the increase in departures had primarily involved Tunisian nationals. In 2023, however, the surge in irregular migration was largely driven by foreigners, mostly from West Africa and Sudan. While some of these migrants were long-term residents in Tunisia, the spike was fuelled by a notable and rapid rise in the arrival of sub-Saharans across the border with Algeria and, to a lesser extent, the border with Libya. The high demand for departures led to a more complex smuggling ecosystem in Tunisia, with networks offering increased and diversified services. There were also key shifts in the way foreign migrants, in particular, embarked, with a growing number forgoing engagement with smugglers and turning instead to self-smuggling. However, as in previous years, it was the worsening of the country’s complex political, social and economic problems that spurred clandestine departures and licit migration. While some aspects of the multidimensional crisis facing Tunisia improved, overall the challenges remained acute, with severe drought, uncertain financing conditions and the slow pace of reforms hampering economic recovery, while failures of governance continued to affect the delivery of public services such as water, education and health care. Moreover, a dramatic shift in Tunisia’s approach to irregular migration led to a deterioration in conditions for migrants and an acceleration in the pace of foreign migrants leaving the country. In February, President Kais Saied denounced undocumented sub-Saharan migration to Tunisia, triggering a series of events that resulted in foreign migrants being evicted from their homes, dismissed from their jobs, and threatened with arrest and violence. This growing climate of fear in turn influenced and hastened the departure of undocumented migrants from the country. In response to rising migration, the Tunisian government instituted tighter security controls, with occasional escalations in response to spikes in departures. Enforcement in maritime areas and along the land borders with Libya and Algeria intensified in the second half of the year. In addition, the Tunisian government increasingly resorted to the forced transfer of migrants – mainly to and across the borders with Libya and Algeria – in order to manage tensions among the local population and curb departures. According to public reports documenting the testimonies of deported migrants, a notable element of these forced transfers was the level of violence and abuse inflicted by the Tunisian security forces. The exceptional growth in irregular migration from and through Tunisia in 2023 marked a rapid escalation of trends observed since 2020. Given the enduring influence of the factors driving irregular movement from Tunisia and other key countries of origin, interest in departures to Europe is expected to persist further into 2024. However, volumes will be influenced by a number of variables, including the effectiveness of security forces in managing increased migratory pressures and the adaptability of smuggling networks to evolving enforcement tactics. This is the latest Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) monitoring report on human smuggling in Tunisia. It builds on the series of annual reports that has been issued since 2021, tracking the evolution of human smuggling in Tunisia, as well as the political, security and economic dynamics that influence it.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024. 41p.

By: Alice Fereday

Over the past four years, the human smuggling ecosystem in Chad has continued to evolve and change. The Chadian government, for its part, has increasingly sought to tighten controls on the northbound movement of migrants, perceiving the flow of people as contributing to instability, rebel activity, and organized crime in the north as well as in southern Libya.

Movement north has remained robust, despite – and in some cases because of – conflict and instability, the COVID-19 pandemic, and government enforcement. The changed security landscape, however, has driven smuggling networks to adopt increasingly clandestine approaches to movement and operations. All of these dynamics remained salient in 2023. However, mobility in Chad was also substantially shaped by the outbreak of war in Sudan. The conflict led to a mass arrival of refugees in eastern Chad and, more broadly, posed significant risks to the stability of the country. The enormous influx of refugees into Chad further strained the limited assistance capacities in the Ouaddaï, Sila and Wadi Fira regions, triggering a large-scale humanitarian crisis in these areas, and negatively affecting the prices and availability of basic commodities. While most refugees remain in refugee camps in eastern Chad, some have begun to leave, intending to travel to northern Chad, Libya and Tunisia, often with the help of smugglers. The conflict initially reduced the number of Sudanese travelling to northern Chad, but movements picked up towards the end of the year. Human smuggling from western Chad, while less affected by the conflict in Sudan, continues to be suppressed, although there has been some relaxation of law enforcement efforts. Meanwhile, artisanal mining at the Kouri Bougoudi goldfield has flourished since its reopening in late 2022, with most operations now formalized. Efforts by the Société Nationale d’Exploitation Minière et de Contrôle (National Society for the Exploitation and Control of Mining – SONEMIC) to formalize and regulate activities caused tensions among gold miners, but security at the goldfield has reportedly improved. Mid-2023 also saw renewed rebel incursions into northern Chad and clashes between rebel groups and the Chadian military. However, pressure on rebel groups from the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) in Libya and the surrender of significant numbers of rebels in northern Chad have weakened key groups such as the Conseil de Commandement Militaire pour le Salut de la République (Military Command Council for the Salvation of the Republic – CCMSR) and the Front pour l’Alternance et la Concorde au Tchad (Front for Change and Concord in Chad – FACT). As a result, the risk of rebel incursions into Chad, while not permanently eliminated, appears to be largely contained for the time being. Chad also entered the next phase of its transition process, preparing for the elections, which were held in May 2024. This was a crucial period for the transitional authorities to consolidate their power and credibility, given the high level of opposition to the largely controversial transition process. However, following a contested constitutional referendum in December 2023, which enshrined the principle of a unitary state pushed for by the transitional authorities, political violence escalated in early 2024. In February, following the announcement that presidential elections would be held on 6 May, a key opposition figure, Yaya Dillo Djérou, was killed by security forces amid clashes at the headquarters of his party, the Parti Socialiste sans Frontières (Socialist Party Without Borders – PSF).1 The Chadian government claimed that its forces were in fact involved in a shootout at the PSF’s headquarters, after an attack on government security forces the night before. This raised fears that there would be further violence and repression of opposition and civil society voices after the May elections. While the elections were in fact relatively peaceful, there are still ongoing concerns related to the contraction of civil society space and democratic process.

Geneva: SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2024. 37p..

By Felipe Botero Escobar

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

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

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

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

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

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