By Julia Stanyard | Thierry Vircoulon | Julian Rademeyer

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

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

By Jerry Langton

A frightening look at Mexico's new power elite-the Mexican drug cartels The members of Mexico's drug cartels are among the criminal underworld's most ambitious and ruthless entrepreneurs. Supplanting the once dominant Colombian cartels, the Mexican drug cartels are now the major distributor of heroin and cocaine to the U.S. and Canada. Not only have their drugs crossed north of the border, so have the cartels (in 2009, 230 active Mexican drug cartels have been reported in U.S. cities). In Gangland, bestselling author Jerry Langton details their frightening stranglehold on the economy and daily life of Mexico today-and what it portends for the future of Mexico and its neighbours. Offering a firsthand look from members of law enforcement, politicians, journalists, and people involved in the drug trade in Mexico and Canada, Gangland sheds a harsh light on the multibillion dollar industry that is the drug trade, the territorial wars, and the on-the-street reality for the United States, with the importation of narco-terrorists. With the unstinting realism and keen analysis that have made him an internationally respected journalist, Langton offers the bleak prospects of what a collapsed government in Mexico might lead to-a new Mexican warlord state not unlike Somalia.

NY. Harper Collins. 2011. 288p.

by Amanda R. Witwer, Lynn Langton, Michael J. D. Vermeer, Duren Banks, Dulani Woods, Brian A. Jackson

The proliferation of websites, social media platforms, and applications that enable users to interact virtually and often anonymously has given rise to new modes and methods of perpetrating harassment, abuse, and other criminal behaviors that compromise victims' privacy and safety. These types of acts, termed technology-facilitated abuse (TFA), can involve the use or distribution of the victim's personal information, which compromises the victim's privacy and poses a threat to their safety. Efforts to combat these profoundly harmful acts are limited by a lack of awareness among the general public and criminal justice practitioners, impediments to investigation and adjudication presented by digital spaces, and laws and policies that have not kept pace with advancements in digital technologies. To examine this issue, RTI International and the RAND Corporation convened an expert workshop. The participants discussed the challenges, opportunities, and complexities faced by law enforcement and criminal justice practitioners in TFA cases. Using these discussions, the panel members identified and ranked needs for the public, law enforcement, and criminal justice practitioners to successfully identify and prosecute TFA cases. This report provides the prioritized list of needs and accompanying context from the discussion that resulted from this effort.

Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2020.   25p.