By  Felipe Botero Escobar

For years, Ecuador enjoyed a relative degree of peace, as its neighbors, Colombia and Peru, were wrangling with internal conflicts as chief protagonists in the international supply of cocaine. However, things have changed dramatically in recent times. On 9 January 2024, the recently elected president, Daniel Noboa, said that the country was in a state of ‘internal armed conflict’ against 22 criminal groups that he described as ‘narco-terrorists’.

One of the most visible incidents of Ecuador’s growing problem with violence occurred in August 2023 when presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio was assassinated at a campaign rally in Quito just weeks before the elections. Since Villavicencio’s murder, several incidents have occurred, including the arrest of the Colombian hitmen involved in his death and their subsequent murders in a prison, which has deprived the authorities of crucial evidence in the investigation.6 The year 2023 ended as the most violent recorded in the history of Ecuador.

The situation in Ecuador is complex, and more research into the political-economic factors behind how this once stable country descended into violent, crime-driven chaos needs to be undertaken if we are to fully comprehend the situation. Nevertheless, there are some key features of Ecuador’s criminal landscape that we do understand, and which can at least partly explain how the country has arrived at this critical juncture.

The existence of at least three intertwined criminal markets, the presence of transnational organized crime groups as well as local criminal networks, and the country’s poor resilience capacity to respond to and mitigate the effects of organized crime are all pivotal to understanding the complex criminal ecosystem that has emerged in force in recent years. In the last edition of the Global Organized Crime Index, published in September 2023, scores for Ecuador’s criminal markets and criminal actors are revealed.

This analysis provides but an initial understanding of the background. A more comprehensive assessment of how intersecting criminal markets, like arms trafficking and extortion, operate in the country will be essential in formulating sustainable, practicable responses to the crisis.

By Coleman Bazelon, Alberto Vargas, Rohan Janakiraman, Mary Olson

The harm caused by transatlantic chattel slavery was vast, and its repercussions resonate in the lives of descendants of the enslaved to this day. Each enslaved person experienced overwhelming harm, beginning with the loss of their liberty and often ending with a premature death after a life marked by personal injury and other forms of violence, if they survived the Middle Passage. By our estimates, these harms were inflicted on 19 million people over the span of four centuries. These 19 million include those Africans kidnapped and transported to the Americas and Caribbean and those born into slavery. Given the depth, breadth, and duration of the harm, quantifying the associated reparations is a daunting task. Yet, many scholars in multiple disciplines across different countries have documented and studied these harms for decades. In this paper, we bring economic analysis to build on this vast body of work and quantify in a novel—but far from definitive—manner elements of reparations for transatlantic chattel slavery.24 To meet this challenge, we begin by separating the harm into two broad temporal categories. First for harm during the period when chattel slavery was carried out and, second, for continuing harm thereafter. During each of these periods, harm was multidimensional, and it is important to recognize each of the distinct forms of harm experienced by the enslaved and their descendants. We quantify only a subset of these harms, since the economic tools available are not appropriate to measure some categories of harm or because of data limitations.

For the period of enslavement, including any post-emancipation period of ‘apprenticeship’ where the formerly enslaved were ‘earning’ their freedom, we estimate US$77 trillion to US$108 trillion in reparations. This range provides a lower-bound estimate reflecting conservative assumptions, such as the interest rate to compensate for the time value of money when we bring the value of stolen labor forward to today. If, as other scholars have done, we used interest rates closer to the market rates over the relevant centuries, our estimates would be considerably higher. The lower bound estimate of US$77 trillion in reparation for the period of enslavement uses an alternative approach to bring the value of stolen labor forward to today using an interest rate that is based on the appreciation in the value of labor, instead of an interest rate based on the appreciation of the value of money. Prior work presenting similar calculations has noted that the resulting magnitudes are close to or exceed the current GDP of the enslaving countries. While striking, that is not surprising. These calculations measure a harm inflicted on millions of persons, and sometimes entire nations, for hundreds of years, and therefore one year’s GDP, which measures the annual economic output of a country, is perhaps not the best yardstick to put the results in context. Instead, we compare the magnitude of our estimates with national wealth and the cumulative GDP over the past several decades.   

Boston: Brattle Group, 2023. 115p.

By Bodean Hedwards,, Lucia Bird, and Perkha Traxl 

This report analyzes recent trends in maritime people smuggling from South and South East Asia on journeys towards Asia-Pacific, focusing on four case study countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Sri Lanka. These were chosen to provide a cross-section of source, transit and destination countries in the region, with Sri Lanka and Indonesia being well-established departure countries toward Oceania. The paper considers key trends, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and intersections with human trafficking. It is important to note that maritime migration does not occur in isolation but typically forms part of what is usually a longer migration journey that involves land border crossings as well as air routes. This report examines trends in the smuggling of migrants across maritime pathways in South and South East Asia, with a particular focus on journeys towards the Asia-Pacific region. The paper provides insight into the conditions that compel migrants to choose people smuggling – and particularly maritime smuggling – as a means of migration and details the reasons that influence migrants’ decisions in relation to destination and migration routes. It explores the factors that make irregular migrants vulnerable to trafficking during their journey and examines the nature of maritime people-smuggling models and operations around the region, looking at, among other factors, recruitment, payment, and border crossing and immigration arrangements. Finally, drawing on what is known about people-smuggling dynamics and experiences across South and South East Asia, the report explores emerging responses identified during interviews that are thought to be having an impact on the various intersections of people smuggling and human trafficking.

Geneva, SWIT:  Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime., 2023. 60p.  

By Tihomir Bezlov | Atanas Rusev | Dardan Koçani

The war in Ukraine has spurred the largest refugee crisis in Europe since the Second World War. According to EU border and coastguard agency Frontex, by the end of 2022, 15 million Ukrainian citizens had fled to Europe since the beginning of the war, with roughly 3 million choosing to stay.

While the unforeseen scale of the refugee crisis meant that much of the border authorities’ efforts and resources were occupied, people smuggling networks took advantage of the situation, and the number of irregular migrants from the Middle East travelling along the Western Balkan route soared. There are many contributing factors to this trend, but migrant smuggling has indeed resurfaced as the fastest-growing market for organized crime in the Balkan region. At the start of September 2022, Frontex reported that they had documented the highest number of irregular entries since 2016, with a 75% increase compared to the same period in the previous year. Thus, in 2022, the Western Balkan route became the most active European migration route, surpassing the Central and Western Mediterranean routes.

This paper assesses the factors that contributed to the emergence of the Western Balkan route as the most critical for irregular migration to the EU during 2022, focusing in particular on the impact of the war in Ukraine on refugee flows from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and its implications for the future. It analyzes how, if anything, refugee flows from Ukraine have affected pre-existing movements of migrants from MENA countries on the Western Balkan route indirectly, exacerbating dynamics and network operations. It also estimates the overall number of irregular migrants smuggled along the Western Balkan route since 2016, describes the evolution of smuggling networks in 2022 and assesses the implications for South Eastern Europe.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime 2023. 3p.

By  Steven Dudley, Parker Asmann and Victoria Dittmar 

In 2019, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).1 What would become known as “remain in Mexico” was the latest in a decades-long effort by successive Republican and Democrat administrations to curb migration by making it increasingly difficult for migrants to enter and stay in the United States. However, the policies have had numerous unintended consequences, including bolstering criminal organizations along the US-Mexico border. Whereas the smuggling of drugs and weapons used to dominate the cross-border contraband trade, human smuggling has morphed into one of the most lucrative industries for crime groups. It also has made it increasingly dangerous for migrants who face more risks en route and along the US border. This report aims to highlight the role US policy has played in this transformation, which continues to evolve today. Specifically, it analyzes the ways in which Mexican organized crime groups have become involved in human smuggling as risks rose, prices surged, and migrants began to move through less-traveled corridors. The goal is to inform policymakers who are looking to address irregular migration and combat Mexico’s criminal organizations. ….  

Washington DC: Insight Crime, 2023. 22p.

 By Anastasia Austin and Douwe den Held 

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

Washington, DC, Insight Crime, 2022. 26p

By Camilla Fabbri https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4692-9646 camilla.fabbri@lshtm.ac.uk, Heidi Stöckl, […], and Cathy Zimmerman

Over the past decade, third-party labor recruiters who facilitate employment for migrant workers across low- and middle-income countries have often been considered by the counter-trafficking community as one of the main entry points into human trafficking. In response, anti-trafficking prevention programs have increasingly focused on addressing exploitative recruitment in migrants’ origin countries. Such programs may advocate for increased regulation of migration, greater enforcement actions against unlicensed recruiters, stricter ethical codes of conduct for recruiters and employers, and more pre-departure information about recruitment for migrants. Yet, there remains limited research about the relationship between prospective migrants, recruiters, and human trafficking, and the relative importance of third-party recruitment in the trafficking process. This Research Note draws on the world's largest database of individual victims of trafficking cases, the International Organization for Migration's (IOM) Global Victim of Trafficking Database (VoTD), to examine the role and characteristics of recruitment of trafficked victims. The VoTD contains information on nearly 50,000 trafficking victims who were registered for assistance from 2002 to June 2018. Our analysis shows that 94 percent of trafficked victims were recruited, in a broad sense (i.e., not only by third-party intermediaries). Additionally, the data presented here suggest that the relationship between recruitment and trafficking is complex and that forced labor is embedded within the wider structural issues around low-wage labor migration that lead to exploitative work conditions. Interventions to address human trafficking will benefit from strategies that target systemic issues constraining or harming low-wage labor. Further, these findings highlight the value of large-scale administrative datasets in migration research

  International Migration Review 2023, Vol. 57(2) 629-651  

By Mark Ungar

Because of the increasingly organized and lethal nature of criminality in Latin America and Caribbean (LAC), OC policy may be the single most important safeguard for regional security. Nearly every current report, in fact, stresses OC’s increasingly threatening impact “on the economic and sociopolitical environment of the region” as it fuels manifestations of criminal violence such as “trafficking of persons, exploitation of natural resources, threats to protected areas, forced displacement, criminal governance, robbery, physical aggression, extortion and kidnapping,” according to UNDP. A recognition of the tandem growth of OC’s forms, though, does not mean a policy-relevant understanding of them. Such an understanding requires disentangling these crimes’ many overlapping sources, removing embedded layers of methodological obstruction, and attuning responses with OC practice. This multiple challenge, though, first requires stepping back to re-evaluate existing paradigms in at least three ways that this report discusses. First is to question existing OC data, since much of it is suspect, biased, or incomplete – reflecting the misalignment of institutional process and policy goals. Second is the ways in which OC draws its power from a multitude of local, national and regional links among non-state, economic, and state agencies that, like dark matter, are omnipresent but largely invisible. Third is a need to widen and re-examine physical and geographic space.

Miami: Florida International University, Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, 2021.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Section

The present toolkit deals with trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal, as defined by the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, (Trafficking in Persons Protocol), supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Organized Crime Convention). Terms like ‘organ trafficking’, ‘illegal organ trade’, ‘transplant tourism’, ‘organ purchase’ and others are often used interchangeably with trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal, even where they would not refer to the same phenomenon. Any conduct described by such terms will only be within the scope of this toolkit, if it meets the definition provided by the Trafficking in Persons Protocol.

Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2015. 149p.

Edited by Gerben Bruinsma

In the past two decades, the study of transnational crime has developed from a subset of the study of organized crime to its own recognized field of study, covering distinct societal threats and requiring a particular approach. This volume provides examples of transnational crime, and places them in a broad historical context, which has so far been missing from this field of study. The contributions to this comprehensive volume explore the causes and historical precursors of six main types of transnational crime: piracy, human smuggling, arms trafficking, drug trafficking, art and antique trafficking and corporate crime. The historical contributions demonstrate that transnational crime is not a novel phenomenon of recent globalization and that, beyond organized crime groups, powerful individuals, governments and business corporations have been heavily involved.

New York: Springer, 2015. 201p.

By Eve de Coning

The study posed the questions whether there is transnational organized crime and other criminal activity in the fishing industry and, if so, what the vulnerabilities of the fishing industry are to transnational organized crime or other criminal activity. The research took the form of a six-month desk review of available literature, supplemented by ad hoc consultations and a two-day expert consultation held in Vienna, Austria. Importantly the study did not set out to tarnish the fishing industry. Rather, the study sought to determine whether criminal activities take place within the fishing industry to the detriment of law-abiding fishers, the legitimate fishing industry, local fishing communities, and the general public alike. The study considered the involvement of the fishing industry or the use of fishing vessels in trafficking in persons (Chapter 2); smuggling of migrants (Chapter 3); illicit traffic in drugs (Chapter 4); and other forms of crime such as marine living resource crime, corruption, and piracy and other security related crimes (Chapter 5).

Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2011. 144p.

By InSight Crime

CACIF is the de facto political party of Guatemala's economic elites. It unites the most important economic actors and is capable of integrating, via informal mechanisms, the heads of consortia and family groups with significant weight in a variety of economic sectors. Private security firms under the umbrella of the “Illegal Clandestine Security Apparatuses (Cuerpos Ilegales y Aparatos Clandestinos deSeguridad - CIACS) weave in and out of organized crime activity involving drug, arms and human trafficking, systematically blocking investigations and operating with impunity. The CIACS are what raised the alarm to spur creation of the United Nations-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala.

Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2016. 112p.

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

In The globalization of crime: a transnational organized crime threat assessment, UNODC analyses a range of key transnational crime threats, including human trafficking, migrant smuggling, the illicit heroin and cocaine trades, cybercrime, maritime piracy and trafficking in environmental resources, firearms and counterfeit goods. The report also examines a number of cases where transnational organized crime and instability amplify each other to create vicious circles in which countries or even subregions may become locked. Thus, the report offers a striking view of the global dimensions of organized crime today.

Vienna: UNODC, 2010. 314p.

By Minna Viuhko and Anniina Jokinen.

Research on human trafficking and organised crime is relatively rare in Finland. During the recent years human trafficking, procuring and prostitution have been studied i.a. in a legal perspective (Roth 2007a; 2007b; 2008), in relation to cross-border prostitution (Marttila 2004; 2005a; 2005b; 2006; 2008), and in the context of commercialisation of sex (Jyrkinen 2005). The problems of identifying the victims of human trafficking (Putkonen 2008) and trafficking in women and illegal immigration (Lehti and Aromaa 2003) have also been examined, as well as the effects of globalization on the sex industry in Finland (Penttinen 2004). In addition, Finnish sex-workers (Kontula 2008), prostitution in Northern Finland (Skaffari and Urponen 2004; Korhonen 2003), sex bars (Lähteenmaa and Näre 1994; Näre and Lähteenmaa 1995; Näre 1998), and sex buyers (Keeler & Jyrkinen 1999) have been the focus of recent research. Also organised pandering and prostitution in Finland was studied in the beginning of the 2000s (Leskinen 2003). Organised crime is scrutinised by Junninen (2006) and Bäckman (2006). However, the connection between human trafficking and organised crime has not been a central focus of any specific recent study in Finland. It also seems that prostitution and procuring markets have changed during the recent years and because of this, new studies on the issue are needed. Although human trafficking, prostitution and organised crime have been researched extensively in the global context, in this report we refer mainly to the earlier Finnish studies. The aim is to provide a comprehensive view of the Finnish prostitution-related human trafficking situation in the context of organised crime. We approach the topic from a sociological perspective and with qualitative methods. This study covers the first decade of the 21st century.

Helsinki: European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control (HEUNI), 2009. 143p.