By Tuesday Reitano

Finding responses to illicit financial flows (IFFs) and preventing the extraction, movement and secretion of wealth from the licit global economy has become a growing policy preoccupation. The scale of IFFs and their continued growth has been linked to damaging consequences for governance and the building of peaceful, inclusive societies that achieve development for their citizens. This paper draws on the body of research by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) to demonstrate how and why responses to IFFs are falling short.

This wide-ranging review concludes that:

• The response to IFFs is too focused on the international financial system, and has failed to recognise and integrate the need to also strengthen oversight and integrity in trade flows, which is one of the dominant means by which illicit value is transferred.

• Informal economic activity, and the size and growth of the informal sector in many economies is undermining the efficacy of regulatory and oversight instruments.

• Political will to tackle the problem appears to be lacking – instead, in a number of key states policymaking has been captured to serve the interests of those for whom the offshore financial system and other legal and regulatory loopholes are of significant benefit. Moreover, state actors are both a significant part of the problem, both as a source of IFFs and as a conduit to enabling their continuation.

The implications of such extensive state involvement are profound, ranging from an overly technical approach to the challenge; the capture and distortion of multilateral processes; the failure to link policy to insecurity and violence, and a closing space for civil society manifested in legal, reputational and physical threat. In the absence of political will, and given the way that the traditional avenues for policy and programmatic response have been compromised, the paper concludes by proposing a few ways to strengthen the response, including by building a stronger and more active role for civil society as activists, whistleblowers and sources of oversight and response; promoting financial inclusion and reducing informality, and focusing on the role of non state actors as potential gatekeepers to guard against IFFs.

SOC ACE Research Paper No. 14. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham 2022. 45p.

By Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy

Known to the Greeks as 'opos' or 'opion', as 'afiun' in Persian and Arabic, and 'fuyung' in Chinese, opium is at once a palliative and a poison. Its exotic origins, its literary associations, and the properties that are, often erroneously, attributed to it have ensured an ongoing air of mystery. Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy reveals the long and fascinating history of a powerful and addictive drug and explores the changing fortunes of the modern-day illicit opium trade, especially in the remote regions of Asia. He answers key questions: Why have anti-drug policies failed despite four decades of increasing effort? And what are the shortcomings and limitations of forced eradication, alternative development, "silver bullets," and other quick fixes? In answering these questions, Chouvy draws upon geography, anthropology, politics, and development studies. He shows that the history of opium production is unexpectedly linked to the history of Afghanistan. A compelling account of a narcotic as old as humanity, Opium offers powerful insights into the complex politics and economics of the poppy in the world today.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010. 272p.

By Alan Doig

This book provides an introduction to state crime, with a particular focus on the UK. The use of crime by the UK to achieve its policy and political objectives is an underdeveloped aspect of academic study of individual and institutional criminality, the exercise of political power, public policy-making and political development. The book provides an overview of definitional issues before exploring possible examples of state crime in the UK and then considering why state crime occurs and how it is investigated and adjudicated. State Crime is split into six sections in order to address a number of key questions: what is state crime according to the literature? What is a crime? What is the state? What are the drivers for the State to commit a crime? What are the roles of the various institutions of the State in being involved in state crime and what, in terms of monitoring or investigating state crime or unethical conduct, are the roles of those institutions, from the police through to Parliament, responsible for holding governments and state institutions to account? Unusually for books on state crime, this book looks at a specific country as the context within which to explore these issues. Further, it not only looks at crime but also the structure of the modern state and thus provides a balanced and rigorous perspective with which to study the concept of state crime. Overall, this book seeks to provide an introduction to state crime for contemporary states which will facilitate the study of such issues as part of mainstream academic study across a number of disciplines.

Cullompton, Devon, UK: Willan, 2010. 270p.

By Stanislav Vysotsky

This dissertation seeks to understand the tactical differences between two groups of anti-racist activists who confront white supremacists. I dub these activists non-militant and militant anti-racists based on their tactical preferences. Non-militant anti-racists engage in what are understood to be conventional and demonstrative tactics. While militants are also likely to engage in similar tactics, their tactical repertoire also includes confrontational and violent approaches. I am particularly interested in how the two groups of activists explain the differences in their tactical choices; and therefore, posit that each group will use ideological explanations and perceptions of threat to explain their tactical choices. Using a snowball sampling methodology, I developed a sample of 24 anti-racist activists. These activists were given a quantitative survey in order to establish their tactical preference. The survey consisted of an original index developed to establish the militancy of the respondent. Survey results yielded a bi-modal distribution of scores that suggests a distinct difference in tactical preferences among anti-racist activists and confirms the categorization of activists into non-militant and militant categories. Additionally, interviews were conducted with all of the participants in order to 1) validate the results of the quantitative measure of militancy, 2) establish ideological orientation and test whether it had an influence of discussion of tactical preference, and 3) gauge the level of threat perceived and its influence on tactical preference. The results of the survey and interview data indicate distinct differences in tactical preferences between non-militants and militants.. The interview data demonstrate a clear difference in how non-militants and militants explain their tactical preferences. Non-militants adhered to a liberal ideology, but did not make explicit reference to their ideological position to explain their tactical preferences. I posit that this is a result of hegemonic dominance of liberalism.

Boston, MA: Northeastern University, 2009. 237p.

By Simone Haysom, Peter Gastrow and Mark Shaw

This report examines the characteristics of the heroin trade off the East African coast and highlights the criminal governance systems that facilitate drug trafficking along these routes.

In recent years, the volume of heroin shipped from Afghanistan along a network of maritime routes in East and southern Africa appears to have increased considerably. Most of this heroin is destined for Western markets, but there is a spin-off trade for local consumption. An integrated regional criminal market has developed, both shaping and shaped by political developments in the region. Africa is now experiencing the sharpest increase in heroin use worldwide and a spectrum of criminal networks and political elites in East and southern Africa are substantially enmeshed in the trade. This report focuses on the characteristics of the heroin trade in the region and how it has become embedded in the societies along this route. It also highlights the features of the criminal governance systems that facilitate drug trafficking along this coastal route.

ENACT (Africa), 2018. 54p.

By Eduardo Sáenz Rovner and Russ Davidson

A comprehensive history of crime and corruption in Cuba, The Cuban Connection challenges the common view that widespread poverty and geographic proximity to the United States were the prime reasons for soaring rates of drug trafficking, smuggling, gambling, and prostitution in the tumultuous decades preceding the Cuban revolution. Eduardo S?enz Rovner argues that Cuba's historically well-established integration into international migration, commerce, and transportation networks combined with political instability and rampant official corruption to help lay the foundation for the development of organized crime structures powerful enough to affect Cuba's domestic and foreign politics and its very identity as a nation.S?enz traces the routes taken around the world by traffickers and smugglers. After Cuba, the most important player in this story is the United States. The involvement of gangsters and corrupt U.S. officials and businessmen enabled prohibited substances to reach a strong market in the United States, from rum running during Prohibition to increased demand for narcotics during the Cold War.

Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2008. 247p.

By Lucia Bird

On 1 February 2022, gunshots at the governmental palace in Bissau signalled the beginning of a reported failed coup attempt in Guinea-Bissau, a country long known for its prominent role in international cocaine trafficking. Had the incident resulted in a military overthrow of power, it would have been the fifth successful coup in Guinea-Bissau’s history, and also the fifth coup in West Africa in the preceding 12 months, hot on the heels of the seizure of power in Burkina Faso in late January.1 Hours after the gunfire had begun, President Umaro Sissoco Embaló addressed the press, condemning the incident and declaring the perpetrators had failed. In press statements, he indicated that those behind the attack were involved in the drugs trade.2 This implication appeared to echo history: a 2012 coup in Guinea-Bissau was so clearly motivated by competition for control over the country’s lucrative cocaine markets that it has been dubbed the ‘cocaine coup’.3 The nature of the February attack, and the identity of the perpetrators, is still unclear – as explored further below. However, arrests announced by the government following the attack include individuals with known links to the cocaine trade – most prominently Admiral Bubo Na Tchuto – underscoring the drug connection implied by the president. Guinea-Bissau is a key entry point for cocaine into West Africa, a region that operates as a transit point on international cocaine trafficking routes between cultivation countries in Latin America and consumer end-markets in Europe. The country has played an important role in international cocaine trafficking dynamics since the late 1990s. The close involvement of Guinea-Bissau’s political-military elite in the cocaine market over the years has been a critical factor in Guinea-Bissau’s repeated cycles of political turmoil. In turn, profits from the cocaine market have bankrolled a remarkably resilient elite protection network composed of elements of the state infrastructure. Guinea-Bissau is at a critical juncture once again. The curious February incident has brought to the fore the country’s cyclical tendency towards political volatility, and the president has deemed the country to be in ‘political crisis’ and dissolved the National Assembly. This report explores the role, past and present, of the cocaine trade both as a driver of political instability in the country and as a source of resilience for elite power-sharing arrangements.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 50p.

By John P. Sullivan

Transnational organized crime is a pressing global security issue. Mexico is currently embroiled in a protracted drug war. Mexican drug cartels and allied gangs (actually poly-crime organizations) are currently challenging states and sub-state polities (in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and beyond) to capitalize on lucrative illicit global economic markets. As a consequence of the exploitation of these global economic flows, the cartels are waging war on each other and state institutions to gain control of the illicit economy. Essentially, they are waging a ‘criminal insurgency’ against the current configuration of states. As such, they are becoming political, as well as economic actors.

Paris: Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme , 2011. 21p.