By Mohamed Daghar, Willis Okumu and Tadesse Simie Metekia

This study explores links between cattle rustling in East Africa’s Karamoja Cluster and the flow of illicit arms into this ungoverned space.

This study looks at the links between cattle rustling in East Africa’s Karamoja Cluster and the flow of illicit arms into this ungoverned space. It looks at the actors involved in the illicit arms trade, the sources of the weapons, and the need for responses other than civilian disarmament exercises, which so far have been unsuccessful.

ENACT Africa, 2023. 20p.

By INTERPOL

All countries in the region have imported civil explosives and initiators, increasing the risks of diversion. In Central African countries, explosive substances, explosive precursor chemicals and initiators are controlled products and special authorization is needed to import, use, and transport or store them. However, some of these products are diverted, and used to manufacture improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or in activities such as illegal mining or blast fishing. Criminal actors are involved in the illicit flows of explosives. Some are the illegal final users of explosives, which constitute the last step of the illicit supply chain. These are the non-state armed groups (NSAGs) using explosives as weapons, such as Boko Haram and, its rival offshoot, the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) in the Lake Chad Basin (Chad and Cameroon), the separatist NSAGs active in the North West and South West regions in Cameroon, the Retour, Réclamation et Rehabilitation (3R) NSAG in the Central African Republic (CAR) and the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Other actors include illegal mining sector players, Illegal dealers, thieves and smugglers.

ENACT-Africa, 2023. 47p.

By Peter Tinti

Since 2013, the Republic of Mali has become a focal point of international efforts to stabilize the Sahel region through a mix of direct military intervention, security assistance, development aid and humanitarian support. A coup on 18 August 2020, and a subsequent consolidation of power by the ruling junta on 24 May 2021, combined with ongoing insecurity throughout the country’s centre and north, have prompted various international actors to reconsider their stabilization efforts in Mali. While mandates from international coalitions aim to restore stability, governance and security to the country, a misinterpretation of the relationship between violent extremism and organized crime has led to an emphasis on technical, militarized approaches that do not adequately consider consequential dynamics on the ground. This paper explains the risks of this approach for undermining stabilization efforts across the region and provides recommendations for: focusing analysis and policy on informal and criminal economies, rather than violent extremism; and adopting more development-focused interventions that better support Malian communities.

Geneva, SWIT: The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 32p.

By Ivan Briscoe and David Keseberg

Legend has it that Pope John Paul II, during his visit to Guatemala at the height of that country’s civil war in 1983, handed down a highly undiplomatic refrain to his official hosts: “you like to kill.” It is a conclusion that, decades on from the Cold War era of military dictatorships, left-wing revolutionary regimes, and embattled democracies, is still largely valid across Latin America, although for quite different reasons. This is the region of the world that is now least affected by armed conflict, yet most exposed to a daily dose of largely criminal violence. In 2016, 17 of the 20 countries and 43 of the 50 cities with the world’s highest rates of homicide—excluding those affected by armed conflict—were to be found in Latin America.1 In absolute terms, one in four global homicides occurs in only four countries: Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia.2 This lethal yet commonplace violence is most closely associated with those countries saddled with the presence of vibrant criminal organizations, groups which are in turn associated in the minds of many Latin Americans with the spread of sinister tentacles across poor urban communities, peripheral rural areas, prisons, police forces, judges, eminences of the political establishment, and international bankers and lawyers. Crime no longer appears as a mere underworld, but has become a source of fear, resentment, popular entertainment and, perhaps most crucially, livelihood and opportunity; it has become a culture. ...

Prism, 8(1); 2019.

By Eleanor Beevor 

In May 2022, two Nigerian citizens were arrested in Niamey, Niger, while trying to drive back to Nigeria in a stolen Toyota Corolla. The Corolla had a Nigerian licence plate, but police discovered that the car had recently been stolen from a Nigerien police officer. Fake military identification cards, and another Nigerian licence plate, were found in the car. The men were posing as Nigerian military officers. One had in fact been a former officer but was discharged in 2017 for desertion, and the other worked for Nigeria’s correctional service. After an investigation, it transpired that the men had left Nigeria three days before the arrest, and they had driven to Niamey in a stolen Toyota Hilux. The car, stolen in Nigeria, was resold in Niamey with the assistance of a Nigerien accomplice who was later arrested. It appears that this accomplice was also involved in the theft and resale of motorbikes, and possibly of other illicit commodities such as weapons. He was found with three AK-47 rifles and 151 cartridges, along with a stolen motorbike, other motorbike parts and three wristwatches. This example showcases many of the dynamics of car theft in the central Sahel region….

Geneva, SWIT::Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime , 2023.  38p.

By Topher L. McDougal

Illicit economies are notoriously difficult to detect and quantify for the simple reason that participants have incentives to keep their activities clandestine. This paper outlines and implements a method for estimating the markets for illicit small arms, sex, and drugs as constituent components of the total cash economy for the San Diego metropolitan area. The method has two parts: first it derives the total cash economy of San Diego; second it fits a model predicting that amount for each available year as a function of index variables for three distinct illicit markets (small arms, sex, and drugs) and the licit cash economy. It estimates that the market for cash-based purchases of small arms in San Diego in 2013 was $920 million – slightly larger than the illicit sex industry, and much smaller than both the market for illicit drugs and the licit cash economy. Limitations of the method are discussed, including the potential for better proxy variables to improve reliability.

San Diego: Small Arms Data Observatory, 2015. 13p.