By Gaurav Khanna, Carlos Medina, Anant Nyshadham and Jorge Tamayo

Canonical models of criminal behavior highlight the importance of economic incentives and employment opportunities in determining participation in crime (Becker, 1968). Yet, deriving causal corroborating evidence from individual-level variation in employment incentives has proven challenging. We link rich administrative micro-data on socioeconomic measures of individuals with the universe of criminal arrests in Medellin over a decade. We test whether increasing the relative costs to formal-sector employment led to more crime. We exploit exogenous variation in formal employment around a socioeconomic score cutoff, below which individuals receive generous health benefits if not formally employed. Our regression discontinuity estimates show that this popular policy induced a fall in formal-sector employment and a corresponding spike in organized crime. This relationship is stronger in neighborhoods with more opportunities for organized crime. There are no effects on less economically motivated crimes.

Boston, MA: Harvard Business School, 2019. 57p.

By Verité

In-depth research carried out by Verité has found that Latin American countries export reputational risks for major companies with gold in their supply chains. The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, with which Verité has been closely collaborating, recently released an in-depth report thoroughly documenting the close link between illegal gold mining and organized crime, which fuels violence, environmental damage, corruption, money Verité publications include a research report focusing on illegal gold mining in Colombia and a white paper with detailed recommendations for companies and other stakeholders to ensure that illegally mined gold does not enter into company supply chains and the vaults of central banks. research carried out by Verité in Peru in 2012-2013 and in Colombia in 2015, and desk research carried out across the Latin American region.

Amherst, MA: Verité , 2016. 17p.

By Paul D. Kenny, Rashesh Shrestha, and Edward Aspinall

This paper examines the relationships between agrarian commodity booms and the incidence of group conflict and criminality in the context of Indonesia’s expanding oil palm sector. It theorizes that commodity boom violence takes two main forms: low level but organized criminal violence involved in the extortion of “rents” produced by a given commodity extraction and production process (extortion); and violent competition among a range of groups, including “mafias”, youth gangs, landholders, and commercial producers for control of these rents (competition). Extortion and competition violence are associated with distinct temporal distributions consistent with our theory. Criminality–especially theft–is higher in villages with established and productive oil palm plantations (extortion), whereas villages undergoing planation expansion have a higher incidence of group conflict (competition). Dynamic analyses utilizing panel data at the sub-district level support our causal interpretation, as the relationship between the area under oil palm cultivation and resource conflict (competition) changes over time and with prevailing commodity prices. Our results are robust to the use of instrumental variable analysis to account for the potential endogeneity of plantation expansion. Our theorized mechanism is given further support by a targeted primary survey of 1,920 respondents in oil palm producing and non-producing villages, which shows that villages experience different rates of extortion and competition violence depending both on if, and when, oil palm production commenced.

Canberra: Australian National University, 2020. 77p.

By Etienne Romson

This second of two papers on global oil theft discusses ways to reduce oil theft, misappropriation, and fraud. At US$133 billion per year, oil is the largest stolen natural resource globally, while fuel is the most smuggled natural resource. Oil theft equates to 5–7 per cent of the global market for crude oil and petroleum fuels. It is so engrained in the energy supply chain that thefts are priced in by traders and tolerated by many shipping companies as petty theft. Oil theft and related insecurity have substantial negative economic effects on developing countries, whether they produce oil or not. In 2012, non-oil-producing Benin saw a 28 per cent drop in taxable income after a spate of oil tanker hijacking incidents in the Gulf of Guinea in 2011. In Nigeria, the oil capacity shut-in and amount of oil deferred is more than twice the amount estimated as stolen, with a US$20 billion annual loss in petroleum profit tax—63 per cent of total government tax revenue in 2019. Organized oil crime syndicates are often transnational and conduct theft and fraud professionally, exploiting gaps in jurisdiction and adapting their practices when law enforcement becomes more effective. They evolve from ship piracy to stealing tanker cargoes to kidnapping tanker crews; from physical ransom of assets to digital hijacking via ransomware. The proceeds of oil theft often finance other organized crime, and it triggers violence against the community and in crime-on-crime activities. Twelve commonalities in oil theft and fraud have been identified that can direct international solutions, in three target areas: stolen oil volumes, stolen oil transport, and stolen oil money. Prosecution for acts of bribery offers opportunities for action: transport of or payment for illegal oil could constitute a bribe under the US Foreign Corrupt Practice Act if government officials were involved in the transaction or shipment. Bribe charges could be raised for paid ‘services’ that facilitate oil theft (through action or non-action).

Helsinki: UNU-WIDER , 2022. 65p.

By Ian M. Ralby.

This report is the first comprehensive study of the theft of refined oil products around the globe. It provides insight into the modalities and trends in oil theft, the culprits responsible, the stakeholders affected by illicit activities, and recommendations that could change the dynamics.

Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, 2017. 117p.

By Julian Rademeyer

The rhino population is nearing the ‘tipping point’ where the numbers of rhino deaths could outnumber births, critically reducing the ability of the population to sustain itself. In the first part of this two-part series, “Tipping Point: Transnational crime and the ‘war’ on poaching,” the Global Initiative brought together evidence that the impact of rampant poaching and deeply entrenched transnational criminal networks active in Southern Africa over the past decade has been severe. Driven by seemingly insatiable demand in Southeast Asia and China, rhino horn has become a black market commodity rivalling gold and platinum in value. Six thousand rhinos have fallen to poachers’ bullets in Africa over the past decade.1 Dozens more have been shot in so-called “pseudo-hunts” in South Africa. Today there are estimated to be about 25,000 rhino left in Africa, a fraction of the tens of thousands that existed just half-a-century ago. Numbers of white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum) have begun to stagnate and decline, with 2015 population figures estimated at between 19,666 and 21,085. While the numbers of more critically endangered black rhino (Diceros bicornis) - estimated to number between 5,040 and 5,458 – have increased, population growth rates have fallen.2 Since 2008, incidents of rhino poaching have increased at a staggering rate. In 2015, 1,342 rhinos were killed for their horns across seven African range states, compared to just 262 in the early stages of the current crisis in 2008. While the vast majority of poaching incidents occurred in South Africa, home to about 79% of the continent’s last remaining rhinos, dramatic spikes in poaching in Namibia and Zimbabwe, two key black rhino range states, have counteracted the growing efforts of conservationists and the South African government to protect their remaining herd. Namibia, which had experienced little to no poaching from 2006 to 2012 saw incidents increase from four in 2013 to 30 in 2014 and 90 in 20153 . In Zimbabwe, 51 rhinos were killed, up from twenty in 2014. It was the country’s worst year on record since 2008, when 164 rhinos were lost to poachers.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Organized Crime, 2016. 44p.

By Summer Walker, Walter Kemp, Mark Shaw and Tuesday Reitano

Through stark images and charts, this report gives a graphic illustration of how the global illicit economy has boomed in the past 20 years and how it poses a serious threat to security, development and justice.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2021. 120p.

Edited by Nellemann, C.; Henriksen, R., Pravettoni, R., Stewart, D., Kotsovou, M., Schlingemann, M.A.J, Shaw, M. and Reitano, T.

Peace, development and security are the most crucial concerns for any country. Yet national and international efforts are increasingly undermined by criminal networks. Indeed, transnational organized crime is infiltrating every corner of society, and continues to diversify its scope of operations. Of particular concern has been the growth and convergence of criminal networks exploiting governance weaknesses during local conflicts and sustaining non-state armed groups and terrorists. This atlas identifies more than 1 000 routes used for smuggling drugs and natural resources as well as human trafficking. The report provides the first consolidated global overview of these illicit flows and their significance in conflicts worldwide. It also forms a foundation for further development of actionable intelligence. The findings reveal that the incomes of non-state armed groups and terrorist groups are diversifying and becomingly increasingly based on organized crime activities, sustaining conflicts worldwide. Illegal exploitation and taxation of gold, oil and other natural resources are overtaking traditional threat finance sectors such as kidnapping for ransom and drug trafficking. At the same time these non-state armed groups only take a fraction, around 4 per cent, of all illicit finance flows by organized crime in or near conflicts. The implication is that combating organized crime must be considered a significant factor in conflict prevention and resolution. This report provides a new impetus for our continued efforts to stem these illicit flows and combat the threat posed by transnational organized crime in terms of peace, development and security

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2018. 152p.

By Markus Schultze-Kraft

This report interrogates the stressor framework and applies it to the case of transnational cocaine trafficking through West Africa. The key innovation presented is that internal and external stresses should not be conceptualised as separate but actually as relating to and reinforcing one another for they are interconnected through transnational actors and processes that are part of broader globalising dynamics. In the case of illicit drug trafficking, such as the prohibited trade in cocaine, these dynamics should be understood as manifestations of ‘illicit globalisation’. While there is a need for a much better empirical understanding of how transnational criminal networks operate in West Africa and what impact trafficking has on the region’s states and governance, the problem at hand is arguably of a different order of magnitude than involvement in other illicit trades, which have been a constant for a long time in West Africa.

Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2014. 46p.

By Mendel, William W. and Munger, Murl D.

The primary purpose of this publication is to show how the principles and techniques of strategic and operational planning can be applied to the supply reduction side of our national effort to curb the trafficking of illicit drugs. An earlier version was published in 1991 which introduced campaign planning methodology as a means to help bridge the gap existing between the policy and strategy documents of higher echelons and the tactical plans developed at the field level. These campaign planning principles, formats, and examples of operational level techniques have been retained and updated for use as models for current interagency actions. This expanded edition provides a more detailed overview of the drug problem in the opening chapter and adds a new chapter devoted to strategy--what are the key ingredients and how is an effective strategy formulated? The United States is at a critical juncture in its campaign to eliminate the rampant drug problem. Past gains are in danger of being lost. Recent trends suggest a resurgence in illicit drug use and that younger and younger Americans are falling prey to the drug pusher.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 1997. 186p.

By Phil Williams and Vanda Felbab-Brown.

“Drug Trafficking, Violence, and Instability,” will serve to: (1) introduce the series by providing general conceptions of the global security challenges posed by violent armed groups; (2) identify the issues of greatest import to scholars studying the phenomenon; and, (3) emphasize the need for the U.S. Government to understand variations in the challenges it faces from a wide range of potential enemies. In this first report, Dr. Phil Williams and Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown provide the strategic context for the series and highlight many of the issues that will be addressed in more detail by authors of subsequent monographs in the series. SSI is pleased to offer this report in fulfillment of its mission to assist U.S. Army and Department of Defense senior leaders and strategic thinkers in understanding the key issues of the day.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army Wall College Press, 2021. 88p.

By Angel Rabasa, Christopher M. Schnaubelt, Peter Chalk, Douglas Farah, Gregory Midgette, Howard J. Shatz.

In July 2011, President Barack Obama promulgated the Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime. In the letter presenting the strategy, the president stated that the expanding size, scope, and influence of transnational organized crime and its impact on U.S. and international security and governance represent one of the most significant challenges of the 21st century. Through an analysis of transnational criminal networks originating in South America, this report develops a more refined understanding of the operational characteristics of these networks; the strategic alliances that they have established with state and other nonstate actors; and the multiple threats that they pose to U.S. interests and to the stability of the countries where they operate. It identifies U.S. government policies and programs to counter these networks; the roles of the Department of Defense, the geographic combatant commands, component commands, and task forces; and examines how U.S. Army assets and capabilities can contribute to U.S. government efforts to counter these networks. The report also recommends reconsidering the way in which nontraditional national security threats are classified; updating statutory authorities; providing adequate budgets for the counternetwork mission; and improving interagency coordination.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017. 215p.

By David E. Brown.

International criminal networks mainly from Latin America and Africa—some with links to terrorism—are turning West Africa into a key global hub for the distribution, wholesaling, and production of illicit drugs. These groups represent an existential threat to democratic governance of already fragile states in the subregion because they are using narco-corruption to stage coups d’état, hijack elections, and co-opt or buy political power. Besides a spike in drug-related crime, narcotics trafficking is also fraying West Africa’s traditional social fabric and creating a public health crisis, with hundreds of thousands of new drug addicts. While the inflow of drug money may seem economically beneficial to West Africa in the short-term, investors will be less inclined to do business in the long-term if the subregion is unstable. On net, drug trafficking and other illicit trade represent the most serious challenge to human security in the region since resource conflicts rocked several West African countries in the early 1990s. International aid to West Africa’s “war on drugs” is only in an initial stage; progress will be have to be measured in decades or even generations, not years and also unfold in parallel with creating alternative sustainable livelihoods and addressing the longer-term challenges of human insecurity, poverty, and underdevelopment.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2013. 104p.

By R. Evan Ellis.

Since his election in 2013, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez has made significant changes in the strategy and institutions of the country in combating the interrelated scourges of organized crime and violent gangs, which have prejudiced Honduras as well as its neighbors. Principal among these are the creation of a new inter-agency structure, de la Fuerza de Seguridad Interinstitucional Nacional (the National Inter-Agency Security Force [FUSINA]), integrating the military, police, prosecutors, special judges, and other state resources to combat organized crime and delinquency in the country. More controversially, he has created a new police force within the military, the Policía Militar del Orden Público (Military Police of Public Order [PMOP]), which has been deployed both to provide security to the nation’s principal urban areas, Tegucigalpa, Comayagüela and San Pedro Sula, and to participate in operations against organized crime groups. In the fight against narcotrafficking, he has advanced a concept of three interdependent “shields”:

1). An air shield to better control Honduran airspace, enabled by January 2014 enabling the shoot-down of suspected drug flights and the acquisition of three radars from Israel to support intercepts by the Honduran air force;

2). A maritime shield, with new naval bases on the country’s eastern coast, and new shallow-water and riverine assets for intercepting smugglers; and,

3). A land shield, including enhanced control of the border with Guatemala through the Task Force “Maya Chorti.”

Beyond FUSINA, the Hernandez administration has also sought to reform the nation’s national police, albeit with slow progress. It is also reforming the penitentiary system, dominated by the criminal gangs MS-13 and B-18.

The new security policies of the Hernandez administration against transnational organized crime and the gang threat, set forth in its Inter-Agency Security Plan and “OPERATION MORAZÁN,” have produced notable successes. With U.S. assistance, FUSINA and the Honduran government dismantled the leadership of the nation’s two principal family-based drug smuggling organizations, the Cachiros and the Los Valles, and significantly reduced the use of the national territory as a drug transit zone, particularly narco flights. Murders in the country have fallen from 86.5 per 100,000 in 2011, to 64 per 100,000 in 2014.

This monograph focuses on the evolution of the transnational organized crime and gang challenges in Honduras, the strategy and structures of the Hernandez administration in combating them, associated challenges, and provides recommendations for the U.S. military and policymakers to support the country in such efforts.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2016. 104p.

By Shima D. Keene.

The U.S. Army increasingly faces adversaries that are difficult to define. The threat landscape is further complicated by the silent partnership between criminal organizations, irregular groups, and nation-states. This collaboration, whatever its exact nature, is problematic, because it confounds understanding of the adversary, making existing countermeasures less effective, and thus directly challenging U.S. national security interests. Military action taken without full appreciation of the dynamics of the nature of these relationships is likely to be ineffective at best or suffer unintended consequences. This monograph provides a comprehensive assessment of the threat to U.S. national security interests posed by the silent partners, as well as how the vulnerabilities of the relationships could be exploited to the advantage of the U.S. Army.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2018. 72p.

By Hal Brands.

In late 2007, the U.S. and Mexican governments unveiled the Merida Initiative. A 3-year, $1.4 billion counternarcotics assistance program, the Merida Initiative is designed to combat the drug-fueled violence that has ravaged Mexico of late. The initiative aims to strengthen the Mexican police and military, permitting them to take the offensive in the fight against Mexico’s powerful cartels. As currently designed, however, the Merida Initiative is unlikely to have a meaningful, long-term impact in restraining the drug trade and drug-related violence. Focussing largely on security, enforcement, and interdiction issues, it pays comparatively little attention to the deeper structural problems that fuel these destructive phenomena. These problems, ranging from official corruption to U.S. domestic drug consumption, have so far frustrated Mexican attempts to rein in the cartels, and will likely hinder the effectiveness of the Merida Initiative as well. To make U.S. counternarcotics policy fully effective, it will be imperative to forge a more holistic, better-integrated approach to the “war on drugs.”

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2008. 68p.

By George W. Grayson.

The United States has diplomatic relations with 194 independent nations. Of these, none is more important to America than Mexico in terms of trade, investment, tourism, natural resources, migration, energy, and security. In recent years, narco-violence has afflicted Mexico with more than 50,000 drug-related murders since 2007 and some 26,000 men, women, and children missing. President Enrique Peña Nieto has tried to divert national attention from the bloodshed through reforms in energy, education, anti-hunger, health-care, and other areas. Even though the death rate has declined since the chief executive took office on December 1, 2012, other crimes continue to plague his nation. Members of the business community report continual extortion demands; the national oil company PEMEX suffers widespread theft of oil, gas, explosives, and solvents (with which to prepare methamphetamines); hundreds of Central American migrants have shown up in mass graves; and the public identifies the police with corruption and villainy. Washington policymakers, who overwhelmingly concentrate on Asia and the Mideast, would be well-advised to focus on the acute dangers that lie principally below the Rio Grande, but whose deadly avatars are spilling into our nation.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2014. 103p.

By George W. Grayson

La Familia Michoacana burst onto the national stage on September 6, 2006, when ruffians crashed into the seedy Sol y Sombra nightclub in Uruapan, Michoacán, and fired shots into the air. They screamed at the revelers to lie down, ripped open a plastic bag, and lobbed five human heads onto the beer-stained black and white dance floor. The day before these macabre pyrotechnics, the killers seized their prey from a mechanic’s shop and hacked off their heads with bowie knives while the men writhed in pain. “You don’t do something like that unless you want to send a big message,” said a U.S. law-enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity about an act of human depravity that would “cast a pall over the darkest nooks of hell.” The desperados left behind a note hailing their act as “divine justice,” adding that: "The Family doesn't kill for money; it doesn't kill women; it doesn't kill innocent people; only those who deserve to die, die. Everyone should know . . . this is divine justice.” While claiming to do the “Lord’s work,” the ruthless leaders of this syndicate have emerged as the dominant exporter of methamphetamines to the United States, even as they control scores of municipalities in Michoacán and neighboring states.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2010. 128p.

By Geoffrey Till.

The 21st century has seen the growth of a number of nontraditional threats to international stability on which, trade, and thus U.S. peace and security, depends, and for the moment at least a reduced likelihood of continental scale warfighting operations, and something of a de-emphasis on major involvement in counterinsurgency operations. These nontraditional threats are, however, very real and should command a higher priority than they have done in the past, even in a period of budgetary constraint. The military have cost-effective contributions to make in countering the manufacture and distribution of illicit drugs, and in many cases can do so without serious detriment to their main warfighting role. Successfully completing this mission, however, will require the military to rethink their integration with the nonmilitary aspects of a whole-of-government approach, and almost certainly, their institutional preference for speedy victories in short wars.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2020. 81p.

By John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker.

Contemporary Mexican cartel use of car bombs began in mid-July 2010 and has since escalated. Given the proximity to the United States, some literally within miles of the border, the car bombings, with about 20 incidents identified over the last 2 1/2 years, should be of interest to local, state, and federal U.S. law enforcement, the U.S. Army, and other governmental institutions which are providing increasing support to Mexican federal agencies. An historical overview and analysis of cartel car bomb use in Mexico provides context, insights, and lessons learned stemming from the Medellin and Cali cartel car bombing campaigns. In order to generate insights into future cartel car bombings in Mexico, the identification of such potentials offers a glimpse into cartel “enemy intent,” a possible form of actionable strategic intelligence. For Mexico, steady and both slowly and quickly increasing car bomb use trajectories may exist. The prognosis for decreasing car bomb deployment appears unlikely. If cartel car bombs were to be deployed on U.S. soil or against U.S. personnel and facilities in Mexico, such as our consulates, we could expect that a pattern of indications and warnings (I&W) would be evident prior to such an attack(s). In that case, I&W would be drawn from precursor events such as grenade and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks (or attempted attacks) on our personnel and facilities and on evolving cartel car bomb deployment patterns in Mexico. The authors conclude with initial recommendations for U.S. Army and defense community support to the military and the federal, state, and local police agencies of the Mexican state, and the various U.S. federal, state, and local police agencies operating near the U.S.-Mexican border. The extent of support in intelligence, organization, training, and equipment is highlighted, as well as the extent that these forms of support should be implemented to counter cartel vehicle-borne IEDs and overall cartel threats.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Books, 2013. 72p.