By Mark Galeotti

Time of Troubles is the first comprehensive assessment of the impact of the Ukraine war on the Russian underworld. The war’s human and economic costs, along with the political retrenchment of a regime under growing pressure, are all transforming illegal markets and organized crime in Russia with potentially destabilizing effects. The annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the subsequent undeclared conflict in the Donbas region had already begun to reshape the Russian underworld. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine, however, brought dramatic changes. An almost complete split between Ukrainian and Russian criminal groups has had a significant negative impact, not least because of their dominance over transnational narcotics flows. At the same time, new opportunities to smuggle sanctioned luxury goods for the rich and critical components for the defence–industrial complex have enriched and elevated other gangs, especially those able to exploit and control routes through Belarus, Armenia and Central Asia. All this is putting pressure on the underworld status quo – and the state’s capacity to manage and maintain it – and even reshaping the relationship between Russian criminal networks and their partners and subsidiaries abroad. Even when the war does end, some form of sanctions or trade and investment controls will almost certainly remain in place. The Kremlin will find it difficult to integrate large numbers of traumatized, impoverished and disillusioned veterans, many of whom risk drifting into organized and disorganized crime. Condemned to pariah status and looking for alternative ways to support itself, the state may turn its existing ad hoc relations with the underworld into something much more focused and institutionalized, creating new dangers for its neighbours and the global order as a whole. The stakes could hardly be higher.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2023. 72p.

By InfoAmazonia, Armando.Info and La Liga Contra el Silencio), Amazon Watch and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).

The Amazon, the world’s largest rainforest, covering some 7 million square kilometres and linking nine countries, has become one of the main sources and transit points for criminal economies in Latin America. From shipments of cocaine, gold and timber moving down its hundreds of rivers, to the makeshift airstrips that facilitate the nightly movement of small contraband planes, the Amazon is now home to a complex underground economy that feeds growing global demand but also fuels violence and deforestation. The unchecked actions of increasingly powerful criminal organizations pose an existential threat to the planet’s most biodiverse region and the communities it shelters. Over the past decade, the Amazon has become one of the most dangerous regions in Latin America, with marginalized communities bearing the brunt of the violence. In Brazil, for example, indigenous communities have been systematically subjected to violent invasions by armed garimpeiros (miners), while in Colombia’s nine Amazon departments, where 43 massacres have been documented since 2020, non-state armed groups terrorize rural communities. In Peru, drug traffickers are increasingly recruiting indigenous children to work on coca plantations, and guerrilla groups are sending entire families to work in illegal gold mines in Venezuela. In 2022, one in five killings of land and environmental defenders worldwide occurred in the Amazon.As demand for illicit goods, particularly cocaine, has risen to historically high levels and the price of gold has increased dramatically since the early 2000s, so have criminal opportunities.4 This, combined with a low state presence, high levels of corruption, decades of faltering security strategies and a lack of coordination between states, has created the perfect environment for some of Latin America’s most prolific criminal groups to reorganize and take over. The reshuffling of the local criminal ecosystem – which includes Colombian guerrilla groups, Brazilian gangs, Peruvian criminal groups (including drug and human traffickers) and Venezuelan crime syndicates – has resulted in some groups being wiped off the map, leaving room for others to emerge or expand. Through field research and data analysis, Amazon Underworld found that non-state armed groups or crime syndicates are active in 70 per cent of the municipalities investigated in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela (see the methodology section below), and that all of the Amazon’s borders have at least one armed actor on one side of the divide.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.2023. 40p.

By Vanda Felbab-Brown

Since 2007, negotiations with violent organised crime groups (hereafter, “criminal groups”) have been increasingly featured in government, church and NGO responses to violent criminality in Latin America and the Caribbean. They are enormously controversial, both politically and ethically. Many consider them unacceptable and counterproductive, as they may involve risks such as legitimising the criminal group or emboldening others to engage in criminal activities. The relative rarity with which such negotiations produce a deal and the great uncertainty as to their long-term outcomes are further sources of controversy. The sensitivity and risks are so large that some who have participated in the situations examined in this paper are wary of calling them “negotiations.” They may avoid the term even when they have bargained from a position of superiority or succeeded in striking a deal. In attempting to address the challenges criminal groups present, most countries understandably employ a tough-on-crime stance. Any other would be hard to justify to the public. Yet, where the activities of these groups have become especially pervasive and violent, there is often a lack of deterrence capacity, leading to public anger and desperation. Negotiation can thus sometimes become an option and may be pursued in conjunction with coercive tactics, institutional strengthening, legalisation measures and more. As a diplomat involved in the talks with criminal gangs in El Salvador and Honduras put it, by negotiating “we were not trying to get to heaven; we were just trying to avoid hell.” But if negotiation with criminal groups sometimes becomes necessary, which group characteristics and contextual factors must be taken into account? What end-goals are appropriate and realistic? What inducements, concessions and redlines must be contemplated? And how do such processes compare and contrast with negotiations conducted with politically-motivated insurgents? These are just some of the questions examined in this paper.   

Barcelona, Spain: The Institute for Integrated Transitions, 2021. 47p,

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 Gemma Dipoppa

The widespread presence of criminal organizations in strong states presents a theoretical and empirical puzzle. How do criminal organizations — widely believed to thrive in weak states — expand to states with strong capacity? I argue that criminal groups expand where they can strike agreements with local actors for the provision of illegal resources they control, and that this practice is particularly profitable in strong states where costs from prosecution are higher. Using a novel measure of organized crime presence, I show that (1) increases in demand for unskilled labor — and in criminals’ capacity to fill it by exploiting migrants — allowed southern Italian mafias to expand to the north, and that (2) mafia expansion gave a persistent electoral advantage to political parties collaborating with them. This suggests the need to reconceptualize criminal organizations not only as substitutes for weak states but as complements to strong states.

Preprint, 2021. 59p.

By Martin Ewi, Liesl Louw-Vaudran, Willem Els, Richard Chelin, Yussuf Adam and Elisa Samuel Boerekamp

Collaborative research between the Institute for Security Studies and the Judicial Training Institute of Mozambique revealed that people in Cabo Delgado see the discovery and poor governance of natural resources as a cause of the insurgency. The study also found few links between the insurgency and organised crime, and that regional rather than ethnic differences play a major role in the conflict.

 Key findings: The discovery and poor governance of natural resources such as rubies and liquefied natural gas have escalated terrorism. Regional inequities, not ethnicity, are a major grievance in Cabo Delgado. Despite resentment of the elite, who are blamed for the region’s poverty, there is no evidence that people are voluntarily joining the insurgency en masse. The criminal justice sector lacks basic resources and skills to prosecute the growing number of terrorist suspects. People in Cabo Delgado are more concerned about the threat of the Mashababos (Alu-Sunnah wal Jama'ah) than the Islamic State. Recommendations Government of Mozambique: Partner with local organisations to address legitimate grievances Develop a national strategy covering all aspects of the crisis Effectively manage the amnesty programme Establish a centralised national inter-agency counter-terrorism unit, and prioritise coordination and intelligence-led military operations Strengthen the criminal justice system to prosecute terrorism, organised crime and corruption Set up a commission of inquiry into the drivers of violent extremism Strengthen intelligence sharing with neighbouring countries SADC and Mozambique’s neighbours: Assist Mozambique to tighten border security Regularly share intelligence Mosques, Islamic centres and local markets are believed to be meeting points and areas of recruitment and radicalisation. Respondents fear that the violence could easily spread to other parts of Mozambique and countries in Southern Africa. Evidence of a nexus between terrorism and organised crime is weak.  Since the deployment of foreign forces, mass recruitment has stopped as Al Sunnah evolves into a professional, well-trained group, practising guerrilla warfare.

Pretoria, South Africa, Institute for Security Studies, 2022. 52p.

By The International Crisis Group

The number of women active in Mexico’s criminal organisation has risen steadily in recent years. Women often view joining criminal groups as a way of protecting themselves from gender-based violence and acquiring the power and respect they lack in law-abiding society. Searing personal accounts, media reports and data analysis of the prison census all point to the conclusion that Mexican women are joining criminal outfits in greater numbers. Frequently from poor backgrounds and broken families, young women offenders report that they drifted into criminality through their partners or connections they forged at drug use hotspots. Male crime bosses tend to value women for their perceived competence, respect for hierarchy and ability to evade police attention. Women’s presence in illegal groups has strengthened these organisations. It has also more deeply embedded crime in the fabric of Mexican society and within families. Deterring women and children from lives of crime will require the state and non-governmental organisations to provide alternative pathways to earning a living through initiatives in, for example, jails, drug rehabilitation centres and schools. The ascent of women in Mexican crime groups represents a striking departure from how they have traditionally intersected with these organisations. Women and their bodies have long been targets of Mexican criminal outfits. When these organisations battle for turf, they often commit femicides and “disappearances” of women – namely, killing them and disposing of the remains – in part to demonstrate dominance in a geographical region. Witness how crimes against women have increased in areas where illegal organisations jockey for control: killing sprees erupted in the border city of Ciudad Juárez in the 1990s and more recently in Zacatecas, Puebla, Veracruz, the State of Mexico and other places where criminal groups are vying for power. But increasing numbers of women are attracted to the benefits they can reap from joining a criminal organisation. Gender-based violence is rife in Mexico, and judicial redress is virtually non-existent. Young women interviewed for this report almost uniformly experienced abuse in their homes and communities. Most noted that the support of criminal groups and the status they acquire within them can offer protection, recognition and even dignity – in addition, of course, to income.

Brussels: International Crisis Groups, 2023. 39p.

By Mark Lauchs

     Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs are receiving increased attention by academics around the world. However, the field is in need of global data on how, when, where and why clubs form before any generalised conclusions can be drawn. This paper begins this process by attempting to identify every club that has formed in the world by location and date. 18 months of searching online through websites and social media identified 5072 separate clubs, which were then grouped by region and date. This data shows different trends of club formation in different regions. The data shows Western Nations formed clubs much earlier than other regions, but that Scandinavia, South America and East Asia are continuing to form new clubs at an increasing rate. Despite the USA being the country of origin of the culture, it only has 18% of all clubs. This paper concludes with suggestions for future research questions illuminated by the data, that try to explain the popularity of the culture and the environmental circumstances that lead to club formation.

Brisbane, Australia. Queensland University of Technology, 2020. 29pg

By: Christian Klement

The number of outlaw bikers is growing globally. Despite this, little research exists on these groups and their alleged violent tendencies. To address this, the current paper uses unique data to examine whether gang violence causes outlaw biker violence. The period examined runs from mid-2008 until early 2012 during which violent clashes occurred between outlaw bikers and street gang members involved in an alleged conflict in Copenhagen, Denmark. A precise description of each individual act of violence would make it possible to identify whether specific acts were carried out in furtherance of the alleged conflict. This would allow one to determine whether outlaw bikers commit violence on behalf of their club. However, such knowledge is unavailable. The paper therefore takes a different approach by examining whether acts of violence committed by the two groups are statistically associated. In other words, it considers whether one or more acts can be described as retaliatory during the observation periods. The sample consists of 640 individuals involved with the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club or with non-biker street gangs–both of which are present in Copenhagen. Statistical models are used to predict 143 violent events committed by 196 outlaw bikers. The results suggest that violence committed by gang members predicts violence committed by outlaw bikers. This indicates that violent acts committed by outlaw bikers are at least partly a form of retaliation carried out on behalf of their club. The paper expands the literature on the kinds of inter-group, micro-level processes that can lead to reciprocal violence by including outlaw bikers in a literature that has previously focused on non-biker street gangs.

Aalborg, Denmark. Department of Sociology and Social Work, May 8th, 2019. 27pg

By Paul Larsson

This article deals with the policing of biker groups in Norway. It describes the two idealtypical approaches of dialogue and confrontation. It tries to explain why the police use certain methods. It finds that policing is rarely based on knowledge of what works or the causes of a problem. Instead the approaches chosen seem to reflect certain styles of policing described in cultural studies of the police.

Norway, CrossMark. June 11, 2018. 17pg

By  Anthony Morgan, Christopher Dowling and Isabella Voce 

Using national data on the criminal histories of 5,669 known outlaw motorcycle gang (OMCG) members from 39 gangs, this paper explores the prevalence of violent and organised crime offending among Australian OMCGs. Violent and profit-motivated offending was common among OMCG members. One in four had been apprehended for a recent offence involving violence and intimidation, and one in eight for organised crime-type offences. Offending and associated harm was concentrated among a relatively small group of members. Half of all chapters and three-quarters of gangs had members recently involved in organised crime-type offending. In 11 gangs, both office bearers and other members were involved in organised crime, indicative of their status as criminal organisations. These gangs were also among those with the highest prevalence of violence and intimidation offences. 

Australia, Australian Institute of Criminology. Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice, #586. February 2020. 18pg

By Timothy Cubitt, Christopher Dowling and Anthony Morgan 

This study examines the trends in and spatial distribution of recorded offending by Australian outlaw motorcycle gang (OMCG) affiliates at the onset of a territorial conflict between two clubs in the state of New South Wales. Results show an increase in recorded offending by OMCG affiliates involved in the conflict and based in the disputed territory. Comparable increases in recorded offending by these clubs were not detected in the areas surrounding this territory or in the rest of New South Wales, and there was little mobility into the conflict region by those outside of it. There was a smaller, short-lived increase in recorded crime by affiliates of other gangs in the conflict region but not elsewhere. In short, changes in offending patterns were largely limited to the clubs involved in the conflict and localised to the territory in dispute. This research can help guide focused law enforcement responses during periods of gang conflict. 

Australia, Australian Institute of Criminology. Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 667. 2021. 18pg

By Timothy Cubitt and Anthony Morgan 

Risk assessment tools are used widely in the criminal justice response to serious offenders. Despite growing recognition that certain outlaw motorcycle gang (OMCG) members and their clubs are likely to be involved in crime, particularly serious crime, this is not an area where risk assessment tools have been developed and validated. The nature of offending by OMCGs, and policing responses to OMCGs, requires a novel approach to risk assessment. This study uses machine learning methods to develop a risk assessment tool to predict recorded high-harm offending. Results are compared with those of a model predicting any recorded offending. The model predicted high-harm offending with a high degree of accuracy. Importantly, the tool appeared able to accurately identify offenders prior to the point of escalation. This has important implications for informing law enforcement responses. 

Australia, Australian Institute of Criminology. Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 646. March 2022. 18pg

By Lucas Bartolomé -Chairperson, Mihnea Dorneanu -Chairperson

At the present time, the demand for drugs is growing as strong as ever, and to meet this demand, criminal organizations set up drug production operations, particularly in politically unstable regions, often with the collaboration of local militias. These operations help fund the violence and many other criminal activities committed by these organizations, including money laundering, wildlife trading, smuggling, prostitution, human trafficking, and modern-day slavery. Furthermore, the kind of drugs grown are harmful both to the growers of the raw material in the origin country, as they are often trapped in cycles of poverty which inhibit economic development, as well as to the users, due to the societal harm addiction causes upon the population. Therefore, it is essential to fight against the drug trade and find ways to mitigate its effect; however, this is notoriously difficult. Typically, the mechanism for these kinds of operations is the following: farmers in politically unstable regions are forced to grow the plants from which drugs are extracted as they are the only ones from which they are able to make a living; they do this under the protection of local warlords or militias, to whom they often have to pay tax to. Raw opium is delivered, generally through local middlemen, to the criminal organizations that handle the refining and distribution to the rest of the world. This is usually done with either the tacit acceptance of the government, which might consider the militias as strategically useful, or by bribing corrupt government officials who will turn a blind eye. Nowadays in Asia, there exist two main areas where drug production is rampant. These are the socalled "Golden Crescent" and "Golden Triangle". The Golden Crescent covers parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, though production is nowadays mostly concentrated in Afghanistan. The area has had a long history of cultivating poppies in order to extract opium at a small scale; nonetheless, with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, many mujahideen guerrillas turned to poppy farming and opium refining as a source of income, and this continued and increased throughout the end of the Soviet occupation, and the beginning of Taliban rule, as Afghanistan became the world's major source of opioids and replaced Iran and Pakistan's dominance in the region. This lasted right up until the Taliban introduced a ban on poppy farming in 2001, which was brutally enforced and caused a sharp drop in poppy farming with an accompanying skyrocketing of the price. This was short-lived as the September 11th attacks soon occurred and the ensuing invasion of the country by the United States yet again plunged the area into conflict and poppy production once more became the only source of income for many farmers. Despite many attempts by the democratic Afghan government, to this day Afghanistan continues to be the world's largest producer of opioids, which mostly get trafficked to Europe and North America, and the end of the Afghan War and resumption of Taliban rule don't seem to have put a stop to it. Despite nominally being against the drug trade, the Taliban has been accused of using poppy farming to secure its own funding and of intentionally causing the spike in price in 2001 to sell its own reserves at a higher price. The democratic government seemed more inclined to genuinely try to solve the problem; however, local corrupt officials severely undermined its efforts. Though the Golden Crescent's main export is opium, recent forays into the production of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamines have been reported, and the region is also the top exporter of cannabis.

Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Model United Nations of Bucharest, 2023. 30p.

By Adam Baird , Matthew Louis Bishop , Dylan Kerrigan

The Southern Caribbean became a key hemispheric drug transhipment point in the late 1990s, to which the alarmingly high level of homicidal violence in Trinidad is often attributed. Existing research, concentrated in criminology and mainstream international relations, as well as the anti-drug policy establishment, tends to accept this correlation, framing the challenge as a typical post-Westphalian security threat. However, conventional accounts struggle to explain why murders have continued to rise even as the relative salience of narcotrafficking has actually declined. By consciously disentangling the main variables, we advance a more nuanced empirical account of how ‘the local’ is both inserted into and mediates the impact of ‘the global’. Relatively little violence can be ascribed to the drug trade directly: cocaine frequently transits through Trinidad peacefully, whereas firearms stubbornly remain within a distinctive geostrategic context we term a ‘weapons sink’. The ensuing murders are driven by the ways in which these ‘residues’ of the trade reconstitute the domestic gangscape. As guns filter inexorably into the community, they reshape the norms and practices underpinning acceptable and anticipated gang behaviour, generating specifically ‘residual’ forms of violence that are not new in genesis, but rather draw on long historical antecedents to exacerbate the homicide panorama. Our analysis emphasises the importance of taking firearms more seriously in understanding the diversity of historically constituted violences in places that appear to resemble—but differ to—the predominant Latin American cases from which the conventional wisdom about supposed ‘drug violence’ is generally distilled.

Political Geography. Volume 106, October 2023, 102966

By David Lewis

Despite Ukraine's ongoing counter-offensive, in September 2023 Russia still controlled around 17% of Ukrainian territory, an area roughly the size of Denmark. Russia's occupation of these Ukrainian territories relied primarily on repression and violence, but economic levers also played an important role in consolidating Russian rule. This paper details Russia's illicit economic activity in the occupied territories and calls for more international attention to this aspect of Russia's invasion.

Since Russia occupied large parts of south-eastern Ukraine in March 2022, it has worked rapidly to incorporate these regions into Russia's economic and financial system. Key elements in this 'economic occupation' include:

• The seizure of many Ukrainian businesses and assets. The occupation authorities 'nationalised' many companies and reregistered them as Russian businesses with new management.

• The imposition of the Russian currency, financial and tax system, and the forced closure of Ukrainian banks.

• The forcible takeover of farms or pressure on farmers to cooperate with the occupation authorities. Russian officials oversaw the illegal export of Ukrainian grain from the occupied territories.

The reconstruction of cities such as Mariupol, the city destroyed by Russian forces in spring 2022, in a multi-billion-dollar government programme that is profiting well-connected Russian companies.

These acts were all illegal under Ukrainian law and some may constitute potential war crimes under international law.

Research Paper 20. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, 2023. 43p.

By The Venezuela Investigative Unit

The blood streamed down Eduardo Labrador’s face and splattered across his shirt. “Film me! Film me!” he shouted at the journalist who had come to check on him. As he addressed the camera, he was defiant, angry even. Today, he said, they had come out to defend democracy in Venezuela. And this was the result.

One year later, he grasped for an analogy for what it felt like to be beaten. “I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced an explosion, you feel it there, so close to your ears — Boom! For hours I heard that boom in my ears,” he told InSight Crime.

The image of Labrador, blood-streaked and indignant, shattered the façade of an orderly and peaceful election that the Venezuelan government had been desperate to present to the world.

Labrador had been attacked by armed men as he tried to carry out his duties as the campaign director for the political opposition during local and regional elections in November 2021. The assault, he says, was part of a premeditated campaign of voter intimidation in the municipality of San Francisco in the northwestern state of Zulia. And behind that campaign, he alleged, was Zulia’s then-governor Omar Prieto.

Labrador had witnessed Prieto’s rise firsthand as a political ally within the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela – PSUV) and member of his cabinet. He was often seen as Prieto’s right-hand man.

But over time, Labrador watched the socialist project he had once believed in descend into what another former high-level PSUV insider described to InSight Crime as “a project of crime in power.”

That project saw Prieto and his cronies carry out extortion, embezzlement, theft, and smuggling rackets from within the state, while deploying a criminalized police force as a private militia to protect their interests.

It was a project very much of that moment in Venezuela’s history.

When Prieto became governor in 2017, Venezuela was on the brink of economic collapse, and President Nicolás Maduro was under political siege. Desperate to maintain the loyalty of a fractured PSUV, underpaid security forces, and military and political elites unhappy with their dwindling corruption profits, Maduro granted territories to the different poles of power within the Chavista political movement. And then he gave them permission to squeeze whatever criminal profits they could from those territories.

Prieto was granted power in Zulia as a scion of the most important political faction within Chavismo outside of Maduro’s own network. And for the duration of his term, he pushed that permissiveness to its limits.

But by the time he was standing for reelection in 2021, that moment was beginning to pass. Venezuela had a measure of stability. Maduro’s presidency had survived, and his objectives were shifting. He wanted to reenter the international community both politically and economically. He wanted to consolidate his personal power and neuter his rivals within the PSUV. And he wanted to bring order to the mafia state that had grown up during the crisis.

Which is why Maduro invited international observers to monitor the 2021 elections, in the hopes that they would tell the world the elections were free and fair. And why even when it became clear the PSUV was going to lose Zulia, he made no intervention to help Prieto, who had overstepped the conventional limits on criminality and corruption.

Venezuela’s 2021 elections were problematic but largely peaceful. The violence in Zulia, which left one dead and three — including Labrador — injured, was a shocking exception. But it was entirely predictable. Prieto, the gangster governor, was never likely to go quietly.

Washington DC: InSight Crime, 2023. 39p.

By The Venezuela Investigative Unit

Ten years ago, Tren de Aragua was a little more than a prison gang, confined to the walls of the Tocorón penitentiary and largely unheard of outside its home state of Aragua in Venezuela. Today, it is one of the fastest-growing security threats in South America.

Tren de Aragua’s transnational network now stretches into Colombia, Peru, Chile, and beyond. It has established some of the most far-reaching and sophisticated migrant smuggling and sex trafficking networks seen in the region. And it has spread terror in host countries and among the Venezuelan migrant population, which it has ruthlessly exploited.

But the seizure of Tocorón by Venezuelan authorities in September 2023 directly attacked the nerve center of this network. Now, a new, more uncertain, era is beginning for Venezuela’s most notorious criminal export.

Washington DC: InSight Crime, 2023. 28p.

By INTERPOL and ENACT Africa

Across the globe, the proliferation of new armed groups (including rebels, militias, criminal groups and gangs) has made conflict prevention and resolution even more complex . Armed groups are diversifying their revenues, which are increasingly based on organized crime activities . Organized Crime Groups (OCGs) often benefit from the turmoil of armed conflicts and violence. They can engage in violence to protect their illicit business, undermining national economic development and security. Furthermore, OCGs can team up with armed groups to access and control natural resources, competing with the state to provide public goods or even protection to their community. Different situations of violent conflict affect countries in the Eastern African region. Crime dynamics that emerge from instability in one country of the region can spill over into a neighbouring country, posing a threat to regional peace and security. The emergence of hybrid criminal groups engaged in transnational organized crime and in armed conflict most likely represents a relevant dimension of contemporary conflict in Eastern Africa. Yet, the knowledge on the multiple ways in which OCGs prey, or even amplify, local conflicts for their own benefit remains limited. In many instances, the scale of criminal activities in Eastern Africa contributes to an increase in the risk of conflict or in its prolongation. Organized crime thrives in conflict and other situations of violence in the region when goods and supplies are scarce, filling the demand often in association with armed groups. In some cases, revenue from criminal activities enables armed groups to finance their activities. The illicit circulation of weapons in the region from and into conflict-affected settings fuels violence and criminal activities. Information suggests that in some occasions, armed groups and OCGs collude to smuggle goods, migrants and drugs through the region and beyond. Moreover, the illicit extraction, control and taxation of natural resources in the region is often a source of revenue for armed groups and often links them with criminal actors. Information shows that livestock theft, or cattle rustling, poses a serious threat to many countries in the region and fuels the increase in the demand for small arms and light weapons in two aspects: for fighters to steal cattle and for ranchers to protect their livestock against such attacks. Higher levels of violence have been reported in cattle rustling cases affecting local economies and security. Organized violence for profit continues to affect Eastern Africa. Kidnapping for ransom, looting, threats and sexual gender-based violence are among the most reported incidents in the region. The driving factors for those crimes are sometimes difficult to discern and involve a combination of reasons such as economic gain, firearms sourcing (notably for cases of looting security forces), intention to control a community or territory. Illicit financial flows, and particularly, illicit taxation, allow OCGs and armed groups to generate revenue through commodity taxes, by imposing taxes on the community to move through certain areas or to run their business

Lyon, France: INTERPOL, 2021. 32p

By Kingsley Madueke | Lawan Danjuma Adamu Katja Lindskov Jacobsen | Lucia Bird

Political violence is a major obstacle to democratic processes worldwide. Violence perpetrated in pursuit of electoral victory has widespread consequences: the destruction of lives and property, the displacement of people, undermining the credibility of the electoral process, and the erosion of public trust in democratic institutions.1 In countries throughout Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone, gangs play a pivotal role in political violence. When they are not perpetrating political violence, the same gangs often engage in a range of illicit markets.2 Yet, so far, analyses have not adequately scrutinized the link between gangs, political violence and illicit markets, predominantly understanding them as separate phenomena.3 The intersection between them has been understated, with important implications for response strategies. Background Since Nigeria’s return to democracy in 1999, criminal gangs have played an increasingly pivotal role in driving political violence in the country. These criminal actors engage in a broad spectrum of activities, including intimidation of voters and political opponents, assassinations and disruption of political rallies on behalf of political actors. Gangs are remunerated in cash, material gifts and other favours from political actors, including state appointments and protection. Despite the deployment of security forces, election periods in Nigeria have long been characterized by high levels of violence – the 2023 elections were no exception.4 Although data collated regarding political violence in Nigeria broadly demonstrates a decrease in lives lost compared to previous electoral cycles, the number of violent incidents recorded has grown. Furthermore, the research presented in this report underscores that number of incidents of political violence fails to capture the full impact of political violence in determining Nigeria’s most recent political outcomes. Disenfranchisement was a clear consequence of covert forms of threat and intimidation: the 2023 elections saw the lowest voter turnout in Nigeria’s history, with President Bola Tinubu’s mandate effectively granted by less than 10% of Nigeria’s electorate. Though electoral violence is a countrywide concern in Nigeria, Kano in the north and Rivers in the south are repeatedly among the states hit hardest by political violence. In 2023 both became flashpoints for election violence.5 Both states are highly politically competitive and have a strong presence of criminal gangs with links to politicians, which play a leading role in electoral violence. The long history of election violence, coupled with the incidents of attacks and clashes leading up to and during the 2023 elections, had a major impact on voter turnout, the voting process and, consequently, the outcome of the elections in these areas Criminal gangs are not the only actors that have been associated with violence in Nigeria. For example, different groups, including violent extremist organizations such as Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'adati wal-Jihad (JAS), armed bandits in the north, as well as secessionists such as the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) in the south-east have allegedly been involved in violence in different parts of the country. However, this report focuses on criminal gangs because they have featured more prominently in election-related violence and they have comparatively deeper roots in the country’s social and political landscape in the states under study. As case studies, the situations in Kano and Rivers demonstrate that political violence in Nigeria cannot be dismissed as a phenomenon limited to a particular geography or political party. The states are positioned in different regions, beset by different criminal and conflict dynamics, and have contrasting histories of political affiliation. Yet the centrality of political violence – and the pivotal interlinkages between crime and politics it reveals – is a common thread corroding democratic processes across both states, and Nigeria as a whole. In Kano and Rivers, the current dynamics of political violence emerged when political parties contracted elements of pre-existing groups (hunters’ associations and cult groups, respectively) to attack opponents, voters and election officials. The contracted groups benefited from this political alignment, and over time there emerged a mutually beneficial ecosystem between gangs and politicians. This ecosystem – the exact contours of which are shaped by complex local factors – is highly damaging for the Nigeria’s democracy. The two case studies presented in this report attempt to untangle this complex ecosystem and explore key questions: did gangs or political violence emerge first? What happens to gangs on the losing side of the political contest? Furthermore, elections are cyclical, and political gangs seem poised to service the demands of their political contractors at each four-year interlude. But what do these gangs do in the interim? This question – what do political thugs do when they are not doing political violence?6 – underpinned this research. Criminal markets provided the answer. This report argues that outside of election cycles, criminal gangs involved in political violence are engaged in a range of illicit markets for their sustainability and resilience. The link between political violence and illicit markets is a significant concern as it provides criminal actors with political cover and access to the means to perpetrate further acts of violence and criminality. Exploring the implications of such intersections for politics and governance, and identifying potential ways to disrupt such links, is therefore urgently required.

Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2023. 47p.