09 November 2010

Countries Cooperate to Confront Crime Rings

By Andrzej Zwaniecki
Staff Writer

Washington — In the mid-2000s, when the United States, Panama and Colombia together brought down a major Colombia-based criminal group, multilateral cooperation in combating international crime rings was not common. Neither was the reach of the criminal group’s operations — it smuggled drugs and people and provided weapons to a terrorist organization.

Since that group’s demise, the United States and other governments have mounted a number of successful joint operations against increasingly sophisticated transnational organized crime. To fight it more forcefully, the Obama administration is developing innovative global partnerships across the Pacific and Atlantic and using existing international agreements and institutions to strengthen cooperation among countries.

Such efforts are necessary because syndicates themselves are always on the lookout for effective partners in crime. “We constantly are trying to stay ahead of and confront criminal syndicates,” said David M. Luna, director of anti-crime programs for the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL).

But the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its June report said countries need to do even more against transnational crime syndicates, which have grown more powerful than ever. Antonio Costa, head of the UNODC, described the attitude of still too many nations as “benign neglect.”

Luna said, “We are working with partners globally to strengthen the political will to confront transnational criminal threats and illicit networks.”

THE GLOBALIZATION OF CRIME

In recent years, nimble criminal enterprises have transformed themselves into market- and technology-savvy organizations that span the globe and operate within legitimate economies. General James Jones, former U.S. national security adviser, called this development “astonishing” after reviewing a related 2010 national intelligence estimate.

Organized crime, which generates trillions of dollars annually from illicit activities such as trafficking drugs and counterfeiting products, increasingly cuts into revenues of legal companies and governments’ tax receipts, undermines the global financial system, weakens the rule of law and threatens the security, stability and economic development of many countries.

Other consequences, still only potential, are more frightening. Some criminal groups may have the ability to acquire and sell radioactive materials or weapons of mass destruction, according to David Johnson, an assistant secretary of state for the INL. As terrorists and insurgents squeezed by international sanctions turn to crime for funds and to criminal groups for logistical support, such a scenario becomes more likely, analysts say.

Rita Grossman-Vermaas of the Fund for Peace said crime syndicates are better at managing across different sectors and borders than governments are at managing across different departments and jurisdictions. The Fund for Peace is a nongovernmental group that works to prevent war and alleviate the conditions that cause conflict.

“Governments are playing a ‘catch-up’ with organized crime,” she said.

Differing national laws make international cooperation difficult. And some developing nations may not view organized crime as a top priority or lack governance capacity to deal with it, Grossman-Vermaas said. Helping governments of those nations understand the vital interests they have in confronting organized crime and boosting their capacity to do so will go a long way, she said.

“[Governance] capacity-building helps mitigate the influence of organized crime and attractiveness of regions and countries to crime/terrorist networks,” she said.

SEEKING NEW FOCUS, COALITIONS

The UNODC report concludes that purely national responses to the rise of organized crime are inadequate because too often they only shift the problem from one country to another. What is needed is a multilateral and multidimensional strategy that includes even greater international information- and intelligence-sharing and law enforcement cooperation.

A “multidimensional approach” would require the interaction of different sectors of civil society and the formation of public-private partnerships, according to Louise Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University. The business community should lead these efforts.

“Businesses are our first responders as they have more timely information,” Luna said, describing U.S. officials’ efforts to work with others to break criminal syndicates.

Countries must also shift their focus from criminals and mafias to the markets from which they derive their illicit proceeds, the report says. Breaking crime rings and incarcerating their members does not have lasting effects as long as market incentives exist; new criminals and groups fill the void quickly.

This has registered with the business community. Shelley said that in the last year or two she has seen the community take the initiative. For example, private-sector entities in New York have cooperated with the city to expel criminally infiltrated enterprises from doing business in it. Shelley herself is part of a new program on organized crime launched by the World Economic Forum that brings together the business community and nongovernmental groups.

Striking at corruption is particularly important. Corruption not only facilitates organized crime, but also allows crime syndicates to expand across borders and penetrate legal economies. “Criminals use weapons and violence, but also money and bribes to buy elections, politicians and power — even the military,” UNODC head Costa said.

U.S. officials support this view. That is why the international fight against corruption has intensified in recent years. “We are making progress,” Luna said. In October, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development commended the United States for its efforts to enforce laws against bribery of foreign officials and related high-level support.

Learn more about international anti-corruption efforts in the feature Anti-Corruption Without Borders.

The UNODC report on transnational organized crime (PDF, 10.5MB) is available on the UNODC website. The summary of the 2009 Trans-Pacific Symposium on Dismantling Transnational Illicit Networks is available on the State Department website.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)