Transnational organized crime

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Transnational organized crime (TOC) is

trafficking for sex, toxic waste disposal, materials theft and poaching.[2]

History

Prior to World War I, several organizations were created to formalize international police cooperation, but most quickly failed, primarily because public police institutions were not sufficiently detached from the political centers of their respective states to function autonomously as expert bureaucracies.[3] In 1914, the First International Criminal Police Congress was held in Monaco, which saw police officers, lawyers and magistrates from 24 countries meeting to discuss arrest procedures, identification techniques, centralized international criminal records and extradition proceedings. This organization appeared poised to avoid the political forces that ended earlier organizations, but the outbreak of World War I disorganized the Congress.[4]

In 1923, a second International Criminal Police Congress was held in Vienna, on the initiative of Mr. Hans Schober, President of the Austrian police. Schober, eager to avoid the politics that doomed previous international police efforts, noted that "ours is not a political but a cultural goal. It only concerns the fight against the common enemy of humankind: the ordinary criminal."[3] This second Congress created the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), which served as the direct forerunner of Interpol.[5] Founding members included police officials from Russia, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Poland, China, Egypt, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia.[6] In 1926, the ICPC's General Assembly, held in Berlin, proposed that each country establish a central point of contact within its police structure: the forerunner of the National Central Bureau (NCB).[5] In 1938, the Nazis assumed control of the ICPC and most countries stopped participating, effectively causing the ICPC to cease to exist as an international organization.

After World War II, Belgium led the rebuilding of the organization, with a new headquarters in Paris and a new name -

War on Drugs. At the time, the flow of illicit narcotics into its borders was deemed a major risk to the health and safety of Americans, and as a result, enormous resources were spent in the effort to curtail both the supply of and demand for illegal drugs. In the three decades that followed President Nixon's declaration, drug trafficking served as the dominant form of what the United States and many of its allies viewed as transnational organized crime.[8]

In recent years, that viewpoint has changed. The character of transnational organized crime has changed in three major ways since the war on drugs began. Drug trafficking has become more diversified, criminal networks have harnessed new methods of conducting business, and the structure of criminal networks has changed. Organized crime has gone global, giving way to the term transnational organized crime. Global governance has failed to keep pace with economic globalization. Antonio Maria Costa, former executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, effectively summarized the change in TOC over the last quarter century by saying, "as unprecedented openness in trade, finance, travel and communication has created economic growth and well-being, it has also given rise to massive opportunities for criminals to make their business prosper."[2]

Effects

Transnational organized crime is widely opposed on the basis of a number of negative effects. It can undermine democracy, disrupt free markets, drain national assets, and inhibit the development of stable societies.[9] In doing so, it has been argued[citation needed], national and international criminal groups threaten the security of all nations. The victims of these transnational crime networks are governments that are unstable or not powerful enough to prevent them, with the networks conducting illegal activities that provide them with profits. Transnational organized crimes interrupt peace[citation needed] and stability[citation needed] of nations worldwide, often using bribery, violence, or terror to meet their needs.

TOC is insufficiently understood, according to the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.[2] In the most recent full-scale United Nations assessment of TOC, conducted in 2010, the executive director states, "there is a lack of information on transnational criminal markets and trends. The few studies that exist have looked at sections of the problem, by sector or country, rather than the big picture. Without a global perspective there cannot be evidence-based policy."[2] In response to the threat, law enforcement agencies have created a number of effective approaches for combating this transnational organized crime.[10]

Louise I. Shelley (Director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University) has said:

Transnational crime will be a defining issue of the 21st century for policymakers - as defining as the Cold War was for the 20th century and colonialism was for the 19th. Terrorists and transnational crime groups will proliferate because these crime groups are major beneficiaries of globalization. They take advantage of increased travel, trade, rapid money movements, telecommunications and computer links, and are well positioned for growth.[11]

Combating transnational organized crime

Most illicit trafficking begins or ends in the world's greatest economic powers, such as the G8 (forum). In other words, the world's largest trading partners are also the world's greatest markets for illicit goods and services. Many of these world powers have recently taken steps to combat TOC in a large, collective, international effort with partners and allies. Several organizations around the world have initiated efforts to combat TOC whose success or failure have yet to be determined.[12]

According to the UN Asia and Far East Institute (UNAFEI), combating transnational organized crime relies first and foremost on effective investigative techniques and prosecutorial tools. Three techniques in particular stand out as the most important in combating transnational organized crime:

confidential informants (CIs),[13] with electronic surveillance being the single most important and effective law enforcement tool against TOC.[13] Electronic surveillance provides reliable, often irrefutable evidence of crimes through a participant's own words or image. This form allows law enforcement to learn of conspirators' plans before they are carried out and is particularly helpful in combating TOC because it enables law enforcement in any country to obtain evidence of co-conspirators in other countries. Obtaining evidence of conspiratorial planning internationally would otherwise be very difficult.[citation needed
]

After electronic surveillance, the second most important tool is undercover operations,

which?] CIs are engaged in criminal activity themselves and can therefore provide valuable direct evidence regarding the criminal activities being conducted by their criminal associates. Such evidence frequently enables law enforcement officers to obtain warrants authorizing electronic surveillance. In rare cases, the court may order the disclosure of a CIs identity to a defendant, such as when the informant can provide evidence that may exculpate the defendant.[citation needed
]

Enforcement in the United States

Tools of Prosecution

The following are some of the methods used by authorities in the US to combat transnational organised crime:

White House Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime

In May 2010, the White House released its National Security Strategy, detailing the need to aggressive combat transnational organized crime. This strategy document states, "Combating transnational criminal and trafficking networks requires a multidimensional strategy that safeguards citizens, breaks the financial strength of criminal and terrorist networks, disrupts illicit trafficking networks, defeats transnational criminal organizations, fights government corruption, strengthens the rule of law, bolsters judicial systems, and improves transparency. While these are major challenges, the United States will be able to devise and execute a collective strategy with other nations facing the same threats."[14]

In July 2011, the White House released its Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, which reflects this change and sets forth a strategy "to build, balance, and integrate the tools of American power to combat transnational organized crime and related threats to national security—and to urge our foreign partners to do the same."[15] This strategy document set out five overarching policy objectives consistent with the vision and priorities of the National Security Strategy:

  1. Protect Americans and our partners from the harm, violence, and exploitation of transnational criminal networks.
  2. Help partner countries strengthen governance and transparency, break the corruptive power of transnational criminal networks, and sever state-crime alliances.
  3. Break the economic power of transnational criminal networks and protect strategic markets and the U.S. financial system from TOC penetration and abuse.
  4. Defeat transnational criminal networks that pose the greatest threat to national security, by targeting their infrastructures, depriving them of their enabling means, and preventing the criminal facilitation of terrorist activities.
  5. Build international consensus, multilateral cooperation, and public-private partnerships to defeat transnational organized crime.

Enforcement agencies of the United States

National Guard

In keeping with the

Combatant Commands, military services, federal agencies, state and local law enforcement, and community leaders.[16]

Another approach the United States takes in CTOC is the use of multijurisdictional task forces that combine investigative resources from several agencies so that the strength and sophistication of a task force's capabilities are greater than any single agency. Collaboration among law enforcement agencies is a key element in discovering possible links between local crimes and crimes with a transnational component.[17]

The National Guard Bureau uses such an organization in CTOC. Its Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training (MCTFT) program and its Western Regional Counterdrug Training Center provide the core of National Guard Bureau training and collaboration among law enforcement agencies at all levels.[18]

United States Southern Command