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Begin New Search Topic Organized Crime Publication Year within 10 Years

41. U.S.-Mexico Drug Trafficking: Globalization, Cooperation and Challenges

Author:
Juan Carlos Gachúz Maya
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
Criminal organizations have taken advantage of some of the benefits of the globalization process, have expanded their networks and have become groups that operate regionally and transnationally. The context of globalization entails the need to reform the structure of institutions and their way of operating at the domestic and regional levels. International cooperation between national institutions is not enough to face international challenges such as regional and global crime. The fight against drug trafficking networks between the U.S.and Mexico demands new institutional structures that involve the participation of state and non-state actors at a regional and global level.
Topic:
Globalization, Narcotics Trafficking, Drugs, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
North America, Mexico, and United States of America

42. Modernization of the Strategic Intelligence System for National Security in Mexico / Modernización del Sistema de Inteligencia Estratégica para la Seguridad Nacional en México

Author:
Manuel Ignacio Balcazar Villareal
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
Derived from the review and analysis of the production of national strategic intelligence, and its implications for National Security in Mexico, a model is proposed that systematizes and integrates the identified components, in order to provide elements that strengthen intelligence capabilities national. The proposal is the result of interviews with producers and consumers of intelligence, as well as academic and professional experience of the author, after analyzing the functioning of other systems and collegiate mechanisms.
Topic:
Intelligence, National Security, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Central America and Mexico

43. Drug Trafficking between Latin America and Africa: A contemporary Case between Security and Global Governance / Narcotráfico entre América Latina y África: un caso contemporáneo entre seguridad y gobernanza global

Author:
Mohamed Badine El Yattioui and Claudia Barona Castañeda
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
In this paper, we will analyze two regions and the relationship between them, concerning drug trafficking (excepting Morocco, a hashish producer), posing a great variability challenges for State Security and their formal cooperation and even further, a real concern of global governance matter. How to create original and international instruments adapted to fight this illegal market, which has an impact on Europe?
Topic:
Security, International Affairs, Narcotics Trafficking, Drugs, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Africa and Latin America

44. The National Liberation Army in Colombia and Venezuela: Illicit finance challenges stemming from illegal mining

Author:
Andres Martinez-Fernandez
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
Abstract:
National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas remain a potent challenge for regional security and development. The ELN is growing in Colombia and Venezuela, thanks to its involvement in illegal mining, now the most important revenue source for the guerrilla group. The ELN’s illegal mining remains virtually unrestricted in Venezuela, thanks to the Nicolás Maduro regime’s complicity. At the same time, despite the Colombian government’s recent efforts, illegal mining continues to take place throughout Colombia, benefiting armed groups like the ELN. To cut off the ELN from this vital revenue source, the United States and Colombia must work to expand the presence of the state in areas affected by illegal mining, formalize artisanal miners, strengthen the state’s enforcement and investigatory capacities, and isolate Venezuela from global gold markets.
Topic:
Crime, Mining, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Colombia, Latin America, Venezuela, and United States of America

45. The West Africa–Sahel Connection: Mapping Cross-border Arms Trafficking

Author:
Fiona Mangan and Matthias Nowak
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Small Arms Survey
Abstract:
This Briefing Paper from the Small Arms Survey maps cross-border arms trafficking in West Africa and the Sahel through case studies on Niger, Mali, Guinea-Bissau, and the two tri-border areas of Burkina Faso–Côte d’Ivoire–Mali, and Ghana–Côte d’Ivoire–Burkina Faso. The study reveals that highly organized trafficking networks move sizable arms quantities across large areas of land north of the Niger River. Arms trafficking south of the river is more characterized by lower-level arms flows and local intermediaries engaging in so-called ‘ant trade’. Actors range from long-established criminals, corrupt officials, and organized trafficking rings, to tribal networks and low-level transporters. Based on field research, The West Africa–Sahel Connection: Mapping Cross-border Arms Trafficking analyzes the links between illicit arms trafficking and other forms of trafficking and organized crime in the region. The study also looks into the impacts of such arms trafficking as well as the responses to it.
Topic:
Arms Control and Proliferation, Trafficking, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Africa, West Africa, and Sahel

46. The Evolution of the Most Lethal Criminal Organization in Brazil—the PCC

Author:
Leonardo Coutinho
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Abstract:
After more than a decade of denying its existence, Brazilian authorities have finally recognized the PCC—referring to Primeiro Comando da Capital, or First Capital Command—as a criminal organization that is a significant threat to public security, whose capacity to threaten democracy and the state can no longer be ignored. Formed in prison, PCC emerged and grew in the dark, ignored by the authorities. Its top leaders are already behind bars yet PCC is the leading criminal organization in Brazil and indeed in South America, benefiting both from the silence of the authorities and from the lack of an approach that acknowledges PCC as a transnational criminal organization that commits crimes from north to south across the length of South America.
Topic:
Crime, Police, transnationalism, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Brazil and South America

47. Great Expectations and Grim Realities in AMLO’s Mexico

Author:
Mary Speck
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
There is no single strategy that can quickly overcome the violence consuming many Mexican communities. Andrés Manuel López Obrador—known simply as AMLO—assumed Mexico’s presidency on Dec. 1, 2018, with a robust mandate. AMLO can no more save Mexico through massive social programs than President Enrique Nieto could by enacting sweeping economic reforms or President Felipe Calderón by deploying tens of thousands of federal forces. Mexico’s criminal groups have proven to be as complex as the country itself, with an uncanny ability to mutate and migrate. Change will come community by community, municipality by municipality, and state by state by initiating effective violence prevention programs, ensuring genuine transparency, strengthening civilian law enforcement, and building a justice system that is both efficient and fair. The United States should instead concentrate on the long-term task of helping Mexico strengthen law enforcement by sharing expertise to create a new generation of professional police, prosecutors, and judges.
Topic:
Crime, International Cooperation, Violence, Local, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
North America, Mexico, and United States of America

48. Only Connect: the Survival and Spread of Organized Crime in Latin America

Author:
Ivan Briscoe and David Keseberg
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
PRISM
Institution:
Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), National Defense University
Abstract:
Deeply entrenched over decades, organized crime has married with systemic corruption and high levels of impunity to generate multiple forms of political and economic capital across the ideological spectrum in Latin America. But recent experience gives some provisional grounds for optimism. The end point of popular disaffection with flawed democracies and illicit links between criminal groups, political elites, and the private sector need not inevitably result in an embrace of authoritarianism and/or charismatic caudillos.
Topic:
Corruption, Crime, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Private Sector, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Latin America and North America

49. Formal Employment and Organized Crime: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from Colombia

Author:
Gaurav Khana, Carlos Medina, Anant Nyshadham, and Jorge Tamayo
Publication Date:
10-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Canonical models of crime emphasize economic incentive. Yet, causal evidence of sorting into criminal occupations in response to individual-level variation in incentives is limited. We link administrative socioeconomic microdata with the universe of arrests in Medellín over a decade. We exploit exogenous variation in formal-sector employment around a socioeconomic-score cutoff, below which individuals receive benefits if not formally employed, to test whether a higher cost to formal-sector employment induces crime. Regression discontinuity estimates show this policy generated reductions in formal-sector employment and a corresponding spike in organized crime, but no effects on crimes of impulse or opportunity.
Topic:
Employment, Illegal Trade, Organized Crime, and Socioeconomics
Political Geography:
Colombia and South America

50. An Unholy Alliance of Muslim Extremists and Organized Crime in the Balkans Case Studies: Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia Herzegovina

Author:
Spiros Bamiatzis
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)
Abstract:
The 1990s wars in Yugoslavia led to the disintegration of the country and ushered an era of poverty, political corruption, organized crime and terrorism. The Balkans became synonymous with the syndrome of a failed state, where civil society institutions are doomed to fail. The area has presented the international community with some unique challenges associated with unemployment, jihadism, crime and all those maladies under the wings of political leaderships that have given many reasons to the international community to doubt their credibility and their belief to the rule of law. This study will prove that a nexus exists between Islamic and ethno-nationalist terrorism and illegal criminal activities, and it will focus mainly in three countries: Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia Herzegovina.
Topic:
Corruption, Islam, Poverty, Violent Extremism, and Organized Crime
Political Geography:
Bosnia, Herzegovina, Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Balkans, and Albania