Posted on 20 Apr 2022
The Index is a podcast based around the Global Organized Crime Index, an online tool that ranks levels of criminality and resilience in 193 countries.
From drug trafficking and mafia-style crimes to criminal justice and security – In this series, we’ll take a deep dive into the Global Organized Crime Index with leading experts and look at some of the biggest organized crime threats facing countries and regions around the world.
Subscribe to the dedicated newsletter to get regular updates about the project and the launch event
The Global Organized Crime Index features two new indicators - Cybercrime and Financial Crimes.
In this episode Thin sits down with the Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Chainalysis, Jacqueline Koven, to discuss a topic that straddles both of these indicators, money laundering through cryptocurrency.
According to Chainalysis, nearly $23.8 billion dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency was laundered in 2022, a 68% increase on the previous year.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Guest: Jacqueline Koven, the Head of Cyber Threat Intelligence at Chainalysis.
Links:
The Global Organized Crime Index
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
The Chainalysis 2023 Crypto Crime Report
Russian Cybercriminals Drive Significant Ransomware and Cryptocurrency-based Money Laundering Activity - https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/2022-crypto-crime-report-preview-russia-ransomware-money-laundering/
OFAC Sanctions Russian National Ekaterina Zhdanova for Using Cryptocurrency to Launder Money on Behalf of Russian Elites and Ransomware Groups - https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/ofac-russia-crypto-money-laundering-sanctions-2023/
Privacy Coins 101: Anonymity-Enhanced Cryptocurrencies - https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/privacy-coins-anonymity-enhanced-cryptocurrencies/
Crypto Mixer Usage Reaches All-time Highs in 2022, With Nation State Actors and Cybercriminals Contributing Significant Volume - https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/crypto-mixer-criminal-volume-2022/
Crypto Needs Comprehensive Policies to Protect Economies and Investors - https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/07/18/crypto-needs-comprehensive-policies-to-protect-economies-and-investors
The assassination of Ecuadorean presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio in August this year made international headlines. A campaigner who railed against organized crime and corruption, his murder in Quito was one act in a downward spiral of violence in Ecuador. Local gangs and international criminal organisations have increased their influence in politics, worsening already low-public trust in state institutions.
Over the course of two years, according to the Global Organized Crime Index, Ecuador’s criminality score has risen sharply, and globally it now sits 11th, levels of resilience fared no better and have dipped significantly.
In this episode, Thin will delve into these Index scores and discuss organized crime, politics, and the increase in violence in Ecuador.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Guest: Renato Rivera, Coordinador Observatorio Ecuatoriano de Crimen Organizado
Links:
Observatorio Ecuatoriano de Crimen Organizado
The Global Organized Crime Index
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
BBC News: Candidate in Ecuador's presidential election Fernando Villavicencio shot dead
El País: Mexican cartels linked to Ecuador violence: ‘Criminals have an incentive to say they belong to a renowned group’
The Guardian: ‘We should treat it as a war’: Ecuador’s descent into drug gang violence
Al Jazeera: Ecuador gang boss who threatened Villavicencio moved to high-security jail
Myanmar in Southeast Asia topped the global list for levels of criminality (8.15/10) in the latest Global Organized Crime Index. From arms trafficking (9/10) to the synthetic drugs trade(10/10), and mafia-style groups (9.5/10) to state-embedded actors (9/10), Myanmar has high levels almost across the board for criminal markets and actors.
The country is also resource rich - gold, jade, precious stones, and rare earth minerals, essential to the technologies driving the green transition around the world. But, this mining industry is controlled by armed groups, the ruling military government, and predatory companies, who exploit workers, poison the environment, violently crack down on civil society, and horde illicit wealth.
In this episode Thin Lei Win discusses illegal rare earth mineral mining in Myanmar with Clare Hammond, Investigative Journalist and Senior Campaigner at Global Witness, and author of the report ‘Myanmar’s poisoned mountains: The toxic rare earth mining industry at the heart of the global green energy transition’.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Guest: Clare Hammond, Global Witness.
Links:
The Global Organized Crime Index
Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Global Witness - Myanmar’s poisoned mountains: The toxic rare earth mining industry at the heart of the global green energy transition.
Radio Free Asia - Illegal mining of rare earth metals surges in northern Myanmar
The Telegraph - Increase in rare-earth mining in Myanmar may be funding junta
The category of 'Financial Crime' is to be added to the upcoming version of the Global Organized Crime Index. In this bonus episode Thin sits down with Nick Lewis, the Global Head of Integrated Intelligence and Investigations at Standard Charter Bank, to discuss the difficulties of financial crime investigations and what is needed to improve the situation.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Nick Lewis (OBE), Global Head at Integrated Intelligence and Investigations at Standard Chartered Bank and also the Managing Director for its High Risk Client Unit for conduct, financial crime and compliance. Nick has extensive experience in law enforcement, first joining the North Wales Police in 1982 and has since been involved in numerous organisations and law enforcement divisions, including the Serious Organised Crime Agency, leading operations around the world in countering transnational organised crime.
Additional Links:
What are financial crimes? Once called 'White Collar Crimes', the term 'financial crimes' covers a broad range of forms of criminality - from financial fraud to tax evasion, and from illicit financial flows to money laundering. It is so often considered a victimless crime, but in reality that could not be further from the truth. Whether its a corrupt politician siphoning public money away and into tax havens, or unscrupulous financial institutions aiding the laundering of vast sums of illicit money - financial crimes cost the global economy trillions of dollars.
In the new iteration of the Global Organized Crime Index, financial crimes, are defined as "organized crime that results in a financial loss to the state, entity and/or private individuals". That is the topic of this episode of The Index.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Sangeeta Goswami – Policy Advocacy Adviser at Human Security Collective, a nonprofit foundation based in The Netherlands.
Kristina Amerhauser – Programme manager at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, conducting research and analysis in the Asia-Pacific Observatory.
Additional Links:
Do you ever think about where the chair you are sitting on came from? Or perhaps the electronic device you are using to listen to this podcast, where does the metals come from?
The illegal extraction of non-renewable resources, like gold, timber, and rare earth minerals, has become a very lucrative and widespread criminal sector across the world – but it is particularly prevalent in natural-resource rich South America, which scores highest for non-renewable resource crimes.
Organized criminal groups with their origins in drug trafficking have become part of this illicit market, and as a result the situation is only getting worse - and it affects all of us.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Flávia do Amaral Vieira, Senior Researcher at Plataforma Cipó in Brazil.
Bram Ebus, criminologist, investigative journalist, and consultant at the International Crisis Group. Bram is also a member of the GI Network of Experts.
Additional Links:
For a long time the relationship between Africa and illicit drugs was little explored in comparison to other parts of the world – often seen as little more than a transit region for drugs going to other places – usually Europe.
But our understanding has grown over recent years, as have the domestic markets for illicit drugs.
In this episode we study the markets of East and Southern Africa, answering questions like: Are drugs limited to coastal regions? Do they penetrate the interior of this huge continent? Where does this region fit into the global drugs trade?
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Caryn Dolley, journalist and author of the book 'Clash of cartels: unmasking the global drug kingpins stalking South Africa.
Bernice Apondi, policy manager at Voices for Community Action and Leadership in Kenya and a consultant in research and drug policy.
Jason Eligh, Senior expert and Thematic Lead for Drugs at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Additional Links:
Mexico has long had a relationship with organized crime. The cartels and the war on drugs have been the subject of countless documentaries and popular dramatized television series. The images of extreme violence have been broadcast all over the world and the journalists that report on these events are often targeted for the work they do.
But there is a counter balance to the violence and that's the brave and courageous civil society actors that battle extreme odds in an attempt to make life better. Sinaloa in Mexico was the birthplace of The Resilience Fund, which identifies civil society actors that do important work in their communities and helps them with building their capacity and financial support.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Siria Gastelum Félix, Director of Resilience at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Griselda Triana, journalist, activist and human-rights defender. She is the founder of the Javier Valdez library in Mexico City and host of the radio programme Siempre Vivas, in which she interviews female journalists. She works to strengthen support networks for victims of violence against journalists in Mexico, and in 2019 she was a grantee of the GI-TOC’s Resilience Fund.
Vania Pigeonutt, the co-founder of AMAPOLA PERIODISMO, an organisation that works to prevent extortion and also offers support to victims. 2021 Resilience Fund Grantee.
Marlene León, Director of Iniciativa Sinaloa, a civil society group who managed to develop, campaign for and finally get an approval on a law for the protection of human rights defenders and journalists in Sinaloa.
Additional Links:
Griselda Triana - The forgotten ones, Relatives of murdered and disappeared journalists in Mexico (paper available in English and Spanish)
The small country of Tunisia was the origin of the Arab String, a wave of protests swept across North Africa and the Middle East in 2011. Over the proceeding decade Tunisia was hailed as one of the few that was able to make a peaceful transition. But over the last few years things have taken a turn for the worse, exemplified by an 11% turnout for the latest elections.
According to Organized Crime Index, Tunisia has low levels of criminality but the current political situation has rang alarm bells and according to recent research from the GI-TOC migration from and through Tunisia rose to levels not seen since the months following the 2011 revolution.
In this episode we're talking about Tunisia and human smuggling.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Tasnim Abderrahim, Analyst, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime - Link
Matt Herbert, Senior Expert at the North Africa and Sahel Observatory, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime - Link
Additional Links:
(Paper) Losing hope: Why Tunisians are leading the surge in irregular migration to Europe
China's 'One Child Policy' was designed to curb an exploding population in 1980 with little thought given to the demographic impact this would have in the future. There have been many knock-on effects, including a huge gender imbalance. This in turn has made some Chinese men look to neighbouring countries, like Cambodia, in an effort to find a wife, fuelling an illicit market in what is known as 'bride trafficking'.
The organized criminal networks that run these trafficking routes often trick women and girls with promises, but trap them, restrict their movements, threaten them with violence, forcing them to marry men they have never met or can even communicate with.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Vireak Chhun, Independent Consultant and Researcher on Human Trafficking
Sean Sok Phay, Executive Director of Child Helpline Cambodia.
Thi Hoang, Analyst, Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime and Managing Editor of Journal of Illicit Economies and Development.
Additional Links:
Cambodia’s trafficked brides: The escalating phenomenon of forced marriage in China
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, IUU Fishing, is a multi-billion dollar industry with links to modern slavery, corruption, environmental destruction, weak governance, complex corporate structures, illicit financial flows, tax abuse and financial secrecy - which makes it a perfect environment for transnational organized criminal networks to operate.
In this episode Thin is joined by two experts to discuss the impact of IUU fishing in the region of Oceania, which covers Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islanders - a region that relies in the fisheries industry.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Ian Urbina, Investigative journalist, Author and Director of The Outlaw Ocean Project - Twitter.
Dr. Jade Lindley, Specialist in Transnational Organised Crime at the University Of Western Australia Law School and a member of the GI Network of Experts - Twitter.
Additional Links:
Over the past three years, Insight Crime have been investigating the relationship between the cocaine trade and Venezuela. Part of this investigation focuses in on the role of the state – some state actors who are actively involved, other senior state actors who allow and enable the cocaine to flow.
According to the Global Organized Crime Index – Venezuela sits 18th out of 193 countries around the world for levels of criminality. And is one of only 16 countries that scored NINE or higher out of ten when it comes to state-embedded actors playing a role in illegal activities.
In this episode Thin sits down with Jeremy McDermott, co-founder and co-director of Insight Crime to talk about their investigation and about the link between criminal actors and officials within the Venezuelan government.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Jeremy McDermott, Co-founder and Co-director of Insight Crime and member of the GI Network of Experts - Twitter
Mariana Botero Restrepo, Analyst, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime - Twitter
Additional Links:
Insight Crime investigation - "Venezuela’s Move to Cocaine Production: Crops, Chemists and Criminal Evolution"
How has organized crime changed between 2019 and 2021 on the African Continent?
This huge continent boasts a wealth of natural resources, biodiversity and a young population. But Africa is also a key source and transit hub for illicit goods and behaviour - from human trafficking to arms smuggling and from the illegal wildlife trade to environmental crimes.
In this episode Thin talks with Julian Rademeyer, the Director of the Civil Society Observatory of Illicit Economies in East and Southern Africa at the GI-TOC.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Julian Rademeyer, Director of the Civil Society Observatory of Illicit Economies in East and Southern Africa and author of 'Killing for Profit – Exposing the Illegal Rhino Horn Trade'.
Additional Links:
(Paper) Evolution of Crime in a Covid World: A comparative analysis of organised crime in Africa, 2019–2021
Ukraine has long been considered one of the largest arms trafficking markets in Europe, even before the current conflict. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, large stockpiles were left and fell into the hands of ordinary citizens, some were trafficked from Ukraine to the rest of Europe and beyond.
In this episode Thin will be asking the questions - how has the conflict affected the smuggling of weapons? And how will it continue to do so in the future?
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Prof. Mark Galeotti, Principal Director of Mayak Intelligence, Honorary Professor at UCL and member of the GI Network of Experts.
Kathi Lynn Austin, former United Nations arms trafficking expert, founder and executive director of the non-profit Conflict Awareness Project and member of the GI Network of Experts.
Prof. Viatcheslav Avioutskii, ESSCA School of Management in France.
Additional Links:
The Mekong Region spans six countries - China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. This fertile land is rich in biodiversity, home to rare, threatened, and endemic species of animals and plants as well as pristine forests - but its also a global epicentre for environmental crimes and its having a devastating impact on local on local ecosystems.
How has the Mekong region become such a hub of environmental crimes? What is fuelling them? And how can we effectively fight them?
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Trang Nguyen, founder and executive director of Vietnam-based non-governmental organisation, WildAct.
Simone Haysom, Senior Analyst and Thematic Lead on Environmental Crime at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime
Julian Newman, Campaigns Director at the Environmental Investigation Agency.
Additional Links:
In 1992, Giovanni Falcone, a prominent anti-mafia judge was assassinated by the Cosa Nostra in Sicily. His death galvanised the country who demanded more action against mafia groups.
Over the years since Falcone's murder, Italy has developed a strong legislative framework against organised crime. Now there are multiple agencies who deal with this phenomenon and a strong and thriving civil society.
According to the Global Organized Crime Index, Italy is just one of nine countries around the world that has very high levels of criminality, but also has very high levels of resilience.
In Part 2 of our focus on Italy, we will focus on anti-mafia resilience.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Anna Sergi, Professor of Criminology & Organised Crime at the University of Essex and an expert on ‘Ndrangheta.
Luca Storti, Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the University Of Torino, Italy; and visiting research fellow at King’s College in London.
Monica Usai, International Program Coordinator at Libera, a network of associations that is fighting organised crime and corruption.
Additional Links:
The interesting case of Italy.
Our view of the mafia has been distorted over the years by countless Hollywood movies. The reality is very different. Today, Italian mafia groups are entrenched in both the legal and illegal economy of the country. You may have heard of some of them, like the Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta or Cosa Nostra – but there are others like the Sacra Corona Unita or the Familia Basiliski, not to mention the Nigerian mafia or the Western Balkans criminal syndicates.
According to the Global Organized Crime Index, Italy has very high levels of criminality, but unusually also has very high levels of resilience.
And so over the next two podcasts we’re going to talk about Italy.
Part 1 will focus on criminality and mafia-style groups.
Presenter: Thin Lei Win
Speakers:
Anna Sergi, Professor of Criminology & Organised Crime at the University of Essex and an expert on ‘Ndrangheta.
Luca Storti, Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the University Of Torino, Italy; and visiting research fellow at King’s College in London.
Monica Usai, International Program Coordinator at Libera, a network of associations that is fighting organised crime and corruption.
Additional Links:
For millennia Syria was at the heart of empires, but today the country has become synonymous with war.
Since the Arab Spring of 2011, the country has been in a state of civil war with competing armed actors with different aims and allegiances battling one another leaving staggering human misery in their wake.
The Syrian civil war has also created a perfect brewing pot for illicit activities, from the production of synthetic drugs to trafficking of both humans and arms. And state-backed actors are deeply involved in these activities and there is little oversight.
How did the war change the organised crime landscape in Syria? Who are the criminal actors today and how are they profiting from the conflict? And why do some people call Syria a “narco-state”?
Speaker:
Laura Adal, Head of Western Asia Programme, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Laura also leads the development of the Organized Crime Index.
Presenter:
Additional Links:
(website) The Global Organized Crime Index
(paper) The Global Organized Crime Index
In early 2022, a small peaceful protest over rising fuel prices began in the large Central Asian country of Kazakhstan. In under a week the protest had spread across the country and turned violent. President Tokayev ordered the national forces to "shoot to kill, without warning” - at the end of the day at least 180 people were killed and thousands were injured.
How did the peaceful protest over fuel price rises escalate so quickly? And what does it have to do with organized crime? That is the question we are asking in this episode.
Speaker:
Dr Erica Marat, who is an associate professor at the College of International Security Affairs at the National Defence University in Washington, DC. Where she specialises in security and military institutions in Eurasia, social mobilisation, and organised crime. She is also a member of the GI Network of Experts.
Presenter:
Additional Links:
(website) The Global Organized Crime Index
(paper) The Global Organized Crime Index
