Global Organized Crime Index, UN - Security and Rights, UN-TOC Watch, NAS-Obs

UN Security Council Illicit Economies Watch

...The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) researches the political economy of organized crime in many countries, including those on the United Nations Security Council’s a...

Posted on 21 Jul 2023

Sustainable Development Goals, UN - Security and Rights, UN-TOC Watch, NAS-Obs

Illicit economies and peace and security in Libya

Illicit economies and peace and security in Libya

...Libya has been a key focus of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) since the country’s 2011 revolution. A June 2023 UNSC meeting on Libya focused on the country’s political process, the need...

Posted on 18 Jul 2023

Author(s): Matt Herbert, Rupert Horsley, Emadeddin Badi

Crime & Conflict, EAS-Obs, EUR-Obs, SEE-Obs

Disruption or displacement? Impact of the Ukraine war on drug markets in South Eastern Europe

Disruption or displacement?

...Recent studies conducted by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) show that the war in Ukraine may displace exis...

Posted on 17 Jul 2023

Author(s): Ruggero Scaturro

MMFU, UN-TOC Watch, UNTOC, Wildlife Watch, APA-Obs, ESA-Obs

Challenges in international law enforcement cooperation in wildlife crime in Asia and Africa

Uniting the response?

...The consequences of wildlife trafficking go beyond the threat it poses to ecological integrity and the survival of many wild species. Wildlife trafficking is also a public health threat, through its r...

Posted on 10 Jul 2023

Author(s): Alastair Macbeath, Julia Stanyard

UN Cyberwatch

The rise and fall of the Conti ransomware group

...On 25 February 2022, a message appeared on a darknet website run by the cybercriminal syndicate known as Conti. The message pledged allegiance and support for the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukrain...

Posted on 27 Jun 2023

Author(s): Jack Meegan-Vickers

Drug Policy, Latinoamérica y el Caribe, AR-Obs

The Path to Cannabis Regulation in Colombia

...In 1994 Colombia decriminalized the personal use and self-cultivation of several cannabis varieties, although production, distribution and commercialization remain penalized by law. In Colombia’s w...

Posted on 19 Jun 2023

Author(s): María Alejandra Vélez

UN Cyberwatch, UN-TOC Watch

Still poles apart: UN Cybercrime Treaty negotiations

Still poles apart

...The UN Ad Hoc Committee negotiating a treaty on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes (henceforth ‘AHC’) has completed its deliberations on a nego...

Posted on 12 Jun 2023

Author(s): Summer Walker

WEA-Obs

Car thieves of the Sahel: Dynamics of the stolen vehicle trade

Car thieves of the Sahel

...In May 2022, two Nigerian citizens were arrested in Niamey, Niger, while trying to drive back to Nigeria in a stolen Toyota Corolla. The Corolla had a Nigerian licence plate, but police discovered tha...

Posted on 09 Jun 2023

Author(s): Eleanor Beevor

Drug Policy, WEA-Obs

The plant at the root of Iran’s meth market

...Having long hosted Western Asia’s largest methamphetamine market, Iran for decades has employed an aggressive multi-million-dollar campaign to curb the trade. The discovery, however, of the ephedra ...

Posted on 09 Jun 2023

Author(s): Laura Adal, Sarah Fares