Global Organized Crime Index, CSA-Obs

When vocabulary shapes perception: Criminal actors in India

...The term ‘mafia’ is used in India to label the criminal actors behind some crimes – but not others. A more strategic use of the word could capture public discourse and drive policymakers’ atte...

Posted on 15 Dec 2022

Author(s): Prem Mahadevan

UN Cyberwatch, UN-TOC Watch

Putting pen to paper

...In November, the UN’s Ad Hoc Committee released its first consolidated negotiating draft for a ‘cybercrime treaty’, to be discussed at the committee’s fourth session in Vienna in January 2023....

Posted on 15 Dec 2022

Author(s): Summer Walker

ESA-Obs

A powder storm: The cocaine markets of East and southern Africa

A powder storm

...There is a transition occurring in the production and distribution of cocaine. Despite the extensive population containment and control measures put into place across the globe in the wake of the COV...

Posted on 15 Dec 2022

Author(s): Jason Eligh

Gold Watch

Organized crime threatens green minerals

...The UN Climate Change Conference (CoP27), held in Egypt in November, once again highlighted the need to accelerate global climate action. Core to realizing a lower-carbon future are clean technologies...

Posted on 14 Dec 2022

Author(s): Marcena Hunter, Gideon Ofosu-Peasah

Gold Watch, Wildlife Watch, APA-Obs

Trade and transit: Dubai’s role in illicit environmental supply chains

Trade and transit

...Dubai’s location and post-oil economic diversification and development strategy have reshaped the emirate from a small fishing village to a global leader in finance, trade and transport logistics. A...

Posted on 13 Dec 2022

UN - Security and Rights, UN-TOC Watch

UN Security Council sets its periscope on maritime crime

...On 22 November, the UN Security Council met to discuss armed robbery at sea and piracy in the Gulf of Guinea ahead of the ten-year anniversary of the Yaoundé Code of Conduct, which establishes the ma...

Posted on 09 Dec 2022

Author(s): Summer Walker

ESA-Obs

Inside al-Shabaab’s revenue-collection machine

Terror and taxes

...The Somali Islamist group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujaahidiin, commonly known as al-Shabaab, is the ‘largest, wealthiest and most deadly’ al-Qaeda affiliate remaining in the world. In 201...

Posted on 08 Dec 2022

Author(s): Jay Bahadur

UN-TOC Watch

Resolutions on environmental crime and trafficking in cultural property

...As the dust settles on the 11th Conference of the Parties (CoP) to the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), we look at the resolutions adopted for two crime types not specifica...

Posted on 06 Dec 2022

Author(s): Ian Tennant

Global Initiative

Business as usual? Illegal charcoal and timber trade in Eastern DRC

Business as usual?

...The eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) bordering Rwanda and Uganda is one of the richest in the world in terms of biodiversity and natural resources – from coltan and cobalt, t...

Posted on 06 Dec 2022

Author(s): Daan van Uhm, Milou Tjoonk, Eliode Bakole