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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:39 am
Time: 11:39 am
Results for drug trafficking (africa)
3 results foundAuthor: Picarelli, John T., ed. Title: International Organized Crime: The African Experience Summary: In December of 2010, an international group of experts gathered in Courmayeur, Italy to focus their energies on the issue of transnational organized crime in Africa. Three observations led ISPAC and NIJ to believe that this was the best time to hold this meeting. The first was the growing evidence that transnational organized crime is a significant problem for all of Africa. In 2008, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released a report that stated that 221 tons of cocaine transited West Africa annually, with a profit of $2 billion. Nongovernmental organizations have estimated that there are more than 500 human trafficking syndicates that enslave some 38,000 victims in South Africa alone. Frequent stories on piracy in the Horn of Africa and, increasingly, the Gulf of Guinea demonstrate further the growing challenge transnational criminal organizations pose to African countries. Second is the increasing attention that transnational organized crime in Africa is drawing from nation-states within Africa and around the globe. As this book demonstrates, Africa has a diversity of transnational criminal markets, including mainstays such as drug trafficking and human smuggling but also specialized markets such as financial fraud and illegal poaching. Criminal markets perpetrate significant economic, political and social harms on African states and citizens, drawing additional concerns for those states struggling to develop robust economic and governance structures. Thus while African states are working together to combat the threats transnational organized crime poses to their citizens, they also recognize that Africa serves as a transit zone through which illicit goods and services flow from one continent to another. Organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the European Union and UNODC have noted the growing importance of West Africa as a transit zone for drugs from South America destined for European markets. The President of the ECOWAS Commission, His Excellency James Victor Ghebo, captured this sentiment in remarks before the 2010 ECOWAS Seminar on Transnational Organized Crime and Human Security in West Africa when he stated, “These crimes committed across our borders have the notable feature of being inspired and controlled by criminal rings and cartels both within and outside our geopolitical area.” Discussing the gravity of the situation, he noted that “I cannot overemphasize the importance and urgency of governments and institutions, both local and abroad, coming together sooner rather than later to fight this threat.” One last impetus for this meeting is the growing recognition among a number of nation-states that the time has come to update and expand the tools and programs employed to combat transnational organized crime. While states have come together to ratify and implement international conventions such as the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, states have more recently undertaken steps to enact new strategies to confront transnational organized crime. A good example is the 2011 U.S. Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime, which captures the pervasive threat and the comprehensive nature of the response required to meet it. The strategy details the social, financial, political and international threats that transnational organized crime poses to all nations and their citizens. The strategy lays out concrete legislative, enforcement, regulatory, economic and diplomatic goals that the United States will take in conjunction with bilateral, multilateral and private sector partners. The document mirrors those that the United Kingdom and other countries have issued recently. Details: Milan, Italy: ISPAC (International Scientific and Professional Advisory Council of the United Nations, Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Programme), 2010. 159p. Source: Selected papers and contributions from the International Conference on "International Organized Crime: The African Experience": Internet Resource: Accessed June 7, 2012 at http://ispac.cnpds.org/download.php?fld=pub_files&f=internationalorganizedcrimetheafricanexperience.pdf Year: 2010 Country: Africa URL: http://ispac.cnpds.org/download.php?fld=pub_files&f=internationalorganizedcrimetheafricanexperience.pdf Shelf Number: 125333 Keywords: Corruption (Africa)Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals (Africa)Drug Trafficking (Africa)Human Trafficking (Africa)Money Laundering (Africa)Organized Crime (Africa)Transnational Crime (Africa) |
Author: Bury, Steven E. Title: Analysis of West African Drug Trafficking: The Dynamics of Interdiction and State Capacity Summary: Illegal drug trafficking through West Africa has grown dramatically in the last decade, capturing the attention of U.S., European, and U.N. policymakers. Most countries in West Africa have struggled to adapt to the challenges drug trafficking has presented. A few countries, like Ghana, have made a more concerted and successful effort to confront the problem. This thesis seeks to test the hypothesis that variations in counternarcotics interdiction success Ghana and Guinea-Bissau can be explained by the level of state capacity and the ability to absorb international counternarcotics partnerships to deal with the problem. The findings of this study suggest the success of Ghana relative to Guinea- Bissau is explained by higher level of initial state capacity and its ability to absorb international assistance. The government of Guinea-Bissau, on the other hand, is caught in an incapacity trap that has thwarted its efforts towards narcotics interdiction. Efforts at international partnership in Ghana have a foundation of state capacity to build upon and a viable partner whereas in Guinea-Bissau assistance efforts have been relegated to correcting the utter lack of capacity in an environment of political-military instability where a viable partner in the War on Drugs has not yet emerged. Details: Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2011. 75p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed May 30, 2013 at: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a543911.pdf Year: 2011 Country: Africa URL: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a543911.pdf Shelf Number: 128854 Keywords: Drug Law EnforcementDrug Trafficking (Africa)Organized Crime |
Author: Lacher, Wolfram Title: Challenging the Myth of the Drug-Terror Nexus in the Sahel Summary: The rise of extremist activity in the Sahel-Sahara region from 2005 onwards has gone in parallel with the growth of drug trafficking networks across the area. But are these two developments related - and if so, how? The alleged involvement of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Monotheism and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) in drug smuggling is being taken for granted by many media outlets. Malian and French government officials have increasingly resorted to dismissing their adversaries in northern Mali as 'narco-jihadists'. This paper reviews the evidence for the links between drug smuggling and extremist activity in the Sahel-Sahara region. While it demonstrates that such links clearly exist, the paper argues that the widespread talk of a drug-terror nexus in the Sahel is misleading, for several reasons. First, much of the evidence presented as basis for such claims can either be easily debunked, or is impossible to verify. Second, rather than the two extremist groups as such, involvement in drug trafficking appears to concern individuals and groups close to, or within, MUJAO and AQIM: within both groups, members are driven by multiple and, at times, conflicting motivations. Third, numerous other actors are playing an equally or more important role in drug smuggling, including members of the political and business establishment in northern Mali, Niger and the region's capitals, as well as leaders of supposedly 'secular' armed groups. Fourth, the emphasis on links between drug trafficking and terrorism in the Sahel serves to obscure the role of state actors and corruption in allowing organized crime to grow. Fifth, the profits derived from kidnap-for-ransom played a much more significant role in the rise of AQIM and MUJAO. Details: West Africa Commission on Drugs, 2013. 17p. Source: Internet Resource: WACD Background Paper No. 4: Accessed October 8, 2014 at: http://www.wacommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Challenging-the-Myth-of-the-Drug-Terror-Nexus-in-the-Sahel-2013-08-19.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Africa URL: http://www.wacommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Challenging-the-Myth-of-the-Drug-Terror-Nexus-in-the-Sahel-2013-08-19.pdf Shelf Number: 133595 Keywords: Drug Trafficking (Africa)Drug-Terror NexusExtremist GroupsOrganized CrimeTerrorismViolent Extremism |