what is transnational crime essay

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Transnational Crime

Introduction, general overviews.

Data Sources
Drug Trafficking
Trafficking in Stolen Property
Weapons Trafficking
Counterfeiting
Commercial Sex
Human Trafficking
Racketeering
Money Laundering
International Crime
Policy and Prevention

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Transnational Crime by Jay S. Albanese LAST REVIEWED: 26 October 2017 LAST MODIFIED: 14 December 2009 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396607-0024

Transnational crimes are violations of law that involve more than one country in their planning, execution, or impact. These offenses are distinguished from other crimes in their multinational nature, which poses unique problems in understanding their causes, developing prevention strategies, and in mounting effective adjudication procedures. Transnational crimes can be grouped into three broad categories involving provision of illicit goods ( drug trafficking , trafficking in stolen property , weapons trafficking , and counterfeiting ), illicit services ( commercial sex and human trafficking ), and infiltration of business and government ( fraud , racketeering , money laundering , and corruption ) affecting multiple countries. Transnational crimes are distinct from international crime , which involves crimes against humanity that may or may not involve multiple countries. Examples of international crimes are genocide and terrorism, which are also included in this guide to sources.

There are a growing number of texts that provide general overviews of transnational crime. Dammer, et al. 2006 , Reichel 2008 , and Pakes 2004 offer summaries of comparative criminal justice systems with some separate treatment of transnational crime. Fichtelberg 2008 provides a summary of international justice, with a discussion of several international and transnational crimes. These books are directed toward the undergraduate- or early graduate-level reader. Naím 2006 examines transnational crimes from the perspectives of its political and economic roots in globalization. Friedrichs 2007 delineates the conceptual distinctions between transnational crime and global criminology. Two edited volumes, Albanese 2005 and Reichel 2004 , have individual chapters on specific transnational crimes, which are discussed in more depth.

Albanese, Jay S., ed. 2005. Transnational crime . Whitby, ON: de Sitter Publications.

An edited volume of seven chapters, focusing heavily on human trafficking and related crimes.

Dammer, Harry R., Erika Fairchild, and Jay S. Albanese. 2006. Comparative criminal justice systems . 3d ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth Learning.

A comprehensive overview of crime and justice around the world, focusing on the treatment of crime and criminals under four “families” of law—common, civil, socialist, and Islamic—using six “model” nations as examples. Designed as a university textbook.

Fichtelberg, Aaron. 2008. Crime without borders: An introduction to international criminal justice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

An introductory text providing useful overviews of the basis for international law, international and transnational crimes, and the response to them from international bodies.

Friedrichs, David O. 2007. Transnational crime and global criminology: Definitional, typological, and contextual conundrums. Social Justice 34:4–18.

An effort to delineate the broad boundaries of transnational crime, including its organization and types, and to distinguishing it from global criminology.

Naím, Moisés. 2006. Illicit: How smugglers, traffickers, and copycats are hijacking the global economy . New York: Anchor.

Presents an economic perspective on the global smuggling of people and goods, including the geopolitical roots of such crimes in a globalized world.

Pakes, Francis. 2004. Comparative criminal justice . Cullompton, UK, and Portland, OR: Willan.

This introductory text focuses on the criminal justice process in different countries, focusing on Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australasia. An interesting perspective is provided on the methodology for comparative research and analysis and the essential ingredients of doing justice across cultures.

Reichel, Philip, ed. 2004. Handbook of transnational crime and justice . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

A sweeping edited effort, with a series of twenty-four concise chapters on different transnational crimes and the governmental response to them.

Reichel, Philip L. 2008. Comparative criminal justice systems: A topical approach . 5th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

A broad textbook treatment of crime and justice providing an international perspective with an emphasis on the criminal justice response to crime in different legal systems (with a separate chapter on Japan).

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Transnational organized crime: A threat to global public goods

In September 2021 United Nations Secretary-General Ant ó nio Guterres warned that the world stands at an ‘inflection point’, facing a stark choice between ‘breakdown’ and ‘breakthrough’. Societies and the planet are at risk from the compounding effects of climate change, increasing armed conflict, pandemics, and rising hunger, poverty, injustice and exclusion.

Our Common Agenda is the secretary-general’s response—a major initiative to reinvigorate multilateralism to benefit all people by advancing the global public goods of peace, a healthy environment, healthy populations and economic stability.

Guterres appointed a High-Level Advisory Board on Effective Multilateralism , co-chaired by former Swedish prime minister and new SIPRI Governing Board Chair Stefan Löfven and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, to develop an independent report on how to strengthen governance arrangements that can deliver on the core global public goods.

While Our Common Agenda is focused on positive principles and norms, we must also seek to mitigate the risks that could undermine progress. One of the most significant and neglected of these risks is transnational organized crime.

Transnational organized crime

Organized crime has been defined as ‘illegal activities, conducted by groups or networks acting in concert, by engaging in violence, corruption or related activities in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or material benefit’. Transnational organized crime occurs when these activities, or these groups or networks, operate in two or more countries.

Transnational organized crime can take many forms and is constantly evolving. The groups and networks involved are fluid, and channels for trafficking one commodity are often used for others. Some of the typical activities carried out by transnational criminal organizations are trafficking in humans, arms, drugs, minerals and wildlife; production and trade of counterfeit goods; fraud and extortion; money laundering and cybercrime.

Globalization, digitization and other advances in technology are further changing the nature of illicit markets and the modi operandi of transnational organized crime, recently including the emerging use of cryptocurrencies that make illicit financial flows harder to trace .

Transnational organized crime and global public goods

Global public goods benefit all countries and all citizens of the world; no one can be excluded from enjoying them, and they cannot be adequately provided by any one state acting alone. Clean air, biodiversity and healthy oceans are prime examples of global public goods. Recent years have demonstrated all too clearly how seemingly local environmental issues such as deforestation and plastic pollution can have cross-border or global ramifications, and the same is true across other domains as well.

The transnational dimension of much organized crime helps it to evade law enforcement, which is primarily set up to operate within national borders. Transnational crime actors systematically exploit jurisdictional gaps and differences in the law enforcement approaches and capacities of different countries. Combating transnational organized crime successfully therefore demands international cooperation.

Transnational organized crime is a significant barrier to progress on at least four global public goods identified in Our Common Agenda , as explored below.

Global public health

Transnational organized crime can negatively impact global public health through the widespread and increasing production and trafficking of counterfeit medicines. The problem especially afflicts low- and middle-income countries, where according to the World Health Organization an estimated one in ten medical products is either substandard or falsified. In 2015 the prevalence was estimated to be as high as 70 per cent in some parts of Africa and Asia . The trade in counterfeit medicines often has a transnational element, as the drugs are manufactured in one country (China, India and Singapore being major source countries ) and then distributed to many others, and inserted into legitimate global medicine supply chains .

Counterfeit medicines may be ineffective at treating the targeted disease, and at worst may seriously harm or kill those who take them. The WHO estimates that over 1 million deaths per year worldwide result from substandard or falsified medicines, the largest number of cases (200 000) occurring in Africa.

Counterfeit antibiotics are the leading type of counterfeit medicine, and have been directly linked to the rise in acquired bacterial resistance to antibiotics, including the global rise in drug-resistant tuberculosis .

A resilient and inclusive global economy

Another global public good identified in Our Common Agenda is a ‘more sustainable, inclusive and resilient global economy’. Financial integrity and combating tax evasion are key here. Transnational organized crime directly affects the public financing capacities of states and can obstruct economic development through tax evasion and illicit financial flows . This is especially corrosive for developing countries, depriving state treasuries of finances badly needed for investment in public goods like health, education and infrastructure. Transnational organized crime can also undermine the economic stability of a country by draining foreign exchange reserves and affecting asset prices.

Money laundering involves a diverse range of financial, legal and commercial actors deliberately helping criminals to convert the proceeds of criminal income into assets that cannot be traced back to the underlying crime, and channeling illicit funds into the legitimate economy.

Illicit financial flows involve the movement of money across borders that is illegal in its source, transfer or use, according to the International Monetary Fund. These flows can have consequences for local markets and societies. For example, several advanced economies have seen illicit financial flows distorting their property markets, as in Germany and the United Kingdom , exacerbating housing problems for local residents. As the Panama Papers and subsequent Pandora Papers document leaks showed , a vast global offshore economy operates alongside the legitimate international economy, with an estimated 10 per cent of the world’s wealth concealed in offshore financial assets by many of the world’s richest and most powerful individuals and entities, including former heads of state, heads of government and public officials, and members of the business elite.

A healthy planet

Transnational organized crime has also undermined conservation of the environment and sustainable management of natural resources. Organized environmental crime is a broad field stretching from illegal logging, illegal natural resource extraction, and trade in protected species to the dumping of banned chemicals and waste. While the immediate impacts are often localized, with devastating effects on communities and ecosystems, the consequences can also be global. For example, organized environmental crime is reportedly a primary driver of deforestation in Central and South America, harming biodiversity and releasing vast amounts of carbon that contributes to global climate change.

Another example is the illicit production and smuggling of synthetic refrigerants, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which is undermining the achievements of the Montreal Protocol in reducing the production and use of ozone-depleting substances. HFCs are considered ‘ super pollutants ’ because they can be hundreds to thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to climate change, per unit of mass. Europe has seen significant smuggling of HFC refrigerants, an unintended consequence of the agreed 2016 phase-down in their production, skyrocketing prices and the low risk of serious penalties for smuggling.

Organized environmental crime has grown rapidly as a result of being highly lucrative yet coming with low risk. For example, one study of a small sample of 27 cases of illicit dumping of waste and toxic materials found them to have generated proceeds ranging from US$175 000 to $58 million. The lack of consensus on what constitutes organized environmental crimes; countries’ differing approaches to criminalization and enforcement; and ‘ forum shopping ’ by criminals have enabled many of them to evade enforcement efforts.

International peace and security

Organized crime undermines international peace and security by sustaining violence and armed conflict . The illicit arms trade is ranked as the third most pervasive illicit market globally. The illicit flow of arms escalates conflict and heightens conflict risk, and facilitates violent crime and other organized criminal activities. In conflict zones, non-state armed groups engage in illicit markets as a means of support, including illicit extraction and trade in natural resources and various forms of smuggling. Nevertheless, the involvement of non-state armed groups in transnational criminal markets is often eclipsed by the role of state actors , underscoring the close links between transnational organized crime, political power and public institutions, and corruption in many parts of the world.

Annual casualty rates from organized crime often far exceed those from armed conflicts. Organized crime-related violence particularly afflicts several countries in Central and South America. The corrosive transnational effects of organized crime-related violence are increasingly visible in Central and South America, as destabilization and violence are spreading into some of the region’s smaller, formerly peaceful countries.

The challenge now confronting the international community is how to address transnational organized crime as an obstacle to development, and at international level, how to stop it undermining global public goods.

The scale of transnational organized crime

Estimates of the scale of transnational organized crime are difficult to arrive at due to the secretive nature of the activities and under-reporting by victims, but also due to the different, overlapping definitions and indicators used. Nevertheless, the UN has found that an estimated $1.6 trillion, or 2.7 per cent of global GDP , is laundered annually. And according to the World Bank , $1 trillion per year is used to bribe public officials.

To put these figures in context, the total official development assistance going to developing countries in 2020 was only $194 billion . This demands a rethink of what today are the main threats to societal well-being and global public goods.

Multilateral responses to transnational organized crime

The 2000 UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) is the main legal instrument to combat transnational organized crime and establishes legislative standards for states. UNTOC and its protocols are currently under review by states parties. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is the secretariat for UNTOC and other major international legal instruments to address transnational organized crime, including the 2003 UN Convention Against Corruption . The UNODC’s two governing bodies are the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and the Commission on Narcotic Drugs . Both have mandates that include aspects of transnational organized crime.

The International Criminal Police Organization ( INTERPOL ), an intergovernmental organization , provides support to national law enforcement efforts against organized crime, including transnational organized crime. Within the European Union (EU), Europol , conducts analysis on crime and terrorism and supports the law enforcement efforts of member states, as well as cooperating with non-EU partner states and international organizations.

Unfortunately, multilateral efforts to develop collective responses to transnational organized crime have been weak and fragmented , and the current cooperation regime has been described by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime as ineffective and antiquated. A 2019 report by the Global Initiative finds that 79 of the 102 UN entities, bodies and agencies have mandates that address some dimension of organized crime, and several other multilateral organizations are also engaged in efforts to combat the problem. Despite the UN’s broad coverage, the report says, it has no coherent strategy on tackling transnational organized crime and instead takes a piecemeal approach.

UNTOC has struggled to remain relevant in a context of rapid adaptation to change by criminal groups and states parties’ lack of enthusiasm for using the convention as a basis for cooperation. Certain powerful states prefer informal, unilateral solutions to dealing with transnational organized crime over using complex and slow formal international channels; however, these approaches often lack oversight and pose challenges to the rule of law and human rights.

Reinvigorating multilateralism

Responding to transnational organized crime and corruption should inform the process to reinvigorate multilateralism launched by Our Common Agenda , and which will culminate in the 2023 Summit of the Future . There are two key tasks for strengthening multilateral responses to transnational organized crime. First, efforts should be made to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how transnational organized crime and corruption undermine essential global public goods. Second, political will needs to be built to work through effective instruments for international cooperation.

In addition, a joined-up response and strategy to combat transnational organized crime in conflict prevention, peace operations and peacebuilding must be addressed in the New Agenda for Peace , a report that Guterres has promised will respond to the profound changes in the global environment, and will set out collective mechanisms and responses to traditional and emerging threats to peace and security. A more holistic vision and approach are needed that goes beyond purely criminal justice responses, and address the developmental, human rights and security implications of transnational organized crime and corruption for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

This commentary is the product of a research project on the role of peace operations in countering organized crime. SIPRI acknowledges the generous support of the Swedish Police Authority.

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Part I Introduction, 1 What is Transnational Crime?

From: an introduction to transnational criminal law (2nd edition), neil boister.

This introductory chapter takes a look at the distinctive features of cross-border activities and the kinds of harm they cause. It charts the policy process for the development of special international legal measures to suppress these activities as transnational crimes. This analysis is cross-disciplinary in nature, embracing criminology, international relations theory, security studies and other disciplines.

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Up to No Good: The Rise of Transnational Criminal Organizations and its Impact on Global Security

Being the seat of power in a nation, governments are often subject to threats against their authority. Such threats include revolutionary groups, both domestic and foreign terrorist organizations, as well as rebellious local territories. However, one area that is often overlooked is the danger of organized crime, more specifically powerful transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), that can displace the authority of legitimate government in the same manner as other seditious elements.

The Operations and Goals of TCOs

TCOs operate vast criminal empires involving a broad range of illegal activities, including drug smuggling and production, human trafficking, kidnapping, and extortion. However, the primary goal of these criminal groups is to maintain their own power, whereas revolutionaries and terrorists often seek regime change. This could involve fighting to displace the central authority, but unlike the other examples, they often collaborate with, or at least tolerate, the existence of a central government, as it furthers their own goal of profit.

Most often, transnational criminal organizations do not aim to become the sovereign government over a nation. Transitioning into a narco-state which runs an entire nation is not ideal for TCOs, as that will bring about swift international action. A narco-state will not be taken kindly by the rest of the world, potentially resulting in full scale military intervention, as seen with the 1989 toppling of Manuel Noriega’s regime in Panama by the United States. Rather, they seek to control certain territories and profit from the illegal activities conducted on their land, such as drug trafficking and extortion.

How TCOs Interact With Governments

TCOs will do whatever is necessary to preserve their own interests. One tactic to do this involves cooperation with complicit or even corrupt governments; this strategy is used by many TCOs such as cartels in Mexico or Colombia, MS-13 in El Salvador, and the Mafia in Southern Italy. Such a strategy suits TCOs well as they have less enemies to worry about, and they can utilize the power of the state for their own purposes. In 2014, 43 university students were kidnapped by cartels in the Mexican state of Guerrero, and the government was later found to be involved in both the kidnapping and its subsequent coverup.

With a collaborator in office, TCOs do not need to worry about facing consequences for their actions and can focus on their illegal activities. For example, the Mexican Army has been found to be selling weapons to the cartels, and even former President Enrique Pena Nieto is alleged to have taken US$100 million in bribes from the cartels. In such a situation, the reward is high for government officials to collaborate with the TCO, allowing the criminals to operate with impunity.

However, if the government does not decide to cooperate, TCOs will often engage in extreme violence against the authorities. The goal of such violence is not necessarily to overthrow the government, but to weaken them so much that they are unable to contest the TCO.

This happened in October 2019 when Mexican federal authorities arrested Ovidio Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and son of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. In response, cartel members turned the Sinaloan capital of Culiacan into a warzone, blocking highways and waging an all out gun battle with Mexican security forces, resulting in the deaths of at least 14 people. Eventually, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was forced to order the release of Guzman in order to prevent further violence, humiliating the Mexican government.

Such scenes of violence were repeated in Culiacan in January 2023, when Mexican authorities made a second attempt to capture Guzman. After they arrested Guzman, cartel gunmen again wreaked havoc, burning vehicles, engaging in gunfights with the police, and even attempting to shoot down a Mexican military aircraft with sniper rifles, hitting a commercial Aeroméxico airliner in the process.

This wanton violence is used by TCOs around the world. Across the Atlantic, the Italian Mafia engaged in violence against their enemies in the government as well. In 1992, anti-Mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone was murdered by a car bomb planted by the Mafia in Palermo. Falcone’s work had previously led to the arrest of more than 300 mafia members. Such a brazen assassination shows the Mafia’s defiance and disregard of governmental authority.

TCOs vs. Governments (or lack thereof)

In both of these cases, the consequences for resisting TCOs are great, and often weaker governments will see them as a necessary evil with whom they must work. Individual officials have little incentive to lead the fight against TCOs, as that could result in them and their families being killed , especially when the central authority provides little support.

When resistance occurs, however, an already weakened state will only be further weakened. Without the ability to effectively combat the TCO, states are in danger of falling completely under the influence of criminals. The damage caused by TCOs can weaken the government so much that it pushes the nation to the edge of failure. Such is the case with Haiti, where since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise, the country has had neither a president nor a functional elected government. In its absence, gangs have taken control over more than half of the capital, Port au Prince, controlling the country with immunity.

The gangs in Haiti have also taken over the main fuel terminal and key highways, limiting the transportation of vital humanitarian supplies. Their reign of terror is backed up through violent tactics such as murder, kidnapping, extortion, and sexual assault. While the Haitian National Police have tried combatting the gangs, they lack support from the government and are prone to attack. As a result, many police units have gone rogue and rebelled against the government, rioting in the streets and even attacking the country’s main airport. The situation has become so dire that Haiti is on the verge of a humanitarian crisis, and its de facto leader Ariel Henry has formally requested for foreign military intervention.

In most cases, either an unstable government creates a power vacuum resulting in criminal groups taking over, or conversely the rise of criminal groups leads to the erosion of governmental authority. Many TCOs emerge from a time of great political instability and eventually morph into a much more powerful organization. Such is the case in southern Italy, where the Mafia was formed in the 1860s amidst the chaos of the Risorgimento. Over the years of neglect from the central Italian state, the Mafia gained more of a foothold in southern Italy, expanding their illegal operations and establishing trust with the locals by promising stability.

As a result, people often turn to the Mafia instead of the government for protection and the resolving of civil disputes. This phenomenon continues even to the present day. During the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mafia distributed free food to the residents of Naples while the government struggled with COVID relief and lockdown protests. Here, the TCO often replaces basic governmental functions and tries to win over the local residents. By doing so, they exert more and more control over the people, allowing for them to better manipulate locals.

Compared with the Mafia, which was created in the absence of a functioning government, the emergence of the Mexican cartels led to the weakening of the central state. The cartels have control over many regions of the country, backed up by heavily armed foot soldiers with automatic weapons and even homemade armored vehicles. In battle, cartel forces often beat security forces and seize territory, though they only aim to be the de facto government of a region.

This results in tolerance of their illegal activities solely out of necessity for survival. Cooperation with the government therefore decreases and the TCO are in de facto control of an area. Even the violent gangs in Haiti offer something that the government has thus far not been able to provide: stability. With the absence of a functioning government in Haiti, the gangs provide basic governmental services in their respective areas of control, albeit for their own profit and benefit. In addition to their wanton acts of violence, the gangs can provide a blanket of security in a lawless country, albeit they often extort money in exchange for that protection.

Why This Matters

Without a strong legitimate government, the overreaching power of TCOs leads to the increase of illegal activities and instability. The cartels, Mafia, and Haitian gangs are only a few of the numerous examples of TCOs around the world that upend law and order. A stable government is necessary to combat this rise—otherwise individual officials will be left to fend for themselves and be corrupted by both greed and the necessity to survive.

When this corruption reaches the highest echelons of government, TCOs will have essentially hijacked a nation. Not only does the breaking down of authority cause people to lose trust in the government, but it also results in the increase in trust of the TCO. Trust is hard to win and easy to lose, which makes it essential to neutralize the threat to the government’s legitimacy posed by the TCO before that legitimacy, and the order that comes with it, are eroded away.

Cover Image: The Mexican military raids a house belonging to a suspected Gulf Cartel member in the border city of Matamoros , Tamaulipas on 25 June 2012. Photo by user MX, accessed via Wikimedia Commons.

Isaac Chakyan Tang

Isaac Tang is a staff writer for the HIR. He is interested in defense affairs, as well as Eastern European and East Asian politics.

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Globalization and Transnational Crime

Globalization, generally described as the removal of barriers to cross-national movement of goods and funds, has been beneficial for transnational organized crime networks . The global forces of supply and demand have created new markets for illicit goods and services provided by criminal organizations. There is high demand for things like drugs (particularly in Europe and North America), weapons (in Africa and the Middle East), exotic wildlife and animal parts (Asia), and exploitable humans (virtually everywhere). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has recently estimated that the international trade in counterfeit and stolen goods amounts to as much as half a trillion dollars . Criminal networks also have new opportunities to establish facilities in various countries from which they can produce and distribute their illicit goods, decreasing costs and maximizing profits. Similarly, just as we see with legal multinational corporations, transnational criminal networks can outsource an array of support services to areas around the world with internet connectivity and lower labor costs.

For example, massive amounts of cocaine are now smuggled by ship and air from Latin America (mainly Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Venezuela) to West Africa, and heroin is smuggled from Central and South Asia to East Africa (and sometimes West Africa as well). In both cases, the drugs then make their way from East and West Africa to the primary drug consumer markets in Europe and the U.S. According to the 2018 UNODC World Drug Report , ‘the quantity of cocaine seized in Africa doubled in 2016, with countries in North Africa seeing a six fold increase and accounting for 69 per cent of all the cocaine seized in the region in 2016.’ Interpol’s World Atlas of Illicit Flows identifies a handful of countries as being particularly important transit hubs for drug trafficking, including Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde, the Canary Islands, Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Ethiopia. This report also notes that illicit trafficking and use of captagon (a brand name for the drug fenethylline, a combination of amphetamine and theophylline, which increases alertness) is rising throughout Africa. India is allegedly a primary source for both of these drugs, and increased use is particularly noticeable in Mali, Chad, and Nigeria. While Niger, Benin and Togo have been described as important transit hubs. Meanwhile, dozens of methamphetamine labs have been discovered throughout West Africa, including one in Nigeria capable of producing billions of dollars’ worth of the drug .

Of course, criminal enterprises also generate millions of dollars in profits each year from trafficking in small arms and light weapons , cigarettes, counterfeit DVDs, and many other items. Globalized shipping, including the intermodal maritime system, can be exploited by transnational organized crime networks to smuggle huge shipments of illicit items in cargo containers. They seek to take advantage of the fact that the overwhelming number of containers shipped each year make it physically impossible to inspect each one. As maritime security expert Peter Cook notes , ‘The greatest challenge … is the sheer volume of containers moving through the ports and the speed with which they have to be processed.’ In August 2018, U.S. government authorities announced the seizure of counterfeit luxury goods (including purses, handbags, and belts) worth at least $500 million, that had been manufactured in China. Over 30 men and women were arrested—all of Chinese heritage and living in the U.S. illegally. This was the culmination of a six-year investigation, which found that twenty of the cargo containers came into the U.S. through the Port of New York and New Jersey, and two through the Port of Los Angeles. In another of the largest counterfeit-goods cases ever prosecuted in the U.S., 29 people were arrested in New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Florida for trying to smuggle $325 million worth of fake goods from China into the U.S.

But worse than drugs or counterfeit goods is the recent increase of human traffickers using compromised intermodal shipping containers. Illegal immigrants apprehended at ports in Britain, Canada and the U.S. (among other countries) after arriving inside shipping containers revealed that many of them had paid a criminal network large sums of cash for the dangerous journey inside a steel crate. For others, this journey ended tragically, like the 39 Vietnamese whose bodies were discovered in a cargo container at a British port in March 2020 . The same month, the bodies of 64 Ethiopians were found in a shipping container in Mozambique . In both instances, authorities believed the victims had suffocated to death.

Globalization also facilitates new opportunities for intersections (especially logistical, financial and operational) between terrorist networks and transnational organized crime . The ability for terrorists to attract and move financial resources, weapons and operatives throughout the world is greatly enhanced when collaborating with existing routes developed and maintained by transnational criminal networks. Further, there are individuals who can navigate both the legal and illegal economic sectors (such as accountants, attorneys, notaries, bankers, and real estate brokers), providing services to legitimate customers, criminals, and terrorists alike. And while globalization has led to an increased volume of legitimate cross-border financial transactions and investment, it also has allowed criminals to launder the proceeds of crime more easily.

Finally, myriad opportunities for both transnational criminals and terrorists are now available via the Internet. These days, Internet connectivity worldwide brings new opportunities for credit card fraud, theft of corporate data (or holding it hostage for ransom), extortion, identity theft, and a range of other kinds of potentially lucrative criminal activities online. Money laundering schemes of various forms can flourish within a digital environment that is weakly governed yet connected with the rest of the world. Globalization allows greater access to the products and services available on the so-called Dark Web, from purchasing explosives or other weapons to hiring a competent cross-border smuggler, document forgery expert or bomb-maker. And of course, operational communication is now much easier between criminal or terrorist network operatives in disparate parts of the world. According to Yuri Fedotov, the executive director of the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime , ‘Thanks to advances in technology, communication, finance and transport, loose networks of terrorists and organized criminal groups that operate internationally can easily link with each other. By pooling their resources and expertise, they can significantly increase their capacity to do harm.’

To sum up, transnational organized crime networks have benefited significantly from globalization, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. As a result, there is a growing need for effective international cooperation in security, intelligence and law enforcement across all countries of origin, transit and destination. No country, even the most powerful, can effectively confront the challenges of transnational organized crime entirely on its own. This is no time for increased nationalism or the kinds of rhetoric and policies that lead to political isolation. Every country, including the US, must re-invigorate their engagement with international institutions and incentivize a collaborative effort to turn the tide against these transnational criminal networks. Failure to do so will only further embolden, enable and enrich them, at our expense.

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Transnational Organized Crime and Its Factors Essay

Introduction.

Transnational organized crime is one of the issues that the United States’ government is currently struggling with as it tries to keep its borders safe. According to Best (2011), the position of the United States as the leading economy in the world, and as the world’s only Superpower makes it a major target of organized terror groups. That is why the government, through various intelligence agencies and security forces, is keen on dealing with these threats before they can affect the country. To deal with the problem of organized crime, it is important to understand its genesis and the environment within which it thrives. In this paper, the researcher seeks to answer the following questions.

Is transnational organized crime a symptom or a cause of the unstable international system of national governments?

According to Downing and Matt (2012), organized crime can cause serious instability in the international system of national governments. A good example of organized crime that can cause instability to the systems is drug trafficking. When drug traffickers get hold of political power by bribing those entrusted with the topmost offices in the country, they can control the internal systems and ensure that they deliberately create instability to enable them to conduct their illegal businesses. When they notice that a regime is keen on creating stability, they can use their influence and financial capability to get them out of the office or even assassinate them (Walsh, 2010). The fear that these gangs create forces those who come to political power to work as per their wish. Under such circumstances, it is almost impossible to have stable international systems of national governments.

A study by Borene (2010) indicates that transnational organized crime is a symptom, not a cause, of the unstable international system of national governments. These criminal organizations have a foundation. They start from somewhere and they need a specific environment to thrive. When there are strong internal systems and structures within a country, these criminal organizations will be identified early before they can gain strong footing. The founders of such criminal organizations will have no platform to initiate their activities. They will be captured and subsequently taken into custody to face justice.

A good example of transnational organized crime that clearly demonstrates that these organizations thrive in unstable countries is the ISIS (Pollack, 2014). This terror outfit was unheard of when Iraq had a stable government. Although the government was governed by a dictator, there were clear structures and systems that made it almost impossible for these criminal gangs to thrive. However, when the country became unstable, ISIS found a good environment within which it could thrive. The leaders of this group noticed that there was a gap that they could capitalize on and they successfully created a terror group that is not only a threat to the countries in the Middle East but also Western nations (Kuriscak, 2011).

The terror groups swiftly moved to Yemen, Syria, and Libya soon after stable governments collapsed. For instance, Libya had a stable government where it was almost impossible for these terrorists to operate. However, when the dictatorial government was toppled, the country became unstable because there was no legitimate leadership in the country. The country is now battling with the problem of ISIS and other terror groups because of the lack of proper governance structures. It is a clear indication that transnational organized crime is a symptom of an unstable government. When the government is unstable, organized criminal groups easily emerge because of the vacuum in leadership.

Best, R. A. (2011). Intelligence information: Need-to-know vs. need-to-share: Congressional Research Service . Web.

Borene, A. (2010). The U.S. intelligence community law sourcebook: A compendium of national security related laws and policy documents . Chicago, Ill: American Bar Association.

Downing, M. & Matt, A. (2012). The domestic counterterrorism enterprise: Time to streamline. Web.

Kuriscak, J. (2011). Intelligence sharing silos between the FBI and the CIA . Washington, DC: Cengage.

Pollack, F. (2014). Coalition theater-level intelligence sharing: Overcoming failures and strengthening relationships . Norfolk, VA: National Defense University.

Walsh, J. I. (2010). The international politics of intelligence sharing . New York: Columbia University Press.

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IvyPanda. (2020, August 2). Transnational Organized Crime and Its Factors. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transnational-organized-crime-and-its-factors/

"Transnational Organized Crime and Its Factors." IvyPanda , 2 Aug. 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/transnational-organized-crime-and-its-factors/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Transnational Organized Crime and Its Factors'. 2 August.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Transnational Organized Crime and Its Factors." August 2, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transnational-organized-crime-and-its-factors/.

1. IvyPanda . "Transnational Organized Crime and Its Factors." August 2, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transnational-organized-crime-and-its-factors/.

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Introduction to International Relations by Jackson & Sørensen
Articles of Confederation: The First Governing Systems of the USA
Terrorism: the Evolution of ISIS
ISIS and the Middle East Conflict
Globalization and Democratization Effects on Libya
International Intervention in Libya
Transnational Organized Crime: Prevalence, Factors and Impacts
Effects of Transnational Organized Crime on Foreign Politics
Modern Libya's History
Transnational Organized Crime
Service of the United Nations and Reparations
EU Electromagnetic Compatibility Directive
Assassination: Moral, Legal, Political and Practical Views
Legitimacy of International Criminal Law
Human Rights and Legal Framework in Poor Countries

Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce immigration law

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed Texas to enforce for now a contentious new law that gives local police the power to arrest migrants.

The conservative-majority court, with three liberal justices dissenting, rejected an emergency request by the Biden administration, which said states have no authority to legislate on immigration , an issue the federal government has sole authority over.

That means the law can go into effect while litigation continues in lower courts. It could be blocked at a later date.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, hailed the court order , calling it "clearly a positive development," though he acknowledged that the legal battle is not over.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement that the law "will not only make communities in Texas less safe, it will also burden law enforcement and sow chaos and confusion at our southern border."

An aerial view of migrants crossing the Rio Grande.

“The court gives a green light to a law that will upend the longstanding federal-state balance of power and sow chaos,” liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissenting opinion. Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson also objected to the decision.

The majority did not explain its reasoning, but one of the conservative justices, Amy Coney Barrett, wrote separately to note that an appeals court has yet to weigh in on the issue.

"If a decision does not issue soon, the applicants may return to this court," she wrote. Her opinion was joined by fellow conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority.

In response to the Supreme Court order, the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals fast-tracked oral arguments on the Biden administration’s effort to block the law. Arguments are set to take place Wednesday morning, meaning a decision could come quickly.

The law in question, known as SB4, allows police to arrest migrants who illegally cross the border from Mexico and imposes criminal penalties. It would also empower state judges to order people to be deported to Mexico.

A top Mexico official said Tuesday in a statement on X that the country will not accept deportations from Texas.

According to a spokesperson for the Texas Department for Public Safety, there is no start date yet for enforcement of the law. Lt. Chris Olivarez said that state officials have been planning for its implementation for months, but they’re still discussing some practical details.

In Val Verde County on the U.S.-Mexico border, Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez said his small force, with three deputies on duty around the clock for a 3,145 square mile county of 47,586 people, will not start arresting migrants until he receives guidance from the state.

“I think that we all are in uncharted waters,” he said Tuesday.

He said not only is he not sure how and when to initiate enforcement of the state law, but that he will likely need more deputies and jail space if tasked with the new enforcement initiative. The county jail has a daily capacity of 94, Martinez said.“Right now we’re not equipped to handle that,” he said.

The dispute is the latest clash between the Biden administration and Texas over immigration enforcement on the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a separate opinion, Kagan wrote that the Texas law appears to conflict with federal law, noting that "the subject of immigration generally, and the entry and removal of noncitizens particularly, are matters long thought the special province of the federal government."

A federal judge blocked the law after the Biden administration sued, but the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a brief order that it could go into effect March 10 if the Supreme Court declined to intervene. The appeals court has not yet decided whether to grant the federal government's request to block the law.

On March 4, Justice Samuel Alito issued a temporary freeze on the law to give the Supreme Court time to consider the federal government’s request.

Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in court papers that the law is “flatly inconsistent” with Supreme Court precedent dating back 100 years.

“Those decisions recognize that the authority to admit and remove noncitizens is a core responsibility of the national government, and that where Congress has enacted a law addressing those issues, state law is preempted,” she wrote.

The appeals court, Prelogar added, did not explain its reasoning for allowing the law to go into effect.

She dismissed Texas’ argument that its law can be defended on the basis that the state is effectively battling an invasion at the border under the State War Clause of the Constitution. The provision says states cannot “engage in war, unless actually invaded” or in imminent danger.

“A surge of unauthorized immigration plainly is not an invasion within the meaning of the State War Clause,” Prelogar wrote.

Defending the law, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in court papers that the measure complements federal law and the state should be allowed to enforce it.

The Constitution “recognizes that Texas has the sovereign right to defend itself from violent transnational cartels that flood the state with fentanyl, weapons, and all manner of brutality,” he added.

Texas is “the nation’s first-line defense against transnational violence and has been forced to deal with the deadly consequences of the federal government’s inability or unwillingness to protect the border,” Paxton said.

The city of El Paso and two immigrant rights groups, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and American Gateways, have also challenged the law and filed their own emergency request at the Supreme Court.

In 2012, the Supreme Court invalidated provisions of a tough immigration law enacted in Arizona. Only two of the justices who were in the majority in that case are still on the court: Chief Justice John Roberts and Sotomayor.

Lawrence Hurley covers the Supreme Court for NBC News.

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Why Is Sean Combs the Subject of a Homeland Security Investigation?

The department has a division that often directs inquiries into sex trafficking allegations, like those cited in recent lawsuits against Mr. Combs.

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By Julia Jacobs

The raids of Sean Combs’s homes in Los Angeles and the Miami area this week raised a barrage of questions about the nature of the inquiry, which a federal official said was at least in part a human trafficking investigation.

The government has said little about the basis for the search warrants, but the raids came after five civil lawsuits were filed against Mr. Combs in recent months that accused him of violating sex trafficking laws. In four of the suits women accused him of rape, and in one a man accused him of unwanted sexual contact. Mr. Combs, a hip-hop impresario known as Puff Daddy and Diddy who has been a high-profile figure in the music industry since the 1990s, has vehemently denied all of the allegations, calling them “sickening.” Officials have not publicly named him as a target of any prosecution.

As the civil suits against Mr. Combs illustrate, the term human or sex trafficking has a broader meaning in the law than perhaps the more popularly understood image of organized crime and forced prostitution rings.

“Traditionally you think of trafficking as a pimp who has a stable of victims and then is trafficking them in the traditional sense of the word, for money,” said Jim Cole, a former supervisory special agent with Homeland Security Investigations who oversaw human trafficking cases, “but there are lots of forms of trafficking.”

The breadth of trafficking investigations has grown with the recent uptick in sexual abuse claims and the use of the internet by traffickers. Homeland Security Investigations often leads such criminal investigations, although the department is most commonly associated with immigration and transnational issues.

In the current inquiry, federal investigators in New York have been interviewing potential witnesses about sexual misconduct allegations against Mr. Combs for several months, according to a person familiar with the interviews. Some of the questions involved the solicitation and transportation of prostitutes, as well as any payments or promises associated with sex acts, the person said.

The search warrants were executed this week by Homeland Security, which has carried out such investigations since it started operations in 2003. In 2020, the agency created the Center for Countering Human Trafficking in an effort to better coordinate their anti-trafficking work across the department.

With the #MeToo era and its aftermath giving rise to sexual abuse allegations against scores of powerful men, prosecutors have turned more frequently to federal sex trafficking laws to prosecute cases. Those laws allow for federal prosecution of sexual assault — typically a crime handled on the state level — and they have longer statutes of limitation than some abuse charges, allowing prosecutors to try to convict a person on allegations dating back years.

Homeland Security took a leading role in investigating the case that led to the first criminal punishment against the R&B artist R. Kelly. It came in a federal trial in Brooklyn that ended in his conviction on a count of racketeering and violations of an anti-sex-trafficking law known as the Mann Act. Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted on sex trafficking and other charges for conspiring to sexually exploit underage girls with Jeffrey Epstein, who hanged himself in his jail cell as he awaited his own trial on similar charges.

And Keith Raniere received a 120-year prison sentence in the Nxivm sex cult scandal for sex trafficking and other crimes. He was convicted after the prosecution overcame an argument from his lawyers that his was not a legitimate sex trafficking case because the charges did not involve sexual exploitation for profit, but rather sex coerced through promises of increased status, among other claims.

“More recently prosecutors have been more aggressive with prosecuting trafficking cases to the fullest extent that they can,” said Elizabeth Geddes, a former federal prosecutor who was part of the team that won the case against Mr. Kelly.

Ms. Geddes said prosecutors have been effective because the main federal sex trafficking law , passed in 2000, is broad, making it a crime for anyone to use “force, fraud or coercion” to cause a person to engage in a commercial sex act. Courts have interpreted this as receiving anything of value — not necessarily money.

The recent escalation of Mr. Combs’s legal troubles began in November, when his former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, who makes music as the singer Cassie, filed a lawsuit accusing him of years of sexual and physical abuse. Ms. Ventura accused Mr. Combs in the court papers of forcing her to have sex with male prostitutes in front of him. She said he instructed her to use websites and escort services to find prostitutes to participate in what he called “freak offs.”

“Sometimes, Mr. Combs would pay to fly male sex workers to his location, including to multiple cities in the United States as well as abroad,” the lawsuit said. “He required Ms. Ventura and his staff to help him make these arrangements.”

Ms. Ventura’s lawsuit was filed shortly before the deadline for the Adult Survivors Act , a New York law that provided a window for plaintiffs to file sexual abuse claims outside the statute of limitations. The suit was settled in a single day, with both sides saying it had been resolved “amicably,” temporarily giving the impression that Mr. Combs’s team might have contained a problem.

But four more lawsuits followed, including the most recent one filed by the male music producer , who accused Mr. Combs of forcing him to hire prostitutes and participate in sex acts with them. A lawyer for Mr. Combs responded to the lawsuit by saying that the producer was “shamelessly looking for an undeserved payday.”

In addition to claims of sexual assault and battery, Ms. Ventura’s lawsuit cited the federal sex trafficking statute. Douglas H. Wigdor, one of the lawyers representing her, said in a recent interview that his client’s claims fit the framework for sex trafficking, and pointed to allegations in the lawsuit that Mr. Combs used force and coercion to induce Ms. Ventura into sex acts.

“It meets the definition,” he said. “It includes isolation, confinement and monitoring, and there’s obviously force.”

The statute of limitations for some types of prosecutions of the federal sex trafficking law is 10 years. Ms. Ventura’s allegations span the mid-2000s through 2018.

The investigation into Mr. Combs, 54, burst into public view on the afternoon of March 25, when local television footage surfaced of agents from Homeland Security Investigations entering his mansion in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. His home in Miami Beach, Fla., was raided the same day, and Mr. Combs was met by federal agents at a Miami-area airport where he had been planning to leave on a flight to the Bahamas. Arrested at that time was a 25-year-old associate named Brendan Paul, who was charged with cocaine possession. Among the items that agents recovered in the raids were electronic devices, weapons and ammunition, a federal official said.

A lawyer for Mr. Combs, Aaron Dyer, called the raids a “gross overuse of military-level force” and “nothing more than a witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits.”

Plaintiffs’ lawyers have been increasingly turning to state and federal trafficking statutes as a means of possible recourse with the passage of legislation like the Adult Survivors Act in New York, and a similar law in California.

Ann Olivarius, a lawyer who has used such statutes in sexual misconduct lawsuits, said that the influx of such lawsuits will likely lead the courts in the coming years to make decisions as to the proper interpretation of trafficking laws, which she said are relatively untested.

“It’s a young area of the law,” Ms. Olivarius said. “The whole notion of sex trafficking is really under review.”

Ben Sisario and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting from New York. Hamed Aleaziz contributed reporting from Washington. Susan Beachy contributed research.

Julia Jacobs is an arts and culture reporter who often covers legal issues for The Times. More about Julia Jacobs

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ICE arrests 216 noncitizens with drug-related convictions during nationwide law enforcement effort

WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers apprehended 216 unlawfully present noncitizens who have been convicted of drug trafficking or multiple drug possession related offenses involving methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, or synthetic drugs, during a nation-wide law enforcement effort that ran from March 11 - 26, 2024.

“As a federal law enforcement agency, ERO works everyday to protect our communities from public safety threats,” said ICE Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director Patrick J. Lechleitner. “This operation enabled us to do what ERO was created to do, and that is to focus on smart, effective immigration enforcement to protect our homeland by arresting and removing people who undermine community and public safety and violate the integrity of our immigration laws.”

“With more than 105,000 drug overdoses reported throughout the United States last year, the trafficking and proliferation of dangerous illegal drugs has shown its devastating impacts throughout our neighborhoods and schools,” said ERO Deputy Executive Associate Director Russ Hott. “Enforcement and Removal Operations personnel will continue to fight for the safety of our communities through the arrest and removal of those individuals who traffic drugs and exacerbate this terrible crisis.”

Today’s announcement follows a nation-wide enforcement effort in February where 275 individuals presenting a threat to public safety were arrested. By utilizing an intelligence-driven enforcement model, ERO makes efficient use of limited resources to promote public safety in communities across the United States.

Those arrested include:

A 44-year-old citizen of Mexico in Baltimore, MD, convicted in October 2023 by the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, NY, of felony money laundering, misdemeanor narcotics conspiracy, misdemeanor money laundering conspiracy, felony distribution and possession with intent to distribute heroin, and felony possessing/using/carrying a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking crime.
A 34-year-old citizen of El Salvador in Cincinnati, OH, convicted December 2023 by the United State District Court, Southern District of Ohio, Cincinnati, OH, of felony conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl.
A 44-year-old citizen of Mexico in Spokane, WA, convicted January 30, 2001 by the Franklin County Superior Court in Pasco, WA, of felony VUCSA-manufacture/deliver/possess with intent: heroin. On July 16, 2003, the Benton County Superior Court in Richland, WA, convicted this noncitizen of felony VUCSA-manufacture/deliver/possess with intent: cocaine.
A 32-year-old citizen of India in Orlando, FL, convicted October 2015 by the 7th Judicial Circuit Court in Volusia County, FL, of felony trafficking of oxycodone. In January 2016, the 9th Judicial Circuit Court, in Osceola County, FL, convicted this noncitizen of felony possession of a controlled substance w/ intent to sell or deliver. In February 2016, the 5th Judicial Circuit Court, in Lake County, FL convicted this noncitizen of felony possession of oxycodone.
A 42-year-old citizen of Guatemala in Colorado Springs, CO, convicted in February 2017 by the Los Angeles County Circuit Court, in Los Angeles, California of felony-controlled substance –transport / sell: methamphetamine.

ICE focuses on the arrest of noncitizens who have committed crimes and other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws. ICE officers, informed by their experience and training, use their inherent discretion as law enforcement officials to focus enforcement resources on those who pose a threat to national security, public safety, or border security. These efforts include noncitizens with final orders of removal. Cases amenable to federal criminal prosecution may be presented to the appropriate U.S. attorney’s office.

In fiscal year (FY) 2023 ERO arrested 73,822 noncitizens with criminal histories; this group had 290,178 associated charges and convictions with an average of four per individual. These included 33,209 assaults; 4,390 sex and sexual assaults; 7,520 weapons offenses; 1,713 charges or convictions for homicide; and 1,655 kidnapping offenses.

Members of the public can report crimes and suspicious activity by dialing 866-347-2423 or completing the online tip form . Learn more about ICE’s mission to increase public safety in your community on X formerly known as Twitter @ICEgov .

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Transnational Organized Crime in the United States
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Transnational Crime
Introduction. Transnational crimes are violations of law that involve more than one country in their planning, execution, or impact. These offenses are distinguished from other crimes in their multinational nature, which poses unique problems in understanding their causes, developing prevention strategies, and in mounting effective adjudication ...
Transnational Crime
Transnational crime has a fairly straightforward definition: any crime that is planned, executed, or has an impact in more than one country is a transnational crime. However, it can be easy to ...
PDF Transnational Organized Crime and International Security
These activities are those of traditional organized crime - violence, intimidation, extortion, and corruption - only on a larger scale; for some observers, transnational criminal organizations now pose a threat to the nation-state. In this essay, I examine the strength of the claim that transnational organized crime is a security
Transnational Crime Essay
Transnational Crime. The assigned reading thus far has been able to discuss and elaborate on the factors that are shaping transnational crime and its relations to national security. Four factors that can be considered is the fall of communism, failed governments, advancement in technology and finally economic liberalization.
PDF International and Transnational Crime and Justice
INTERNATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL CRIME AND JUSTICE International crime and justice is an emerging eld that covers crime and justice from a global perspective. is book introduces the nature of international and transnational crimes; theoretical foundations to understanding the relationship between social change
Transnational Crime and International Policing Essay
Transnational crimes are the criminal activities that take place across borders as commonly used in law practice and educationally. It gives the implication of crimes that more than being international or cross border involve border exchange as the core of the crimes. They include human trafficking, smuggling of goods like armory and drugs, sex ...
PDF Transnational Criminal Law
Transnational crimes are different because they span multiple nations and many jurisdictions. Like most legal concepts, there is no definition of transnational crime. In fact, the United Nations (UN) deliberately chooses not to provide a singular definition in its relevant treaty, the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism
A crime is transnational if a substantial amount of the preparation, planning, or direction took place in a state other than the one in which the crime actually took place, or if the group that committed the crime is active in multiple states (UNTOC, 2000). A crime can also be transnational if it has significant follow-on effects in a second state.
Transnational organized crime: A threat to global public goods
Transnational organized crime. Organized crime has been defined as 'illegal activities, conducted by groups or networks acting in concert, by engaging in violence, corruption or related activities in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or material benefit'. Transnational organized crime occurs when these activities, or ...
Part A Introduction, 1 What Is Transnational Crime?
7 Transnational Organized Crime. 7.1 Introduction; 7.2 The nature of transnational organized crime. 7.2.1 What is transnational organized crime? 7.2.2 The threat of transnational organized crime; 7.3 The development of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) 7.3.1 Forerunner legislation; 7.3.2 The development of the UNTOC
Part I Introduction, 1 What is Transnational Crime?
This introductory chapter takes a look at the distinctive features of cross-border activities and the kinds of harm they cause. It charts the policy process for the development of special international legal measures to suppress these activities as transnational crimes. This analysis is cross-disciplinary in nature, embracing criminology, international relations theory, security studies and ...
Transnational crime
Transnational crimes are crimes that have actual or potential effect across national borders and crimes that are intrastate but offend fundamental values of the international community. The term is commonly used in the law enforcement and academic communities. Transnational organized crime (TOC) refers specifically to transnational crime carried out by crime organizations.
The Global Regime for Transnational Crime
The cost of transnational organized crime is estimated to be roughly 3.6 percent [PDF] of the global economy. Money laundering alone costs at least 2 percent of global gross domestic product every ...
Transnational Crime Essay
Transnational Crime Comparative Criminal Justice Systems Introduction: Transnational crime is a growing problem. Transnational crime is defined as "self-perpetuating associations of individuals who operate transnational for the purpose of obtaining power, influence, monetary and/or commercial gains, wholly or in part by illegal means, while protecting their activities through a pattern of ...
Up to No Good: The Rise of Transnational Criminal Organizations and its
Up to No Good: The Rise of Transnational Criminal Organizations and its Impact on Global Security. Being the seat of power in a nation, governments are often subject to threats against their authority. Such threats include revolutionary groups, both domestic and foreign terrorist organizations, as well as rebellious local territories. However ...
Transnational Organized Crime: Prevalence, Factors and Impacts
There are different forms of transnational organized crime, including human trafficking, illegal migration, firearms smuggling, drug trafficking, and money laundering. These forms of crime pose a serious challenge to the state since they interfere with the sovereignty and security. Scholars of international relations agree that little is known ...
How Globalization Affects Transnational Crime
Globalization facilitates international trade but also increases the difficulty of regulating global trade; traffickers and smugglers have exploited this. Williams adds that globalization has ...
Globalization and Transnational Crime
Globalization and Transnational Crime. Globalization, generally described as the removal of barriers to cross-national movement of goods and funds, has been beneficial for transnational organized crime networks. The global forces of supply and demand have created new markets for illicit goods and services provided by criminal organizations.
Transnational Crime and Policing
This collection of essays on transnational crime and policing covers a broad range of themes: the relationship between global policing and the transnational-state-system; the impact of advanced technologies on policing practice; the changing morphology of occupational policing subculture; and the transnational practices of police agencies.
Transnational Organized Crime and Its Factors Essay
We will write a custom essay on your topic a custom Essay on Transnational Organized Crime and Its Factors. 808 writers online . Learn More . Is transnational organized crime a symptom or a cause of the unstable international system of national governments?
Transnational Crime and Policing Selected Essays
This collection of essays on transnational crime and policing covers a broad range of themes: the relationship between global policing and the transnational-state-system; the impact of advanced technologies on policing practice; the changing morphology of occupational policing subculture; and the transnational practices of police agencies. The essays include case studies and are based on ...
Transnational Organised Crime
The Transnational Organised Crime Convention is a multi-lateral convention established by the United Nations in December 2000 with the expressed aim of demonstrating the "political will to answer a global challenge with a global response.". It should consequently be seen as formal recognition that the new security problems posited by the ...
International Crime-Transnational Crime Essay Plan
This is most specifically seen with the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Border Force, various international measures such as INTERPOL, as well as responses to cybercrime, drug trafficking and terrorism. Thus, domestic and international measures have been effective to a moderate extent in dealing with transnational crime.
Supreme Court allows Texas to enforce immigration law
Texas is "the nation's first-line defense against transnational violence and has been forced to deal with the deadly consequences of the federal government's inability or unwillingness to ...
Why Is Sean Combs the Subject of a Homeland Security Investigation?
As the civil suits against Mr. Combs illustrate, the term human or sex trafficking has a broader meaning in the law than perhaps the more popularly understood image of organized crime and forced ...
HSI San Juan executes 4 arrest warrants related to possession of ...
HSI is the principal investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), responsible for investigating transnational crime and threats, specifically those criminal organizations that exploit the global infrastructure through which international trade, travel and finance move. HSI's workforce of more than 8,700 employees ...
ERO Boston apprehends unlawfully present Guatemalan national ...
Recognize & Report Crime Securing the Homeland Combating cross-border criminal activity is a critical component of the overall safety, security and well-being of our nation.
ERO Harlingen arrests 6 noncitizens with drug-related convictions
ERO Harlingen officers apprehended six unlawfully present noncitizens who were convicted of drug trafficking or multiple drug possession related offenses involving methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, heroin or synthetic drugs during a nationwide law enforcement effort that ran from March 11 through March 26, 2024.
ICE arrests 216 noncitizens with drug-related convictions during
WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers apprehended 216 unlawfully present noncitizens who have been convicted of drug trafficking or multiple drug possession related offenses involving methamphetamine, fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, or synthetic drugs, during a nation-wide law enforcement effort that ran from March 11 - 26, 2024.