IR 3001 Week 7 lectures

1. IR 3001 Week 7 lectures Trans-national Actors II: Organised Crime

2. How do we define trans-national organised crime? • Maltz (1971): ‘An organised crime is a crime in which there is more than one offender, and the offenders are and intend to remain associated with one another for the purpose of committing crimes’. • Keohane and Nye, political activity can be described as trans-national when 'tangible or intangible items move across state boundaries' and 'when at least one actor is not an agent of a government or an intergovernmental organisation'. • Globalisation trends apply to legal as well as illegal trade activities: • the same economic structure allows for corporate expansion and trans-national organised crime gangs.

3. Types of criminal activities Labour racketeering/extortion people trafficking Drug trafficking goods trafficking/conflict goods Price-fixing Illegal gambling Prostitution Extortion rings Private terrorism Types of Organisations Sicilian Mafia, Russian Mafia, Chinese Triads… Drug Cartels Conflict Goods Networks Mercenaries/private security firms (?) E.g. ‘Executive outcomes’ Illegal migration networks Linked to people trafficking These may overlap! (Ambiguous) Typology

4. Trans-national Mafias • ‘Export’ of illegal activities through immigrant links (e.g. Sicilian mafia in the US) • Activities expanding to cross-border illegal trade, use of open frontiers • Case Study: Russian Organised Crime • Rampant growth since 1991 – economic liberalism has created a new class of ‘entrepreneurs’ • racketeering, • corruption, • intimidation of businesses and public officials, • money laundering and extra-judicial killings/assassinations. • Seen throughout Central and Eastern Europe as well as US (Brighton Beach) • Involved in prostitution and people trafficking rings in Western Europe (along with Eastern European gangs)

5. Illegal Drug Trafficking • Drugs and Latin America: major producer • Cocaine (Bolivia, Columbia, Peru) • Heroin (Mexico) • Marijuana (Mexico, Jamaica) • Key economic sector – but ‘shadow economy’ • Trans-border networks are key to operations (focus is US market) • American ‘War on Drugs’ – this type of OC has been defined as a security threat with security responses • Invasion of Panama • Plan Columbia • ‘Shiprider’ Agreement

6. Crime and Migration • Migrating populations are vulnerable and often hard to account for • Most migration is illegal • Most migration is based on dire economic needs (‘Economic refugees’) from the Global South • Most migrant have families depending on them ‘back home’: cannot afford to fail • Most migrants cannot speak the local language or know the law • Criminal gangs are often the only way ‘in’ given increasingly tough immigration control • Gangs are often recent immigrants themselves using their contacts on both sides • Cost is prohibitive and often paid through ‘slave labour debt’ - migrants have no legal recourse • Using the same network as goods being trafficked (stolen goods, drugs…). What is the line between goods and people trafficking?

7. Women’s Trafficking • prostitution or sexual slavery? Trafficked women are abducted or duped, ‘broken in’ by the gang, and then prostituted to pay an immigration debt or through threats to them and family • E.g. Sub-saharan African women in Italy, women from the Balkans in the UK… • Different from prostitution: no consent, no money…high risks of battery, STIs and long term mental health problems • Estimate 700,000 women and children a year: core human security concern? • Why would women take such risks to emigrate illegally? – linked to gross economic inequalities • Fuels shadow economies linked to other illegal activities • Shows failure of immigration regimes (and prostitution laws) • Children’s trafficking (male and female) for peadophile prostitution rings

8. Crime and War Economies • Wars create ‘law and order’ vacuum which criminals fill: • Sometimes black market economy is the only way to get basic goods during wars… • But goods traffickers have a vested interest in the conflict not ending – they may become actors in the conflict! • Other side of the coin: • Parties in civil wars fund their activities through criminal activities – export and import… • Trans-border involvement to destabilise neighbours and exploit their resources illegally (conflict diamonds in Sierra Leone)

9. Estimated Revenue from Conflict Resources, Selected Cases Source: Michael Renner, The Anatomy of Resource Wars, Worldwatch Paper 162, October 2002, p. 7, Table 1.

10. OC and security studies • How high on the agenda should this trans-national threat be (I.e. who does it threaten, and do we care?) • How can this be tackled by states and International Organisations? • Link to extreme wealth inequalities: the victims are the most vulnerable • Russian Mafia used liberalisation to endanger industries, jobs… and Russia’s ability to govern itself (risk of illegal nuclear arms deals?) • Poor states like Sierra Leone have their only mineral wealth plundered and their population mutilated • Cannot secure post-conflict reconstruction after civil wars when criminals control the economy and security • Cheap goods, drugs and sex are in demand… Issues of responsibility in host state

11. Conclusion • OC impacts on security both directly and indirectly • Is it linked to other trans-national forces such as terrorist groups? • Overlap (e.g. GIA) in some cases, cooperation on WMDs the worst fear • Ultimately contradicting forces? Organised crime does not work in anarchy, it relies on state structures, stability. • Can we treat OC and terrorism as a separate threat to wider questions of nuclear proliferation? • Can a system dominated by states and economic inequalities reach the criminals, can it help the victims?