Transnational Organized Crime In West Africa

This regional assessment is broadly focused on transnational organized crime (including drug trafficking) issues and the linkages with development, governance and security in West Africa. This Report is intended to provide a more comprehensive and nuanced picture of contraband flows, criminal markets and their political, social and economic impacts on the regions in question. It will be a means to convene strategic dialogue on emerging transnational organized crime threats, and the recommendation it yields will be built back into policy analysis and programme development throughout the United Nations System, including at the regional and country levels.

Human trafficking and smuggling of migrants: Four of the 12 illicit flows reviewed in this report involve human beings. The first two concern movement between the countries of the region, one for general labour and one for sexual exploitation. The third concerns the smuggling of migrants from the region to the rich countries of the West, and the last focuses on migrants smuggled through the region from the poor and conflicted countries of South and Southwest Asia. Drug trafficking: The production and use of opiates has a long history in the region, but the main opiate problem in the 21st century involves the more refined form of the drug: heroin. In addition, methamphetamine has been a threat in parts of East Asia for decades (in the form of yaba tablets), but crystal methamphetamine has recently grown greatly in popularity. Virtually every country in the region has some crystal methamphetamine users, and some populations consume at very high levels.Resources: Resource-related crimes include those related to both extractive industries, such as the illegal harvesting of wildlife and timber, and other crimes that have a negative impact on the environment, such as the dumping of e-waste and the trade in ozone-depleting substances. In all cases, the threat goes beyond borders, jeopardizing the global environmental heritage. These are therefore crimes of inherent international significance, though they are frequently dealt with lightly under local legislation.Counterfeit goods: The trade in counterfeit goods is often perceived as a "soft" form of crime, but can have dangerous consequences for public health and safety. Fraudulent medicines in particular pose a threat to public health, and their use can foster the growth of treatment resistant pathogens.

Transnational organized crime interferes with the everyday lives of more and more people - and represents a serious threat to democracy. By now, organized crime has become an inherent feature of economic globalization, and the fine line between the legal and illegal operation of business networks is blurred. Additionally, few experts could claim to have comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the laws and regulations governing the international flow of trade, and hence of the borderline towards criminal transactions. This book offers contributions from 12 countries around the world authored by 25 experts from a wide range of academic disciplines, representatives from civil society organizations and private industry, journalists, as well as activists. Recognizing the complexity of the issue, this publication provides a cross cultural and multi-disciplinary analysis of transnational organized crime including a historical approach from different regional and cultural contexts.

Document from the year 2018 in the subject Politics - Region: Africa, grade: -, , language: English, abstract: West African states have become increasingly porous and vulnerable to the activities of organized criminal networks which negatively impact their security situations. At the same time, there are various national and bilateral concerns to tackle these problems and restore the security situation in these countries, yet they remain vulnerable to these quagmires, which are expressed in the forms of human trafficking/ smuggling, drug trafficking, armed robbery, money laundry and arms trafficking which have had tremendous effects on the security of these countries. However, the ease at which these crimes are executed across the sub-region signals the cooptation or involvement of some state officials, whose role is to pave way for the smooth execution of these of these nefarious acts for their private gains. In line with the foregoing, it has become necessary to interrogate the role of the criminal justice systems in the sub region. This paper examines the dynamics of corruption and institutional lapses within the context of state fragility in West Africa and determines whether or not the sub-region does lack the capacity necessary to accurately respond to the methods utilized by trafficking networks in their businesses viewing from their proliferation in the sub-region despite their threats and efforts made to counter them. The research makrd use of secondary data and the data is derived from an in-depth review of related literature on the subject mainly from online journal articles. The result of the findings shows that states’ failure to adequately position and manage their security apparatuses can give room for infiltrations that can entirely corrupt and defeat their entire security goal. Based on the findings of this work, it becomes evident that since West African states are deficient in this regard, their national security also been prone to such deficits.

Abstract: The crisis in Mali has sharpened European awareness of the dangers posed by transnational organised crime in West Africa. The UN Stabilisation Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) set up in July 2013 will find itself confronted with the issue as well. But the problem of organised crime reaches far beyond the Sahel, and affects many coastal states in West Africa. Nor can it be reduced to the "crime-terror nexus" and the drug trade. Transnational criminal activities in the region are more diverse than that, the challenges more complex: from piracy in the Gulf of Guinea to illegal extraction of natural resources, cybercrime and human trafficking. Europe is directly affected by these developments as a market and target, and, moreover, has a strong interest in West African stability. So there are various reasons for addressing the problem. However, existing efforts by the European Union and other actors to improve law enforcement will fall short if they remain isolated. (author's abstract)

International criminal networks mainly from Latin America and Africa -- some with links to terrorism -- are turning West Africa into a key global hub for the distribution, wholesaling, and production of illicit drugs. These groups represent an existential threat to democratic governance of already fragile states in the sub-region because they are using narco-corruption to stage coups d'état, hijack elections, and co-opt or buy political power. Besides a spike in drug-related crime, narcotics trafficking is also fraying West Africa's traditional social fabric and creating a public health crisis, with hundreds of thousands of new drug addicts. While the inflow of drug money may seem economically beneficial to West Africa in the short-term, investors will be less inclined to do business in the long-term if the sub-region is unstable. On net, drug trafficking and other illicit trade represent the most serious challenge to human security in the region since resource conflicts rocked several West African countries in the early 1990s. International aid to West Africa's "war on drugs" is only in an initial stage; progress will be have to be measured in decades or even generations, not years and also unfold in parallel with creating alternative sustainable livelihoods and addressing the longer-term challenges of human insecurity, poverty, and underdevelopment.

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2017 in the subject Politics - Region: Africa, grade: 4, University of Ibadan, language: English, abstract: This work articulates that Nigeria’s security is troubled by transnational crimes prevalent in West Africa by making an important argument that since West African states lack the capacity to uphold the basic demands of statehood within their territorial domains, they unavoidably serve as safe havens for trans-organized criminal networks, which has grave implications to Nigeria’s domestic concerns.