DRUG WAR FACTS NEWSLETTER: If this term sounds like a new twist to an age-old peril, it is. Although TOC is a fairly recent invention, it reflects an approach that is evolving with its times.
The National Institute of Justice charted TOC’s brief history, “Starting in the 1970s, but accelerating in the early 1990s, a new form of organized crime took hold. The combination of a new geopolitical climate, a globalized world economy and resulting softer borders, and a revolution in information technology available to crime groups hastened a shift. Crime groups changed from domestic organized crime groups that were regional in scope and hierarchically structured to criminal organizations that are global and transnational in nature, increasingly networked with other criminal groups, and often flatter in structure.”[1]
This led to the passage of the passage of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime in 2000, which went into effect in late 2003.
The Office of the President of the United States defines transnational organized crime as “self-perpetuating associations of individuals who operate transnationally 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 corruption and/or violence, or while protecting their illegal activities through a transnational organizational structure.”[2]
There is some inconsistency concerning which activities comprise the illicit trade overseen by TOC operatives.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) enumerates these threats in its 2010 “The Globalization of Crime” report: trafficking in persons, smuggling of migrants, cocaine, heroin, firearms, environmental resources, counterfeit products (consumer goods and medicines), maritime piracy and cybercrimes (identity theft and child pornography).[3]
In its 2011 “Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime,” the Office of the President names these components: crime-terror-insurgency nexus, drug trafficking, human smuggling, trafficking in persons, weapons trafficking, intellectual property theft and cybercrime.[2]
Global Financial Integrity reviewed “the scale, flow, profit distribution, and impact of 12 different types of illicit trade: drugs, humans, wildlife, counterfeit goods and currency, human organs, small arms, diamonds and colored gemstones, oil, timber, fish, art and cultural property, and gold.”[4]
Regardless, the common thread among each of these is illicit drugs.
The UNODC confirms that, “The overall best estimates of [global illicit] criminal proceeds are close to US$2.1 trillion in 2009 or 3.6% of global GDP [Gross Domestic Product] … About half of these proceeds were linked to trafficking in drugs.”[3]
A new table in Drug War Facts takes Global Financial Integrity’s review of those 12 illicit markets one step further by including the dollar values for cannabis, cocaine, opiates and amphetamine stimulants.[5]
The conclusion is undeniable: at an estimated global retail value of $141 billion in 2003, removing just cannabis herb and cannabis resin from the illicit marketplace would reduce the value of the illicit market – and the peril posed by transnational organized crime – by almost one quarter (22%).
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[1] “Responding to Transnational Organized Crime: Supporting Research, Improving Practice,” National Institute of Justice Journal, October 2011.
– https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/235889.pdf
[2] “Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime: Addressing Converging Threats to National Security,” Office of the President of the United States, April 2011.
– http://mapinc.org/url/fxp9alGH
[3] “The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2010.
– http://mapinc.org/url/GiZpkp7B
[4] “Transnational Crime In The Developing World,” Global Financial Integrity, February 2011.
– http://mapinc.org/url/Q4UQ6dZ6
[5] “Value of Illicit International Trade,” Drug War Facts, Fact 43.
– http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Crime#Markets
Editor’s Note: This graphic by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence describes transnational organized crime, charts its various geographic threats, estimates its annual revenues and lists strategies to combat its peril.
– http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_toc_foldout.pdf
