On the one hand, the world is grappling with the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars, causing the world economy to go through a difficult phase, while on the other, international gangsters and organized criminals have erupted. They are taking advantage of the current situation and increasing their criminal activities with gangs. Jürgen Stock, who served as Interpol's secretary-general for 10 years, says the world is losing the fight against gangs and organized crime.
Director of Transnational Organized Crime Mark Shaw says there are three main reasons for the expansion of international gangs. Encrypted mobile apps and crypto currencies have facilitated criminals to connect with each other and transfer their earnings. In addition, global gangs are making huge profits from synthetic drugs. Criminal gangs are now involved in polycrime ranging from drugs, pirated software and wildlife to human trafficking. For example, Venezuela's 'Train de Aragua' gang makes money from human trafficking, not drugs.
Global Gang: Network in 40 countries, 60 thousand members
- The Italian mafia gang Ndrangheta has branches in Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Its network is spread across 40 countries. Annual turnover is 50 billion dollars. This figure is twice the GDP of the country of Botswana.
- The First Capital Command, Brazil's largest gang, acts as the regulatory agency for the criminal market. It lays down rules to minimize conflicts and guarantees to act accordingly. At present it has 40 thousand full time members and more than 60 thousand associates in 26 countries of the world.
- Albanian criminal gangs have also become global. In addition to Colombia and Peru, two of the world's largest cocaine producing countries, the underworld of Ecuador is also in the hands of Albanian gangsters.
- The Colombian guerrilla gang Farc worked for years with Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. They controlled cocaine shipments from the Colombian port of Guayaquil to Europe and America.
Incidents like murders decreased but cyber crimes increased In the first 20 years of this century, the world homicide rate fell by almost a quarter, from 6.9 to 5.2 per 100,000 people. But cyber crimes have increased. Data company Chainalysis estimates that illegal earnings from ransomware attacks will reach $7.6 billion by 2023. This money will be distributed among criminal gangs and 10 thousand hackers of North Korea.
Gangs increasingly trafficked synthetic drugs into the nascent drug market The gang expanded rapidly due to synthetic drugs. Between 2013 and 2022, methamphetamine offenses in South-East Asia will increase 4-fold. Between 2010 and 2020, the number of people using drugs in the world has increased by a fifth. Newer synthetic drugs are more powerful. For example, fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin and atonitazine is 500 times more potent than heroin.
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
