Organized Crime and Illicit Trade by Virginia Comolli

Author:Virginia Comolli
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

Geopolitical Considerations

Over the past few years, there have been growing concerns of how urban centers and sprawling megacities, particularly those sitting along the littorals of Eurasia, Africa, and Latin America , will become the centre of gravity for future warfare.126 Already, many of these agglomerations, home to an inexhaustible source of tech-savvy yet unemployed youth, are highly dynamic centers of online and offline national and transnational criminal activity. There is also an important risk that many of these countries which boast an important technological skill base, a good enough cyberspace infrastructure but weak national governance structures and norms, will be used by transnational criminals to further their geographic reach and broaden their illicit business portfolio.127 It is likely that much of the IT and cyber infrastructures in many of the existing and emerging megacities will fall outside the scope of formal governance structures, posing even greater advantages to transnational crime, and even greater headaches to law enforcement . Sheldon surmises that the IT and cyber infrastructures in such settings will most likely be “a hybrid mix comprising hardware from commercial carriers on one hand and improvised, often illegally acquired, hardware and networks jury-rigged by technically competent individuals in particular neighborhoods and communities” within megacities such as Mumbai, Karachi, Accra and Nairobi. A number of cases demonstrate how many of the young, tech-savvy unemployed youth in these cities are hired by more seasoned transnational crime groups for identity theft, carding, online gold harvesting, money laundering and forced micro-labour. The very cyber infrastructure of these cities, coupled with structural challenges such as endemic corruption and weak law enforcement capacity, will make it ever more difficult for law enforcement to detect these forms of illicit activity. And should inter- or intra-state conflict break out, the possibilities of recruitment are enormous. It is certainly an issue worth considering in global policy, particularly considering the inter-linkages of transnational crime, development, international security and information technology and cyberspace.

Finally, and in closing, suffice to say that transnational crime has been a very effective user of IT and cyber capabilities for force multiplication purposes. From the early days, even before crime became veritably transnational, IT capabilities and resources have allowed those with illicit intent to achieve their aims. Legislators and law enforcement have consistently struggled to keep apace, yet solutions have generally been found, often provoking tensions between security and citizen rights, to which solutions have also been found, albeit often imperfect ones. Conversely, as we slip into what many have labelled ‘The Internet of Things’ and a realisation of how the latter will most likely further enable transnational crime, it will be important to ensure that the same technologies that are part of the problem are not the sole driver of solutions. Instead, such solutions should be informed by public debate, and a much deeper understanding of the societal factors driving transnational criminal activity instead of simply focusing on the technological factors enabling it.

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