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General Trends in Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime on a Global Scale

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Abstract

This chapter examines the trends in drug trafficking and organized crime, focusing on the evolution of organized crime. While some of the actors have changed and the world has evolved, there are some trends across time, particularly in the policy realm in terms of which policies have been effective and which have been less effective. Moreover, drug trafficking organizations present challenges not only for state security but also for regional security as a result of the violent tactics that some organizations employ.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Peter Reuter and Victoria Greenfield, “Measuring Global Drug Markets,” World Economics 2, no. 4 (2001): pp. 159–173; Phil Williams, “The Nature of Drug-Trafficking Networks,” Current History 97 (1998): p. 154; Ethan A. Nadelmann, “Global prohibition regimes: The evolution of norms in international society,” International Organization 44, no. 04 (1990): 479–526; Sharon A. Gardner, “A Global Initiative to Deter Drug Trafficking: Will Internationalizing the Drug War Work,” Temp. Int’l & Comp. LJ 7 (1993): p. 287; Michael Kenney, “The Architecture of Drug Trafficking: Network Forms of Organisation in the Colombian Cocaine Trade,” Global Crime 8, no. 3 (2007): pp. 233–259.

  2. 2.

    This is according to 2012 data. See: “New UNODC campaign highlights transnational organized crime as a US $870 billion a year business,” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), July 16, 2012, https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2012/July/new-unodc-campaign-highlights-transnational-organized-crime-as-an-us-870-billion-a-year-business.html, accessed April 2017.

  3. 3.

    “What is a Gang Definitions.” National Institute of Justice, https://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/gangs/pages/definitions.aspx, accessed April 2017.

  4. 4.

    “Drug Trafficking Organizations,” U.S. Department of Justice, 2010, https://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs38/38661/dtos.htm, accessed April 2017.

  5. 5.

    Douglas Farah, “Deepening Political and Economic Crisis in Venezuela: Implications for U.S. Interests and the Western Hemisphere,” Before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee the Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women’s Issues, March 17, 2015, https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/031715_Farah_Testimony.pdf, accessed April 2016, p. 11.

  6. 6.

    Geoffrey Ramsey, “Hezbollah in Latin America: An Over-Hyped Threat?” InSight Crime, January 13, 2012, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/hezbollah-in-latin-america-an-over-hyped-threat, accessed April 2017.

  7. 7.

    United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2010 (UNODC: New York, NY, 2010).

  8. 8.

    Substance Use & Mental Illness in U.S. Adults (18+) From the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), https://www.samhsa.gov/samhsaNewsLetter/assets/images/substance_use_and_mental_full_size.jpg, accessed April 2017.

  9. 9.

    “Use of drugs in 2014 (or latest year available),” UNODC, http://www.unodc.org/wdr2016/interactive-map.html, accessed April 2017.

  10. 10.

    UNODC, World Drug Report 2016 (New York, NY: UNODC, 2016).

  11. 11.

    Bruce Bagley, Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime in the Americas: Major Trends in the Twenty-First Century (Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars: Washington, DC, 2012).

  12. 12.

    Paula Miraglia, Drugs and Drug Trafficking in Brazil: Trends and Policies (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2016), p. 4; UNODC, World Drug Report 2013 (United Nations: New York, NY, 2013).

  13. 13.

    “Southward marching powder,” Economist, November 22, 2013; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), World Drug Report 2010.

  14. 14.

    Arron Daugherty, “Argentina Feeling Impact of Domestic Drug Abuse,” InSight Crime, July 22, 2015, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/argentina-feeling-impact-of-domestic-drug-abuse, accessed April 2017; Centro de Investigaciones Sociales VOICES!—Fundación UADE, Opiniones y percepciones sobre el narcotrafico y el consumo de drogas en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, AR, 2015).

  15. 15.

    Mike LaSusa, “Brazil Is Top Cocaine Transshipment Country for Europe, Africa, Asia,” InSight Crime, June 24, 2016, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/brazil-is-top-cocaine-transshipment-country-for-europe-africa-asia, accessed April 2017; “Statement from Mr Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of UNODC on International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking,” UNODC, June 26, 2013, http://www.unodc.org/drugs/en/ed/executive-directors-message-2013.html, accessed April 2017.

  16. 16.

    European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, EU Drug Markets Report: In-depth Analysis (Lisbon, Portugal, 2016).

  17. 17.

    Cecilia Malmström quoted in “European Drug Report out today—Europe’s drugs problem ‘increasingly complex,’” European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, May 27, 2014, http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/news/2014/3, accessed April 2017.

  18. 18.

    UNODC, World Drug Report 2016.

  19. 19.

    Gil Kerlikowske quoted in Andy Sullivan, “U.S. drug czar calls for end to ‘war on drugs,’” Reuters, June 8, 2009.

  20. 20.

    Gil Kerlikowske quoted in Andy Sullivan, “U.S. drug czar calls for end to ‘war on drugs.’”

  21. 21.

    Drug Policy Alliance, The Federal Drug Control Budget (Drug Policy Alliance: New York, NY, 2015).

  22. 22.

    “A drug policy for the twenty-first century,” The White House, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ondcp/drugpolicyreform#section-presidents-plan, accessed April 2017.

  23. 23.

    Michael Botticelli quoted in Christopher Ingraham, “The radical way Obama wants to change the drug war,” The Washington Post, February 10, 2016.

  24. 24.

    Bill Piper quoted in Christopher Ingraham, “The radical way Obama wants to change the drug war.”

  25. 25.

    “Wasted Tax Dollars,” Drug Policy Alliance, http://www.drugpolicy.org/wasted-tax-dollars, accessed April 2017.

  26. 26.

    Donald Trump quoted in Michelle Ye Hee Lee, “Donald Trump’s false comments connecting Mexican immigrants and crime,” The Washington Post, July 8, 2015.

  27. 27.

    Harrison Jacobs, “Where Donald Trump stands on the opioid epidemic,” Business Insider, October 8, 2016.

  28. 28.

    Sam Quinones, “Why Trump’s Wall Won’t Keep Out Heroin,” The New York Times, February 16, 2017.

  29. 29.

    Rich Baum quoted in Alan Rappeport, “White Houste Proposes Cutting Control Office Funding by 95%,” The New York Times, May 5, 2017.

  30. 30.

    Rob Portman quoted in Toluse Olorunnipa, “Trump Weighs 95 Percent Cut to Office of Drug Control Policy,” Bloomberg, May 7, 2017.

  31. 31.

    John Kelly quoted in Christopher Ingraham, “On drug policy, one Trump administration official stands apart,” The Washington Post, April 17, 2017.

  32. 32.

    Bill Piper quoted in “President Trump’s Rumored Drug Czar Nominee Rep. Tom Marino is Drug War Extremist, Out of Step With Most Americans & Linked to Scandal,” Drug Policy Alliance, April 14, 2017, http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2017/04/president-trumps-rumored-drug-czar-nominee-rep-tom-marino-drug-war-extremist-out-step-m, accessed April 2017.

  33. 33.

    Vanda Felbab-Brown, Harold Trinkunas, and Sultan Barakat, “Breaking bad in the Middle East and North Africa: Drugs, militants, and human rights,” The Brookings Institution, March 22, 2016, p. 2.

  34. 34.

    Carmen Drahl, “What You Need To Know About Captagon, The Drug Of Choice In War-Torn Syria,” Forbes, November 21, 2015, p. 2.

  35. 35.

    Peter Holley, “The tiny pill fueling Syria’s war and turning fighters into superhuman soldiers,” The Washington Post, November 19, 2015.

  36. 36.

    For more, see: Ahmet Içduygu and Sule Toktas, “How do smuggling and trafficking operate via irregular border crossings in the Middle East? Evidence from fieldwork in Turkey,” International Migration 40, no. 6 (2002): pp. 25–54.

  37. 37.

    The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, The nexus of conflict and illicit drug trafficking Syria and the wider region.

  38. 38.

    “Afghanistan opium production up 43%—UN drugs watchdog,” BBC, October 23, 2016; UNODC, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2016: Cultivation and Production Executive Summary (UNODC: New York, NY, 2016).

  39. 39.

    Ibid.

  40. 40.

    Liana Rosen and Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Drug Trafficking and the 2014 Transition (Congressional Research Service: Washington, DC, 2014).

  41. 41.

    Ibid.

  42. 42.

    Vanda Felbab-Brown, “Afghanistan Trip Report VI: Counternarcotics Policy in Afghanistan: A Good Strategy Poorly Implemented,” The Brookings Institution, May 10, 2012, p. 7.

  43. 43.

    Chicago Project on Security & Threats, http://cpostdata.uchicago.edu/search_results_new.php, accessed April 217.

  44. 44.

    Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 (Congressional Research Service: Washington, DC, 2014).

  45. 45.

    Neta C. Crawford, US Budgetary Costs of Wars through 2016: $4.79 Trillion and Counting (Watson Institute, Brown University: Providence, RI, 2016).

  46. 46.

    Zachary Laub, “The Islamic State,” Council on Foreign Relations, August 10, 2016, http://www.cfr.org/iraq/islamic-state/p14811, accessed April 2017 p. 2; Noah Feldman, The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State (Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 2012); John Turner, “Strategic differences: Al Qaeda’s Split with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 26, no. 2 (2015): pp. 208–225; Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, “The dawn of the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham,” Current Trends in Islamist Ideology 16 (2014): p. 5; Zana Khasraw Gulmohamad, “The rise and fall of the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (Levant) ISIS,” Global Security Studies 5, no. 2 (2014): pp. 1–11.

  47. 47.

    The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, The nexus of conflict and illicit drug trafficking Syria and the wider region (Geneva, SZ, 2016), p. 23.

  48. 48.

    The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, The nexus of conflict and illicit drug trafficking Syria and the wider region.

  49. 49.

    For more, see: C. K. Daniel, “Organized crime, local protectionism, and the trade in counterfeit goods in China,” China Economic Review 14, no. 4 (2003): pp. 473–484; Ko-lin Chin and Roy Godson, “Organized crime and the political-criminal nexus in China,” Trends in Organized Crime 9, no. 3 (2006): p. 5.

  50. 50.

    Sheldon X. Zhang and Ko-lin Chin, A People’s War: China’s Struggle to Contain its Illicit Drug Problem (The Brookings Institution: Washington, DC, 2016).

  51. 51.

    Sheldon X. Zhang and Ko-lin Chin, A People’s War: China’s Struggle to Contain its Illicit Drug Problem.

  52. 52.

    Zhang Yong-an, Asia, International Drug Trafficking, and U.S.-China Counternarcotics Cooperation (The Brookings Institution: Washington, DC, 2012), p. 6.

  53. 53.

    Sheldon X. Zhang and Ko-lin Chin, A People’s War: China’s Struggle to Contain its Illicit Drug Problem, p. 2.

  54. 54.

    S Pinto, “Is the death penalty the answer to drug crime?” Amnesty International, October 9, 2015, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2015/10/is-the-death-penalty-the-answer-to-drug-crime/, accessed April 2017.

  55. 55.

    Patrick Gallahue, The Death Penalty for Drug Offences: Global Overview 2011 (Harm Reduction International: London, UK, 2011).

  56. 56.

    “Organized Crime in China,” Stratfor, August 19, 2008.

  57. 57.

    David Gagne, “Rising Dragon? The Chinese Mafia Threat in Latin America,” InSight Crime, October 15, 2014, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/rising-dragon-the-chinese-mafia-threat-in-latin-america, accessed April 2017, p. 2.

  58. 58.

    Stephen Ellis, “West Africa’s international drug trade,” African Affairs 108, no. 431 (2009): pp. 171–196.

  59. 59.

    West African Commission on Drugs (WACD), Not Just in Transit: Drugs, the State and Society in West Africa (SZWACD: Geneva, 2014).

  60. 60.

    James Cockayne and Phil Williams, The Invisible Tide: Towards an International Strategy to Deal with Drug Trafficking Through West Africa (International Peace Institute: New York, NY, 2009).

  61. 61.

    Mike LaSusa, “Brazil Is Top Cocaine Transshipment Country for Europe, Africa, Asia,” InSight Crime, June 24, 2016, http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/brazil-is-top-cocaine-transshipment-country-for-europe-africa-asia, accessed April 2017, p. 2; for more on Brazil, see: Enrique Desmond Arias and Corinne Davis Rodrigues, “The myth of personal security: Criminal gangs, dispute resolution, and identity in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas,” Latin American Politics and Society 48, no. 4 (2006): pp. 53–81; Enrique Desmond Arias, “The dynamics of criminal governance: networks and social order in Rio de Janeiro,” Journal of Latin American Studies 38, no. 02 (2006): pp. 293–325.

  62. 62.

    Lansana Gberie, Crime, Violence, and Politics: Drug Trafficking and Counternarcotics Policies in Mali and Guinea (The Brookings Institution: Washington, DC, 2016).

  63. 63.

    “Malian authorities make record seizures following UNODC specialized training,” UNODC, https://www.unodc.org/westandcentralafrica/en/2016-05_malian-authorities-record-seizures.html, accessed May 2017.

  64. 64.

    Vanda Felbab-Brown, “The West African Drug Trade in the Context of the Region’s Illicit Economies and Poor Governance,” The Brookings Institution, October 14, 2010, p. 1.

  65. 65.

    Davin O’Regan, “Narco-States: Africa’s Next Menace,” The New York Times, March 12, 2012; Ed Vulliamy, “How a tiny West African country became the world’s first narco state,” The Guardian, March 9, 2008.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., p. 2.

  67. 67.

    Paul Rexton Kan, Drug Trafficking and International Security (Rowman & Littlefield: Lanham, MD, 2016), p. 52.

  68. 68.

    Paul Rexton Kan, Drug Trafficking and International Security.

  69. 69.

    Ibid.

  70. 70.

    Olusegun Obasanjo, “West Africa needs to wake up to threat from drugs trade,” The Guardian, June 26, 2014, p. 2.

  71. 71.

    Benjamin Weiser, “Ross Ulbricht, Creator of Silk Road Website, Is Sentenced to Life in Prison,” The New York Times, May 29, 2015.

  72. 72.

    Preet Bharara said quoted in “Ross Ulbricht, aka Dread Pirate Roberts, Sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court to Life in Prison,” U.S. Attorney’s Office, May 29, 2015, p. 1.

  73. 73.

    Andy Greenberg, “The Silk Road’s Dark-Web Dream is Dead,” Wired, January 14, 2016, p. 1.

  74. 74.

    “More Than 400.Onion Addresses, Including Dozens of ‘Dark Market’ Sites, Targeted as Part of Global Enforcement Action on Tor Network,” U.S. Department of Justice, November 7, 2014.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Northern Michigan University, Marquette, MI, USA

    Hanna Samir Kassab

  2. Holy Family University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Jonathan D. Rosen

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Kassab, H.S., Rosen, J.D. (2019). General Trends in Drug Trafficking and Organized Crime on a Global Scale. In: Illicit Markets, Organized Crime, and Global Security. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90635-5_5

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