International Day for the Prevention of and Fight against All Forms of Transnational Organized Crime

  This report series provides an in-depth analysis of the dynamics driving illegal mining in Ghana , its regional spread, and the actors profiting from it. Based on three years of field research, remote sensing analysis, interviews and desk research, part 1 examines two key case study regions—Western and Savannah—and explores how unlicensed ASGM has grown in scale, complexity, and impact. Part 2 will explore illicit gold supply chains and financial networks in more depth. In places like the Western region, satellite imagery shows dramatic increases in mining activity, with many operations occurring outside officially licensed zones. The environmental impacts are stark. Unregulated use of mercury in gold processing is harming water systems , while mining expansion is causing deforestation and loss of biodiversity. Remote sensing tools—including radar interferometry, flow accumulation analysis, and computer vision models—have been employed to track these developments and predict f...

  - Summary highlights - Conflict, coups and containers: why the Sahel cocaine routes were disrupted. Northbound trans-Sahelian trafficking routes underpin a substantial minority of cocaine exports from West Africa to Europe. While available evidence indicates that these routes experienced a resurgence between 2019 and 2023, recent research reveals that this trend is likely to have been disrupted by political upheaval and armed conflicts since mid-2023. Trafficking volumes through northern Niger are reported to have fallen sharply, though trafficking routes through northern Mali remain largely resilient and have restructured operations. Indications of significant cocaine trafficking in southern Mali should largely not be read as north-bound flows. Instead, they reflect West Africa’s growing role as a recontainerization hub, with routes between coastal points of import and export shaped by the export potential of subregional maritime ports.  Read more The shadow constellat...

  - Summary highlights - Balkan criminals involved in large-scale smuggling through Hamburg. Criminal groups from the Western Balkans have emerged as key players in cocaine trafficking through the Port of Hamburg — Europe’s third-largest container hub. Both Albanian-speaking networks and Slavic-speaking groups now coordinate sophisticated smuggling operations from South America, with well-developed systems for extracting cocaine from containers and distributing it across Europe. Despite record seizures, these criminal networks demonstrate remarkable resilience and adaptability. Although German authorities have made strides in enhancing port security, significant gaps remain in addressing corruption and in developing effective coordination with Balkan law enforcement agencies.  Read more The internationalization of migrant smuggling through the Balkans. The Western Balkan route has become a critical migration corridor into the European Union, with criminal networks developing s...

  The militant Islamist group al-Shabaab has long remained influential in Mogadishu through its sophisticated extortion system, which demands zakat payments —forced charitable tax— and levies on trade and real estate transactions. The group reportedly generates over US$100 million annually, with an estimated one-third of its revenue derived from Mogadishu alone. The report highlights urgent gaps in Anti-money laundering (AML) and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) enforcement . While Somalia introduced its first domestic sanctions list in 2024, poor compliance and lack of institutional capacity continue to hinder impact. Recommendations include enhanced AML/CFT training for non-financial sectors, incentives for compliance, biometric ID enrolment, and smarter sanctions enforcement through international collaboration.

     Analysis from the  Asia - Asia/Pacific Observatories

 It’s not just greed — it’s the convergence of globalization, economic disparity and technological innovation. These forces allow criminal networks to expand across borders, exploit vulnerable populations and move faster than law enforcement. Understanding these drivers is key to disrupting them.   Globalization Globalization has enabled criminal networks to expand across borders with greater speed and efficiency. The rise of global trade, financial liberalization and digital communications has made it easier for these groups to move goods, money and people, while exploiting gaps in jurisdiction and regulation. Europol reports there are 821 criminal networks that currently operate in or impact all 27 EU member states. Sixty-eight percent of these networks include members from multiple nationalities, with ties to 112 nationalities overall. These groups are not isolated. They are interconnected, multinational ecosystems. Europol describes this as a shift toward “borderless” or...