Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
New York (Agenzia Fides)- Trafficking of arms, drugs, human beings, selling of counterfeit medicines, maritime piracy, illegal burying of poisonous toxic refuse, looting of natural resources, forests and animals, computer crimes. These are the principal crimes committed by transnational organisations in Africa according to a report presented yesterday, 17 June, in New York by UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Illustrating the report called The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of ONUDC, said “ Transnational crime has become a threat to peace and development, even to the sovereignty of nations,. Criminals use weapons and violence, but also money and bribes to buy elections, politicians and power - even the military ”.
This situation is particularly acute in west Africa, a region used ever more frequently by Latin American drug traffickers as a transit point towards the rich markets of Europe. “West African countries need help to increase their ability to counter transnational organised crime ” says the report. “Recent efforts against the trafficking of cocaine, with the backing of the international community, produced promising results. However the region is still particularly exposed and will continue to face a series of potential threats to governance and stability”.
Regarding human trafficking, the report says that 55,000 immigrants were trafficked from Africa into Europe in 2008, bringing 150 million dollars to the strongboxes of trafficking organisations. “It remains to be seen whether the financial crisis will reverse this process” says the report.
Looted natural resources in Africa include fauna. Every year between 5,000 and 12,000 African elephants are killed to feed the ivory market (between 50 and 120 kg per year).
Some organised crime specialises in the selling of counterfeit medicines in Asia and in Africa. “A good part of certain key drugs tested in south-east Asia and in Africa failed effectiveness tests and many are evidently swindles. It is clear that organised crime deliberately swindles consumers in some of the poorest parts of the world often with lethal results” the report says. This, according to ONUDC, can have even more serious consequences “watered down medicines can feed the reproduction of varieties of medicine resistant pathogenic agents, with global implications”.
Somali piracy produces profits of 100 million dollars a year, a conspicuous sum on the local level, but very small on the general level. Somali piracy has made many countries mobilise their navies to protect international shipping along routes passing the Horn of Africa. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 18/6/2010)
