Director-General/Executive Director
Señor Presidente,
Excelencias,
Gracias por la oportunidad de estar aquí el día de hoy. Permítanme sumarme a las palabras del Secretario General y darle la bienvenida a esta iniciativa de Ecuador y la decisión del Consejo de llevar a cabo este debate sobre delincuencia organizada transnacional.
Excellencies,
Organized crime is a complex phenomenon driven by diverse factors, from poverty and inequalities, to collusion and power dynamics, to fragile rule of law and weak institutions.
It transcends national borders and has local, regional, and global impact.
And today, amid growing conflict and instability, organized crime is gaining footholds in different corners of the world, undermining international peace and security.
It is time to take strategic, coordinated, and collective action against this threat.
Mr. President,
Around the world, illicit markets are expanding and diversifying.
Old threats persist, from booming cocaine markets to illicit firearms flowing into volatile areas.
And emerging challenges proliferate, with synthetic drugs and cybercrime evolving faster than the world can keep up.
Across continents, organized crime is a multi-billion dollar industry driving violence and exploitation.
UNODC’s Global Study on Homicide, launching tomorrow, here in New York, reveals that organized criminal groups or gangs are responsible for almost a quarter of all homicides worldwide.
Human traffickers exploit people affected by violence, economic hardship, and environmental degradation.
Victims in many cases are mostly women and children.
Smuggling of migrant networks thrive in those same conditions.
And non-state armed groups, including terrorist groups, use abducted children as combatants, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.
Excellencies,
In the context of armed conflict and volatility, organized crime can often be a fundamental component in the cycle of violence.
Criminal interests can ignite or inflame conflict and tensions.
Ongoing conflicts are prolonged by criminal activities that fund, and benefit from, hostilities.
And those same criminal interests obstruct peacebuilding and the return to rule of law.
We see these dynamics play out before us in different parts of the world today.
In places where state control is absent or contested, non-state actors are known to benefit from transnational organized crime and to control trafficking routes and illicit markets.
In his statement, the Secretary-General alluded to some of these situations.
UNODC analysis has shown how criminal markets overlap with crisis and armed conflict.
In Haiti, UNODC’s assessment has shown how violent gangs are competing for control of key infrastructure and drug trafficking routes, with the help of increasingly sophisticated firearms trafficked into the country from North America mainly.
In all cases, corruption is both a source of revenue and an enabler of illicit flows at Haiti’s borders and elsewhere.
In the Sahel, our transnational organized crime threat assessments show that non-state armed groups, some of them designated as terrorist groups, are central actors in illicit markets.
They facilitate gold and fuel trafficking in areas under their control, taking advantage of rampant unregulated activity, and they collect taxes on the trade of falsified medical products and benefit from instability.
In Myanmar, non-state armed groups and transnational organized crime syndicates dominate methamphetamine production and trafficking in the Golden Triangle.
And the same border areas where synthetic drugs are produced have also become home to illegal casinos and online scams with global reach.
Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar is also back to levels not seen since 2015, as cultivation in Afghanistan drops by 95 per cent.
The impacts of organized crime are interconnected, and they also contribute to other global challenges.
In the Amazon Basin, for example, drug trafficking intersects with illegal mining, logging and other crimes that affect the environment, harming local and indigenous communities, and undermining global efforts against climate change.
And the impact of organized crime is manifesting in alarming new ways, from shocking forms of violence in European port cities connected with the drug trade, to political assassinations and infiltration of prisons in parts of Latin America.
Monsieur le Président,
Le crime organisé infiltre nos économies et nos institutions grâce à la corruption.
Les réseaux criminels exploitent les pratiques commerciales pour faciliter leurs activités.
Ils entretiennent des liens avec certaines élites, et tentent d’influencer la vie politique de certains pays.
Ils ont recours à certaines professions notamment juridiques pour échapper à la justice.
Ces réseaux exploitent également les structures financières pour blanchir les produits du crime mais tirent avantage des larges secteurs informels dans nombreux pays en développement, ainsi que des failles dans la réglementation des actifs virtuels.
On note que le crime organisé devient plus agile et décentralisé.
Nous avons constaté dans certains secteurs économiques, un changement dans la structure organique de ces groupes, moins hiérarchisés, plus fragmentés et regroupés en réseaux de spécialistes, qui fournissent des services et collaborent entre eux.
Les marchés numériques et les cryptomonnaies permettent aux transactions illicites d’étendre leur portée, d’être plus rapides et anonymes.
En outre, les groupes criminels ciblent également les systèmes informatiques, engendrant de nouvelles formes de criminalité.
Excellencies,
The costs and risks of engaging in criminal activity have never been lower, and the global threat posed by organized crime has reached new levels of complexity.
To respond, we need institutions capable of delivering justice and ending impunity, as well as resilient communities.
And we need to invest far more resources to confront illicit markets that are worth trillions of dollars.
As the Secretary-General has outlined, we must strengthen the rule of law, enhance international cooperation, and improve prevention and inclusion.
As the guardian of the UN Conventions against Organized Crime and Corruption, UNODC’s vision and work are anchored in those priorities.
To strengthen the rule of law, we support law enforcement operations and improve capacities to disrupt increasingly sophisticated criminal groups.
We strengthen financial investigations and asset forfeiture networks.
We help develop laws, policies, and institutions centred on integrity and human rights, and ensure that prisons are places of rehabilitation, rather than radicalization or criminal operations.
To improve international cooperation, we harmonize responses through the Conventions on Organized Crime and Corruption, and we connect practitioners directly across borders and regions.
UNODC is establishing networks, repositories and platforms for criminal justice officials to collaborate and exchange information with ease.
We are also helping to set up border liaison offices, including in sensitive border areas which are often exploited by organized crime.
And we are targeting stronger partnerships with and between regional organizations like the ASEAN, the Organization of American States, and the African Union.
To foster prevention and inclusion, we are stepping up our focus on amplifying voices, providing opportunities, and increasing resilience.
We help communities find licit, dignified livelihoods that break cycles of crime and poverty, including in places like Colombia, Afghanistan, and Myanmar, and we work closely with civil society.
And throughout all organized crime interventions, we emphasize the protection and empowerment of women and girls.
They face exploitation and gender-based violence, yet they are also leaders that we need for peace, security, and the rule of law.
As underlined in the Secretary-General’s New Vision for the Rule of Law, people and their needs must be at the centre of our fight against organized crime.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The nexus of peace, security, and the rule of law has never been more relevant.
The Security Council and the UN system must take action against the devastating impacts of organized crime.
I encourage you to consider the following:
Firstly, to support and invest in improved data collection, in order to better anticipate and monitor trafficking and organized crime dynamics and respond proactively.
Secondly, to integrate measures against organized crime in peace and security interventions and resolutions.
Thirdly, to promote the inclusion of organized crime prevention in sustainable development cooperation frameworks.
And lastly, I would strongly encourage this esteemed Council to continue devoting its attention to the critical threat of transnational organized crime, which underpins many of the peace and security challenges you address.
UNODC is committed to providing reliable data and analysis, and supporting operational capacities on the ground, to enable an informed and effective response.
With political will and collective action, we can ensure that organized crime can no longer sustain its business model on instability and fragility.
Thank you.
