Image Credit: Stasyan117, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
By Saul Roth
Australia’s main transnational crime problems are from the illegal drug trade, human trafficking, small arms smuggling, money laundering and cybercrime. Marijuana is the drug most used in Australia. Seventy per cent of arrest are related to Marijuana. It’s supply base is very large which makes it hard to stop its importing into Australia. On the other hand according to authors James and Warren, cooperation with custom authorities in New Zealand has led to many seizures of the drug Ecstasy.
Many of the transnational crime in Australia is intertwined with each other The drug trade with money laundering and cybercrime with human trafficking and the child porn that goes along with it.
Australia has increased the enforcement capabilities and jurisdiction for the Australian Federal Police. The Australian Crime Commission has focused on a more total government approach to solving criminal trends. The state enforcement agencies will also play an important role in hindering crimes in their jurisdiction. The government is trying to cooperate more on an international level to hinder transnational crimes in Australia.
Because of Australia geographic location they believed they were isolated from most terrorist threats. Recent activity has exposed this as false. As early as 1978 a bomb was detonated outside the Hilton Hotel in Sidney killing two council workers. The current terrorism networks know of the Australians vacationing habits in Bali and have targeted that location. Australia had to ramp up their terrorist prevention tactics prior to the 2000 Sidney Olympic games. The Council of Australian Government and National Counterterrorism Committee has suggested to access capabilities, interjurisdctional joint counterterrorism teams, international liaison, regional cooperation, rapid response, and the enhancement of the Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation in Indonesia.
Russia has a major organized crime problem that participates in most of the transnational crime. The largest transnational crime problem in Russia is human trafficking. There are three types of human trafficking. Women for sex, children for sex and people for slave labor.
The Russian organized criminals work together with organized crime of other countries such as Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Latin American countries according to author Yakov Gilinsky. Much of this crime is involved in the illicit drug trade. There is also smuggling of illegal alcohol. The Russian population has a large alcohol abuse problem. There is known incidences of parents selling their children for a bottle of vodka. Russian law enforcement is very corrupt. The corruption, low pay and high law enforcement attrition rate make it very difficult to hinder transnational crime problems in Russia.
Like the rest of world Russia also has to fight terrorism. Much of its terrorist problems had originated from its problems with the current independent state of Chechnya. Author Gilinsky believes Russia aggressiveness in this area caused the terrorism in Russia. In 1990 there were about seventy-nine well-known terror groups in Russia. There are probably more now. Many of them are also Muslim extremist groups. There is no way to stop this problem in the near future. More cooperation with other governments is needed and more non-violent political and social methods to hinder the hate fostered by these terror organizations.
Though Nigeria is very poor it is the most progressive of the nations in its Sub Sahara geographical location. There are many very poor countries with little or no border protection surround Nigeria. This leaves Nigeria ripe for all types of cross border crimes. Nigeria does not have tight organized crime networks such as Russia. Bit it does have loosely knit crime groups that operate over the borders. Human trafficking and drug trafficking are some of the main transnational crimes. There are also small arms smuggling across the borders. Law enforcement is very weak and armed banditry is often perpetrated on the populations.
Nigeria is one of the largest exporters off the world’s oil. This leads to almost 300,000 barrel of oil stolen and smuggled out of the country every day. Nigeria looses a lot of revenue from this activity. This revenue could be used to address much of its corruption problems. Nigeria is also known for its fraudulent cyber crimes called advanced fee fraud. There are well know Nigerian groups such as the Yahoo boys that participate in this activity.
Nigeria is an English speaking country. Many of its surrounding countries speak French. This hinders cross border cooperation. This problem needs to be addressed in all the Sub Sahara countries legal systems. Before any thing can be accomplished to hinder cross border crimes the corruption issue needs to be curtailed.
Every country discussed in this assignment has a human trafficking problem. Human trafficking is an international problem. To combat it internationally , there needs to be an international approach. INTERPOL does not have enforcement capabilities. The UN as inadequate as it is, needs to be the solution. The UN has to bring this up as a major problem as it does with terrorism and international conflicts between countries.
The UN has multinational armed forces. I believe like the Port Authority Police in the New York metropolitan area there needs to be a UN multinational police force with international enforcement powers. Of course its only function would not only be to hinder human trafficking. But it should be one of its main functions. This police force would have to be allowed to operate in countries with the human trafficking problems. Hopefully a force such as this would be free of most corruption that hinders many local police departments in these countries.
The human trafficking problem can also be hindered on the demand side. The Nassau County DA just accomplished a program that arrested and published the names of the Johns. Volunteer organizations as well as government can begin to identify tourist going over seas to typical spots where sex slaves operate. These people can be shown in local papers. I would need to investigate more carefully what the civil liable reponsibilies might be.
Organizations such as the Peace Corps should get involved in more social programs to help people that are involved in this trade and to help them get out.
There are no easy solutions, but doing nothing is not an option.
Recent Comments