The Impact: Coronavirus and Organized Crime – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome to Underworlds with Mark Shaw.

Organized Crime is everywhere, hidden in plain sight. The stories from this world have been mythologised by Hollywood. But the reality can be even stranger and more exciting than fiction.

From the golden age of the American mafia (La Cosa Nostra), to the modern-day cocaine empires, and from the shadowy links between organized crime and terrorism, to the twilight of the Yakuza.

In this series Mark Shaw, the Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime delves into non-fiction books about organized crime and the illicit economy with the authors themselves. He asks questions about their background and investigations, but also the challenges associated in writing about this murky world.

It's been a while since our previous episode of The Impact. But in that time the Global Initiative has continued to track the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on organized crime around the world.

As the rest of the world shut down, the adaptability and agility of criminal networks has been clear to see – they have found new routes for illegal commodities, from drugs to people.

In this special episode Jack introduces Lindy Mtongana and her interview with the Director of the Global Initiative, Mark Shaw, and the Deputy Director, Tuesday Reitano to discuss their new book - Criminal Contagion: How Mafias, Gangsters and Scammers Profit from a Pandemic.

You can also watch the interview here.

Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Brazil is a vast country of some 211 million people. A nation full of energy but also plagued by crime; powerful criminal networks like the PCC and Red Commando battle over international and domestic drug trafficking routes. Then there is illegal logging, gold mining, land invasion, human trafficking, high levels of violence, highly militarised law enforcement and a huge corruption scandal that rocked the Brazilian political class.

And now COVID-19 has struck and Brazil has the second highest number of cases in the world.

Presenter(s)

Ana Paula Oliveira / Jack Meegan-Vickers

Guests

Antonio Sampaio, a research fellow at the International institute for Strategic Studies, the host of the Sounds Strategic Podcast and a member of the GI Network of Experts

Christian Vianna De Azevedo, an academic researcher, and law enforcement officer who specialises in transnational organised crime and terrorism. Christian is also a member of the GI Network of experts

Gabriel de Santis Feltran, a Professor at the Federal University of Sao Carlos in Sao Paulo state and member of the GI Network of experts

Adriana Erthal Abdenur, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Plataforma CIPÓ and a member of the GI Network of experts.

Additional Reading

‘Illicit order: The militarized logic of organized crime and urban security in Rio de Janeiro’

In this bonus episode of The Impact: Coronavirus and Organized Crime, Jack sits down with author and former NPR foreign correspondent, Sarah Chayes.

In this extended version of the interview which was part of the COVID and Corruption episode, Sarah talks about her experience of studying corruption around the world and how kleptocratic networks capture state institutions, even in the United States.

Sarah Chayes is the author of Thieves of State and the upcoming book On Corruption in America.

A different sounding episode as Jack sits down with a collection of organized crime experts to discuss what we have seen over the past few months and what might happen next.

Guests:

Tuesday Reitano, Deputy Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Nirmal Ghosh, US Bureau Chief for The Straits Times and member of the GI Network of experts

Joyce Kimani, the Observatory Coordinator for  East and Horn of Africa at the GI

Guillermo Vazquez, Senior Analyst at the GI

Lyes Tagziria, Analyst at the GI

Ana Paula, Analyst at the GI

Faces of Assassination

This Pandemic is causing huge economic impacts. The World Bank has forecast a contraction of 5.3% in global GDP in 2020 – that is the deepest global recession in decades leaving lasting scars on the lives of people living all over the world.

And this could manifest itself in many ways - a rush to push government policy through to help combat the immediate effects of COVID means that the usual stringent checks may be ignored.

And organized criminal networks are positioning themselves to capture state institutions and contracts – enriching themselves at the expense of the public.

Guests

Andy Guth - adjunct professor and an expert on anti-corruption and how it works with transnational organized crime groups.

Professor Adriano Nuvunga - Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development in Mozambique and a leading civil society activist.

Vanda Felbab-Brown - Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and also a member of the GI Network of experts.

Ambassador Ugi Zvekic - Senior Adviser at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.

Faces of Assassination

It’s clear that throughout the recorded history of humanity, corruption has been present – and in a modern context Transparency International define corruption as the “abuse of entrusted power for private gain”. 

In this time of unprecedented economic recession due to the COVID health crisis, organized corruption networks, are in a perfect position to bleed the system and organized criminal groups will be in line to slice off their share.

When huge economic stimuli are injected into the system, it causes unintended consequences. As one of our guests today wrote that "an emergency offers unparalleled opportunities for the coordinated looting of public coffers that feeds such networks. Life is upended; emotions run high. In the scramble, tested procedures are ignored and structures are disorganized. Exhausted decision makers, pressured to “do something,” miss crucial details, even as quantities of cash are injected into the chaos.”

Guests

Sarah Steingrüber - Independent Global Health Consultant/U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre

Innocent Chukwuma - Director, West Africa at the Ford Foundation

Sarah Chayes - Journalist and Author, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security AND the upcoming book On Corruption in America.

Ana Castro - Coordinator for Central America at Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Faces of Assassination

Global Initiative Podcasts

We explore the illegal wildlife trade and it's apparent role in the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. The huge socio-economic consequences on the communities where this trade takes place, not to mention the threat to biodiversity, environmental sustainability, the brutality suffered by the animals themselves.

The illegal wildlife trade is complex and far reaching – it’s estimated to be worth between seven and 23 billion US dollars, making it one of the most lucrative forms of transnational organised crimes.

It's also used as a way to launder illicit proceeds from other illegal markets such as narcotics, the arms trade and modern slavery.  

Guests

Aron White - Wildlife Campaigners and China specialist at the Environmental Investigation Agency.

Nirmal Ghosh – US Bureau Chief of the Straits Times & environmental crime journalist (GI Network).

Jo Shaw – Senior Manager of the Wildlife programme for WWF, South Africa.

Alastair Nelson – Resilience Fund Coordinator for Mozambique for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Carl Miller - Research director at CASM (GI Network).

Meredith Gore – Conservation Social Scientist and Associate Professor at Michigan State University.

John M. Sellar OBE – Senior Advisor to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and the former Chief of Enforcement at CITES.

Global Initiative Digital Dangers

#CovidCrimeWatch

For over three decades Afghanistan has been the most dominant and largest producer of opium poppy and the production of heroin. From Afghanistan, heroin travels North and South – the northern route takes the heroin through Central Asia and into Russia. The Southern route takes the heroin into Pakistan – From there, like a spider, it spreads in all directions. But how is COVID-19 impacting it?

A Shallow Flood: the Diffusion of Heroin in Eastern and Southern Africa

Guests:

Vanda Felbab-Brown, the Brookings Institution and GI Network

Tariq Khosa, the National Initiative Against Organized Crime Pakistan

Ben Crabtree

Jason Eligh, Senior Analyst at the Global Initiative Against Organized Crime

Simone Haysom – Senior Analyst at the Global Initiative Against Organized Crime

In Part 2 - Our journey follows the cocaine out of South America and across the Atlantic into Guinea-Bissau in West Africa, which that has been dubbed “a narco-state” by the UN and US.

Then onto the the second largest Cocaine market, Europe. Where we’ll talk about the 'Ndrangheta Mafia group from Calabria in Southern Italy, who purportedly control 80% of the cocaine trade on the continent.

Then we'll cross the Adriatic into the Balkan region of Europe where criminal groups distribute cocaine in all directions.

Discussed Papers

Breaking the vicious cycle - Cocaine politics in Guinea-Bissau

A parallel contagion: Is Mafia entrepreneurship exploiting the Pandemic?

CovidCrimeWatch

Guests:

Mark Shaw - Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Sergio Nazarro - Journalist, Writer and spokesman for the President of the Anti-Mafia parliamentary commission

Fatjona Mejdini - Journalist and Field Network Coordinator: Balkans, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Jason Eligh - Senior Expert, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime