Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime, and Terrorism Interactions

The homeland security mission and goals face many roadblocks and challenges in today’s world. The Quadrennial Homeland Security Review lists six strategic challenges which the Department of Homeland Security feels are of exceptional concern to the nation. Of these outlined challenges I believe that transnational criminal organizations

become evident in the last few years. More and more states are being drawn into the

United Nations organizations, such as The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have played an extremely important role in the international efforts to combat terrorism. The Inter-America Committee Against Terrorism (CICTE) also plays a role in encouraging member states’ to help combat and eliminate terrorism.

A police officer, involving in a shoplifting, was shot and was in a critical condition. A substantial quantity of drugs was confiscated and a potential link to a major drug trafficking organization was uncovered.

An organized crime group is defined as three or more persons with the intention of committing one or more serious crimes for financial gain (Pietschmann & Walker, 2011). This group has to exist for a certain period of time and be structured, which means not randomly formed for a direct offense (Pietschmann & Walker, 2011). If the crime is committed in more than one State, and has substantial effects, then it is considered an organized crime (Petschmann & Walker, 2011). Some of the main transnational organized crime includes trafficking of illicit drugs such as cocaine and heroin (Pietschmann & Walker, 2011). Drug trafficking forms the largest income for transnationally operating crime groups worldwide (Petschmann & Walker, 2011). The cocaine and heroin market play a key role in the transnational drug trafficking trade of today (Petschmann & Walker, 2011).

The relationship between terrorist organizations and drug cartels creates a unique challenge for financial institutions and government entities. The two criminal organizations work together to capitalize on their specific skills or assets (Noriega, 2015). In addition, the globalization of business trade, communications, and logistics has aided in their expanded growth and sophistication (Noriega, 2015). This creates a large and complex web of relationships, criminal activity, and financial transactions that are difficult to detect, deter and prosecute. As documented in the National Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment of 2015, the “ongoing links between drug trafficking networks and terrorist organizations, and their facilitators continue to present a residual terrorist funding risk to the United States through “narco-terrorism” (Department of the Treasury, 2015).

While Australia is often target by the charity paradox, Svante Cornell’s research demonstrates how organized crime is responsible for the financing of terrorism. With a focus on the narcotics of this section, Cornell demonstrates how the global drug trade has resulted in the financing of Terrorism. He argues that following 9/11 and really the increase in globalization it has become easier for drugs to be traded around the world, resulting in increased funds for terrorist groups and operations. (Cornell, 211. 2007)

Transnational crimes are the organization and implementation of unlawful business ventures by a group of individuals working in more than one country. Transnational’s are able to reposition at any time, make choices based on relative global employment and capitalize on new prospects. These inviduals play a major role in the globalization of transnational crimes and contributes tremendously in organized crimes. Transnational criminals have been one of the largest beneficiaries of globalization. Over the past decade transnational organized crimes has generated a substantial threat to national and international security. It has increased the need for additional public safety, public health, democratic institutions and economic stability

The convergence or nexus between terrorist groups and transnational crime has its foundation on the symbiotic link between the two. The convergence entails a dynamic that allows both entities to benefit financially. This convergence, which entails long-term and short-term agreements, exists along a continuum and its aim is to exchange expertise such as counterfeiting, bomb-making or money laundering, or operational support that enhances access to the smuggling routes (Piazza 299). A study carried out by the Library of Congress regarding criminal and terrorist organizations realized that the convergence between the two entities comes in three wide blueprints. The first form of contact between terrorist and criminal organizations is alliances of mutual benefit. In this

How drug and human trafficking differ from traditional security threats are that unlike traditional external military threats which represent a state or a force, transnational traffickers are a part of a globalise network of groups and individuals. Discussed in the previous paragraph, people that are a part of the trafficking industry range from everyday people and businessmen, to criminal groups; with the only relation they have to each other is the commodity they smuggle. Because of this and the illicit market drive of demand and supply, traditional means of increasing police, destroy criminal groups, and increasing illegal trafficking penalties does little to reduce the demand and supply. In order to reduce the flow of trafficked commodities, states should reduce the supply and demand of the illicit industries. This essay will now discuss the state security challenges of corruption.

Narcoterrorism is another form of terrorism, coined in 1983, when describing terrorist attacks against Peruvian anti-narcotics police. Originally, this term refers to organizations that gain funds through the sale of drugs. It can also deal with the use of violence by those groups or gangs designed to make the sale of their drugs easier. Most recently, narcoterrorism is used for terrorist organizations that engage in drug trafficking activity to fund their operations and gain prestige, recruits troops, and gain battle expertise, including obtaining ample weaponry. Such organizations engaging in narcoterrorism includes the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Hamas in the West Bank, and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Narcoterrorism has contributed to beheadings, mass burials, and other severe acts of violence. Many times this violence is carried out to intimidate populations into not cooperating with authorities.

Our globe is plagued by a number of issues, one of the most pressing and widespread being terrorism. The nation of Cameroon believes that through international cooperation, this body of the United Nations can solve one of the major facets that contributes to terrorism: narcoterrorism. The illicit trade of drugs for terrorism funding is debilitating to large and small nations alike, and must be debated and resolved in a manner most timely and suitable to its nature.

“The links between terrorism and narcotrafficking are real and growing, according to current and former U.S. officials who participated in a special symposium December 4 at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The term narcoterrorism was first coined by Former President Belaunde Terry of Peru in 1983 when “…describing terrorist type attacks against his nation’s anti-narcotics police. Now a subject of definitional controversy, narcoterrorism is understood to mean the attempts of narcotics traffickers to influence the policies of government by the systematic threat or use of violence (Thompson, 2016).” NEED MORE HERE

A fair amount of research has been conducted into the nexus between terrorism and narcotics traffickers in recent years. However, scholars differ regarding the extent to which these two types organizations are aligned. It has long been known that financing of terror activities using narcotics trafficking was occurring: Makarenko argues “since the end of the Cold War and the subsequent decline of state sponsorship for terrorism, organized criminal activities have become a major revenue source for terrorist groups worldwide.” She cites narcotics-terrorism interconnection as it developed in the 1980s in Latin America as the precedent, and posits that the 1990s are “the decade in which the crime-terror nexus was consolidated.” Makarenko goes on to theorize that the rise in transnational criminal networks and the changing nature of international terrorist organizations have resulted in the formation of alliances between the two types of organizations that require them to “now be viewed as a cauldron of traditional and emerging threats that interact with one another, and at times, converge.” It is in this framework that she outlines the “crime-terror continuum.” The detailed structure of the continuum consists of seven points organized into four groups: “alliances,” “operational motivations,” “convergence,” and the “black hole.” The theory states that an organization can move along the continuum between organized crime and terrorism “depending on the environment in which it