Spotlight 31: Cartels, gangs and drugs
South America is getting more attention for drug trafficking, cartels and gangs
In memory of Letizia Battaglia
Hi and welcome back to the 31st issue of Spotlight, a fortnightly collection of news, articles, and events about organised crime and corruption curated by Firm UK.
Every two weeks a collective of experts, academics, and volunteers will select a few relevant articles and/or events that will help you to understand our society under the hood.
In this issue, we suggest a few pieces about the current situation in South America: from drug trafficking in Honduras to cartels in Mexico.
We would also like to dedicate this issue to the memory of Sicilian photographer Letizia Battaglia (05.03.1935 - 13.04.2022), who gained international attention for her unconventional, empowering and innovative photographic skills, giving us visual testimony of some of the worst and most violent mafia killings in Sicily, and Palermo in particular.
We hope you enjoy Spotlight. And if you like it, please share it with your network and invite them to subscribe.
Thank you!
Coca Growing, Cocaine Production Reach New Heights in Honduras
In the last five years, coca plantations have been found in Honduras, indicating that
that country could be evolving from its traditional role as a transit hub for cocaine trafficking to a drug producer nation too. Such trend, that started off as a low-level experimentation in the country, seems however to have taken root more systematically in the last couple of years, as coca farms and cocaine production camps are proliferating in Honduras.
Drug processing sites, where coca leaves are refined into paste with materials such as gasoline, have also been discovered alongside coca plantations. This indicates that criminal groups are not just testing the ground anymore, but rather are now producing more systematically.
Such trend poses question on the changing role of the country in the cocaine supply chain. As the article recites, in fact,
‘cultivating coca and refining cocaine in the Central American nation cuts costs, shortens supply chains, and reduces risks of shipments being seized in transit – all advantages to traffickers’.
This means that despite the amount of coca plants growing in Honduras is only a fraction of what is grown in Andean countries, the country’s role as a producing nation could bring significant changes in cocaine trafficking dynamics and criminal groups’ interactions in the region.
The war next door: Conflict in Mexico is displacing thousands
A long read on the displaced on Mexico. As criminal groups battle for control over Mexican territory, the displaced are becoming increasingly visible, in towns such as Coahuayana and at the U.S. border.
An estimated 20,000 people have fled violence in the past year in Michoacán state, roughly the size of West Virginia. Thousands more have abandoned their homes in other states like Zacatecas and Guerrero.
Forced displacement is generally associated with armed conflict — it’s been a feature of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Yet it’s become such a problem in ostensibly peaceful Mexico that the country’s Senate is considering legislation to offer humanitarian aid to victims. The article asks “What does Mexico’s war look like?”
And goes into painting stories and spaces In Michoacán’s Tierra Caliente region, one of the country’s most violent, where homes are peppered with bullet holes. Security officials describe the conflict as a battle between Jalisco and a rival cartel network to control the region, a hub of marijuana and methamphetamine production. But the accounts of the displaced underscore how unconventional this war actually is.
At stake are not just drug routes, but timber, minerals and fruit plantations. In many cases, the armed groups have ties to local governments, business groups and the police.
Why exactly is the Kinahan cartel all over the news again?
In the past few days a major new international law enforcement campaign, directed at the cartel, has been unveiled. It involves the Garda, of course, but American and British law enforcement also have key roles.
The US authorities have decided to make a very significant effort and have, for the first time, joined the fight against the cartel in a very overt and aggressive way.
Catching the Kinahans: the officers risking their lives to jail Ireland’s most violent gang leaders
For police getting close to the founder of the Kinahan cartel offers a constant challenge. In this article, 3 agents from the National Crime Agency in the UK offer their insight in the investigations against the notorious Kinahan clan, allegedly behind most drug trade in Ireland and increasingly in the UK.
In a European context, the violence of the Kinahan cartel is striking: its feud with the Hutch gang is one of the continent’s bloodiest.
“We’ve always been acutely aware of the risk of this group in particular. Operational security is paramount due to their wealth and how they seek to protect themselves,” said a source.
However, Matt Horne, deputy director of investigations at the NCA, points out that the fact that international sanctions were announced in April 2022 – measures that required complex coordination with global partners – and the Kinahan cartel were apparently oblivious, is a positive sign. “They had no indication this was coming,” said Horne.
Sanctions Against Ireland's Top Drug Trafficker May End 'Super Cartel' Allegations
On April 11, the US Treasury Department designated Irish national Daniel Kinahan and six of his associates for smuggling cocaine from South America to Europe as part of the powerful drug trafficking syndicate known as the “Kinahan Clan. Earlier between 2020 and 2021, llegations surfaced of a so-called “Super Cartel,” made up of drug traffickers in Colombia, Ireland, Chile, Bosnia, Morocco, the Netherlands, and Italy, including the Kinahan Clan, Urabeños, infamous Dutch mobster Ridouan Taghi and the Camorra mafia, according to media reports from around the world.
However, it is very difficult to ascertain to what extent such relationships were organized or existed beyond specific drug deals.
This article argues that this rumored international alliance, the real extent of which is open for speculation, may have been a successful example of “crowdsourcing” the drug trade, with different actors across Europe and Latin America pooling their money in order to achieve cheaper wholesale prices and reduce each buyer’s individual exposure.
Daniel Kinahan hit with fresh blow as UAE freezes his bank accounts
The United Arab Emirates has frozen the assets of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group, whose leaders are based in Dubai.
Dubai is one of the seven emirates in the federation of the UAE.
The decision follows the imposition last week of US sanctions on Daniel Kinahan, his father Christopher Senior and his brother Christopher Junior along with four other gang members and three related companies.
The government says:
“The relevant authorities co-operate closely on cases involving foreign elements, in line with the UAE’s international commitments and national legal framework for combating illicit activity,”
The asset freeze is reported to include all personal and corporate bank accounts, one person briefed on the matter in the UAE said.
UK’s Southern Ports Present Secondary Route for Europe Cocaine
Repeated seizures along the United Kingdom’s southern coast have shown how the area is gaining relevance as a secondary route for drug flows from Latin America.
Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) recently released statistics highlighting how cocaine seizures nationwide shot up in volume by 161 percent between early 2020 and early 2021.
FIRM UK Associate Prof Anna Sergi was interviewed for this article and commented
that “corruption is a key vulnerability, since like all English ports, the southern seaports are privately owned, meaning less transparency and oversight.
“[It’s] a concern because there is no data, there is no easy access for border force, for law enforcement and the NCA,” said Sergi. “You don't actually know the scope of the threat.”
The article is also available in Spanish here https://es.insightcrime.org/noticias/puertos-sur-reino-unido-ruta-secundaria-cocaina-europa/
Italian anti-mafia photographer Letizia Battaglia dies aged 87
Prize-winning Battaglia, who would speed to the scene of murders in the 1980s on her Vespa to bear witness to the violence, blew away the romanticised and sanitised image of the Cosa Nostra.
Her pictures and her character are well known drives of the antimafia civil society movement in Italy.
For decades a ruthless mafia has ruled in southern Italy. Now the state is fighting back
Australian journalists travel to Calabria, Italy, and report stories from Vibo Valentia where a maxi trial against some key ‘ndrangheta families is underway. In addition to talking to prosecutors Nicola Gratteri in Catanzaro and Alessandra Dolci in Milan, they speak with locals who speak out about their mafia victimisation, in Vibo Valentia and in Limbadi, the birthplace of one of the most important ‘ndrangheta clan, the Mancuso family.
Also, they speak with civil society representatives of the antimafia movement. This article is linked to the episode The Magistrate Vs The Mob aired on the 21 April on Foreign Correspondent, 8pm on ABC TV and available here.
Events
[Thursday, 28 April 2022] RUSI - The Future of Economic Crime Policing
The Russia–Ukraine crisis has placed a renewed spotlight on the UK’s problem with dirty money and London’s role in the global ‘laundromat’. Coupled with a rapidly escalating fraud problem, the UK government is under pressure to tackle a widening range of economic crime.Our discussion, chaired by Karen Baxter, former Commander of the City of London Police, will bring together leading experts in the field of economic crime enforcement to discuss the shape of potential reforms.
Books, podcasts & more
[Open Access Article] Title: Shifting landscape suitability for cocaine trafficking through Central America in response to counter drug interdiction
Authors: Nicholas R. Magliocca, Diana S. Summers, Kevin M. Curtin, Kendra McSweeney, Ashleigh N. Price - Journal: Landscape and Urban Planning, Volume 221, May 2022The Index Podcast: First Episode - Kazakhstan
A deep dive into the Global Organized Crime Index with leading experts looking at some of the biggest organized crime threats around the world.The Dark State Podcast: Kinahan Inc - The Collapse of the Cartel?
John Mooney is joined by the journalist Michael O'Toole and Prof Anna Sergi of Essex University (FIRM UK's Associate) to discuss the international effort to disband the Kinahan cartel and bring its leadership to justice. What does the future hold for Christy Kinahan and his two sons? Is this the end of the cartel?[Open Access Article] Designed to break: planned obsolescence as corporate environmental crime
Planned obsolescence is the practice of deliberately designing products to limit their life span to encourage replacement. It is a common business strategy for consumer goods, with far-reaching ecological and social consequences. Here, we examine the definition, causes and consequences of planned obsolescence by using insights from corporate crime literature, integrated with environmental philosophy, management sciences, technology studies and law. Focusing on cases of planned obsolescence in consumer electronics, we show that the concept and procedure carries conceptual ambiguity and moral ambivalence, bearing diffuse harms, benefitting short-term corporate profit but undermining consumer confidence, and posing a major barrier to environmental sustainability. We discuss the system lock-ins driving companies to engage in planned obsolescence, and reframe the practice as a form of corporate environmental crime.