Hi and welcome back to the 34th 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.
We would like to point your attention to one of our associates’ work. Professor Anna Sergi has just published a book titled “Chasing the Mafia” (we also suggest a similar podcast episode below) which will be available both in e-book and paperback.
And as the book will also be released in Australia, in this issue we suggest a piece discussing how the mafia gets away with it in this country.
We hope you enjoy Spotlight. And if you like it, please share it with your network and invite them to subscribe.
Thank you!
Organised crime pours cold water on Ethiopia’s coffee exports
Ethiopia is Africa’s largest coffee exporter and the fifth-largest globally. Being the country’s main export commodity, coffee exports make up a large part of the national economy of the country, and for the livelihood of its people. As the article reports, in fact, it supports the livelihoods of over 25% of the country’s population.
Exporting coffee in the country is tightly controlled, and the highest quality beans are reserved for foreign markets. The Ethiopian law in fact prohibits the sale of export-quality coffee locally. This has created, however, an increasing illegal trade of foreign-reserved coffee in the country, that has seen a growing involvement of organised crime groups in the illicit market.
As the article recites, in fact, “both licensed exporters and illegal traders sell export-standard coffee on the domestic market. The local market is more profitable for licensed coffee exporters than the international market. Exporting coffee involves cumbersome bureaucratic procedures and expenses, such as taxes and costs for transport, packaging and storage”.
Besides contributing to violence, these practices also fuel corruption in the country, as the involvement of local and mid-level government officials and police commanders in the illegal trade was reported.
Countering the synthetic-drug market in South East Asia
South-East Asia remains today a central node in the global trade of synthetic drugs, especially for opium poppy cultivation and heroin production. Despite the pervasiveness of the problem, law enforcement still finds it hard to quantify and qualify the global nature of the issue.
The Global Organized Crime Index, an innovative tool designed to measure levels of organised crime in a country developed by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime, provides an unprecedented opportunity to address this knowledge gap.
According to the Index, as the article recites,
“for the reach of its synthetic drugs market and heroin trade, Asia ranks as a clear leader, with a score almost double that of the lowest-scoring continent, the Americas. And of all regions, South East Asia ranks first and second for these markets, with Myanmar largely contributing to the high scores”.
The Index provides an opportunity to globally contextualise the levels of synthetic drug and heroin criminality in the region, offering reliable data that will hopefully lead to a careful analysis of the issue and the possible countermeasures to adopt.
Italy's 'Ndrangheta and Colombia's Urabeños Continue Profitable Partnership
On June 7, Colombian and European authorities announced the arrests of 20 and 18 people respectively, as well as the interdiction in Italy of 4.3 metric tons of cocaine trafficked by the Urabeños crime group, bringing to an end a year-long investigation that also involved Spanish police and US Homeland Security.
“These drugs belonged to [Jesús Ávila Villadiego] Chiquito Malo, one of the heads of the atomized structures of the [Urabeños],”
said Colombian Police Director Jorge Luis Vargas on social media.
“[It is] the most important transnational operation against cocaine trafficking this year. The Urabeños are one of Colombia's most powerful drug trafficking groups. They are known as the Clan del Golfo (Gulf Clan) to authorities but refer to themselves as the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC.)”
Often studied, rarely prosecuted: How the mafia gets away with it in Australia
After the Australian Federal Police revealed that in Australia there are 51 Italian organised crime groups active, of which 14 belong to the Calabrian ‘ndrangheta, this article questions the reach and validity of such claims by reminding the readers how in Australia the phenomenon of the ‘ndrangheta is periodically objected of big claims by police forces but the issues related to this phenomenon, especially political power and influence are seldom understood.
The article reports a comment by FIRM UK associate Professor Anna Sergi who says
“The political reach of the Australian ’Ndrangheta has always been underestimated. This doesn’t mean donations or gifts at election time, but planting seeds to slowly gain social and political legitimacy (…) Australian authorities can’t lose sight of this as they chase the drug trade.”
Inside a reintegration camp for Colombia’s ex-guerrilla fighters: “Words of reconciliation are our only weapons now”
Over the past four years, the authors of this article have carried out 42 in-depth interviews with former guerrilla soldiers in Agua Bonita and some of the other 25 Territorial Spaces for Training, Reintegration and Reincorporation (ETCR in Spanish), developed by the Colombian government and the UN to resettle thousands of former FARC fighters after the historic 2016 peace agreement.
They sought to understand the barriers faced by ex-combatants as they try to reintegrate into civil society. With President Duque’s reign almost over and his successor due to be elected on June 19, the result has major implications for the future of Colombia, the survival of the peace agreement, and the prospects of all those former combatants who have committed to a life without conflict.
“The election of Iván Duque four years ago was a threat for us. But we will continue to follow the peace agreement regardless of who is the next president of Colombia. We are more determined than ever to comply with the peace accords, and this is the reason they want to kill us”
says Olmedo Vega spent 35 years as a guerrilla commander during Colombia’s armed conflict – one of the longest the world has ever seen.
“The FARC is my family – I grew up with the guerrillas. But now I really want to commit to this new life here in Agua Bonita, along with my old comrades.”
This story is part of Conversation Insights: the Insights team generates long-form journalism working with academics from different backgrounds.
A flurry of attention, then collective forgetfulness – 100 years of the ‘ndrangheta Calabrian mafia in Australia
A flurry of recent reporting and police comments on the 'ndrangheta in Australia may give the impression their activity in Australia is a relatively new phenomenon.
But in truth, the ‘ndrangheta has been successfully planting seeds into Australian society for 100 years. It is integrated into Australian society; it’s not an alien guest or a recent virus.
FIRM UK’s associate Prof Anna Sergi writes for The conversation.
“As someone who has researched the ‘ndrangheta for a decade – and specifically the Australian ‘ndrangheta since 2014 – I didn’t think there was much urgent or new in the recent “revelations”
tied to the anniversary of the Ironside arrests.
The ‘ndrangheta – also known as “the honoured society” – has operated in Australia in a structured way for at least a century”
I am angry about the murders in the Amazon. And you should be too
British journalist Dom Phillips, 57, and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, 41, were killed in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest. Two men confessed to the murders and took investigators to a site where human remains were dug up.
This long read article starts from this latest news to note how the events related to these two men, who were travelling through one of the most inaccessible parts of the rainforest to expose wrongdoing and to speak truth to power, is part of a much bigger problem in the Amazon, against extinction.
We have been reporting how the Amazon is approaching a tipping point, where the rainforest could be lost forever. But for some people trying to protect it, such as Dom, Bruno and countless other journalists, environmental defenders and Indigenous people, the point of no return has already come.
Books, podcasts & more
PODCAST: Chasing the mafia
In this episode, Anna Sergi, author of Chasing the Mafia: ‘Ndrangheta, Memories and Journey peaks with Richard Kemp about the book and her background and proximity to the subject.They discuss her childhood growing up on the Aspromonte mountain, the long reach of the ‘Ndrangheta and the delicate balance of emotional distance when it comes to analysing such an emotive topic.
Listen to the podcast here.
Crime Beyond Borders is a podcast series that delves into the cutting-edge research found in the Journal of Illicit Economies and Development (JIED).
Episode 5: The Last Decade of Drug Policy Advocacy
John is joined by a number of guests to discuss the last decade of drug policy advocacy. Where they will evaluate the outcomes, challenges and opportunities of advocacy.
Journalist and author Oliver Bullough delves into his latest book, Butler to the World, which reveals how Britain came to assume its role as the centre of the offshore economy.
Oliver joins CFCS’s Tom Keatinge and Helena Wood to discuss how so many elements of modern Britain have been put at the service of the world's oligarchs and kleptocrats with disastrous global consequences, what this means within the context of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and whether change is real.