On 28 November, Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office and arguably the second most powerful man in Ukraine, announced that he was resigning after searches at his apartment linked to Operation Midas, a sweeping investigation into corruption surrounding Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency, Energoatom.

Trends, developments and insights into the relationship between criminal economies and instability across wider West Africa and the Sahel.

Maritime piracy has become one of the most urgent security issues in the Gulf of Guinea, which is currently the second-most affected region worldwide. Cameroon’s coastline is at the centre of these dynamics, with attacks, shifting routes and an expanding set of criminal activities that both accompany and sustain piracy.

At the 11th UNCAC COSP, the GI-TOC will present its latest data and analysis on what the Index and other analysis tell us about these links at the global scale, and how this plays out across different illicit economies – such as migrant smuggling, maritime trafficking, and antiquities trafficking, as well as interconnections with conflict and insecurity. 

Climate change and organized crime are increasingly interconnected global challenges. In the Pacific Islands, where climate change is a tangible and immediate existential threat, their intersection has profound implications for resilience, sustainable development, livelihoods, food security, and the rule of law.

The war in Sudan has transformed far more than its own frontlines. It has reshaped the security economies of its neighbours, activating new supply nodes and embedding weapons and combatants into cross-border markets that now function as self-reinforcing "collateral circuits." 

Environmental crime, the third largest illegal activity worldwide, includes pollution, wildlife trafficking, and illegal fishing, all of which pose threats to the environment and human health. It grows at 5%-7% annually, causing estimated annual losses of $110-281 billion. The Western Balkans experience all major types of environmental crime, from illegal logging and pollution to smuggling animals and endangered species, as well as illegal poaching. Limited institutional capacity, low public awareness, and scarce investigative resources facilitate these illegal activities, leaving few traces, hindering investigations, and resulting in very low prosecution rates.

Sher Mohammed Gul (name changed), a mid-level Balochi Taliban commander based in south-west Afghanistan, needed money.

This webinar will take a deep dive into the results for the Mekong region and provide insights into recent trends and developments of three particularly notorious criminal markets.

The IUU Fishing Risk Index covers all 152 coastal countries of the world and a score is calculated based on a suite of 40 indicators.

Join us at the National Press Club of Australia for the Asia–Oceania regional launch of the third edition of the Global Organized Crime Index – the world’s most comprehensive dataset tracking criminal markets, criminal actors, and resilience across 193 countries.

With the fall of the Sudanese Armed Forces’ (SAF) last stronghold in western Sudan – coming two months after RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti) declared a parallel state in Nyala – Sudan’s east–west split is now almost complete.

The UN’s first treaty to combat cybercrime received an unexpectedly high level of support at a dedicated conference in Vietnam in October, with 72 countries adding their signatures to the landmark document.

A year of escalating gang violence in the Western Cape has sustained the worrying upward trend of the past five years.

The Observatory of Illicit Economies in South Eastern Europe aims to enable civil society in the Western Balkans to identify, analyze and map criminal trends, and their impact on illicit flows, governance, development, inter-ethnic relations, security and the rule of law.

This inaugural issue tracks developments in the illicit economies of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, and examines how these trends intersect with governance, development and security dynamics across the Mekong region.

OLAF received a prestigious award from the Association for the Defence of Trademarks, Spain’s leading industrial property body, in recognition of its outstanding commitment to combating counterfeiting and defending intellectual and industrial property rights across Europe.

Across northern Ghana, artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) operates in a context of informality, porous borders and opaque financial flows, conditions that mirror the environments in which Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) has profited from the gold sector elsewhere in the Sahel.

On 3 December 2025, we will host the sixth edition of the 24-hour Conference on Global Organized Crime (OC24), a concentrated, high-impact, 16-hour online event that brings together the world’s leading voices on organized crime.

More than 7.8 million counterfeit and dangerous toys have been seized by customs authorities across 13 EU Member States during operations coordinated by the European Anti-Fraud Office.

Illicit financial flows (IFFs) in Africa are increasing in scale, complexity and impact, affecting countries that act as sources, transit points or destinations.

In September 2025, the Solomon Islands government – China’s closest security ally in the Pacific region – announced the launch of the Solomon Islands–China Police Cooperation Model Communities, raising concerns among Western circles.

Online illegal wildlife trade (IWT) continues to expand across social media and e-commerce platforms, with 13,254 wildlife advertisements detected between April 2024 and August 2025 across Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East.

The European Anti-Fraud Office and Europol have intensified their cooperation to address the growing threat of sanctions circumvention linked to Russia and Belarus.

From 24 November to 05 December 2025, Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), along with international organisations and civil society will convene in Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the 20th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP).