FATF

One of the European Anti-Fraud Office’s first complementary investigations conducted in close cooperation with the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has resulted in a second conviction.

Following a 14 per cent fall in intentional homicides between 2023 and 2024 in Ecuador, projections for 2025 estimate around 9 100 deaths – a 40 per cent increase, equivalent to a rate of nearly 50 per 100 000 inhabitants. This trend, which would continue to make Ecuador the country with the highest homicide rate in Latin America, is driven by divisions within criminal groups resulting from the arrest, murder or extradition of their leaders.

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), in cooperation with Finnish Customs, organised the Annual OLAF Tobacco Conference from 16-18 September in Helsinki, Finland. The event focused on the latest fraud trends and challenges in order to strengthen the fight against tobacco fraud.

The UN General Assembly High-Level Week takes place between 23 September and 29 September in New York, at a time of unprecedented challenges for peace and security, as well as ongoing UN funding crises and major reform processes.  In this context, given the role of transnational organized crime in driving and benefitting from current conflicts and instability, and the need to better address TOC through a changing multilateral system, GI-TOC's Executive Director will take part in two High-Level Week events.

In the past quarter, South Africa has faced national-level scandals relating to policing, corruption and organized crime. At the provincial level in the Western Cape, things have been no less turbulent, with gang violence spiking in areas with high levels of territorial conflict such as Hanover Park. Our research team has mapped out gang territories, showing how disputes over turf have driven violence.

The adult content industry has undergone a dramatic transformation in the digital era. Online content platforms such as OnlyFans and Fansly have made it easier for individuals to produce, distribute and monetize explicit content, giving rise to a new category of labour: the online sex creator.

Guinea-Bissau has long been a central cog in the international cocaine trafficking system. Between 2005 and 2007, consignments of cocaine that had washed up on the country’s beaches was used to paint buildings by bemused fishermen who had chanced across the mysterious powder. Colombian traffickers brazenly drove the streets of Bissau in yellow Hummers, and the country at one point was dubbed ‘Africa’s first narco state’ by the press, reportedly citing the UNODC.

The Wang Xing incident – where a  Chinese influencer was trafficked into and held hostage in multiple scam compounds on the Myanmar–Thailand border in early 2025 – attracted widespread attention in China, Thailand and beyond. Chinese crime groups operating out of Myanmar managed to infiltrate Wang Xing’s social network and eventually recruited him for what appeared to be a legitimate role in a film production.  

Prison reform has become increasingly urgent, at a time when the link between the criminal justice system's shortcomings and organized crime has become more apparent. With approximately 11.5 million people incarcerated globally – more than at any point in human history – the implications extend far beyond the prison walls.

Cyber scam operations in Southeast Asia are part of a vast and evolving illicit industry that relies on trafficking, financial fraud, corruption and professional money laundering networks. This policy brief maps the complex financial architecture behind these operations and highlights actionable policy recommendations for local, regional and global actors.

Organized crime in the Western Balkans is adaptive, complex and increasingly transnational. While law enforcement and policymakers address today’s challenges, criminal actors are already preparing for tomorrow’s opportunities. This report applies strategic foresight to explore how criminal dynamics in the region might evolve by 2035. 

East and Southern Africa is a pivotal node for organized crime, connecting regional criminal markets to global networks. From the shores of Somalia to border crossings and international air and seaports in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia, the region serves as a thriving source, hub and conduit for a wide variety of illegal commodities.

On 16–17 September, in cooperation with the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine, OLAF experts delivered a two-day training for Ukrainian customs and law enforcement officers in Moldova on Open Source Intelligence.

In late September, delegates will begin informal negotiations on the outcome document for the Crime Congress, which will take place in 2026. Now is the time for delegates to take stock of the growth and proliferation of transnational organized crime and truly ask themselves, ‘Is the UNTOC working?’.  

In March 2025, the Haitian government hired Vectus Global, a private military company (PMC) led by Erik Prince, the founder of US-based PMC Blackwater, to support the public forces in combating criminal groups that control 90% of the capital, Port-au-Prince, and exert governance over vast swathes of the country’s territory and economy. Haiti joins a growing list of governments and private consortiums that have recruited Prince's companies or are in talks with them.

There is a new ‘golden triangle’ of criminality between Mexico and the US linking illicitly manufactured fentanyl and trafficked firearms.

Over the last 35 years, the South Caucasus has undergone profound economic and geopolitical transformations. Yet beneath these changes, certain systems of governance have persisted, cultivating and enabling high-level corruption and state capture, organized crime and illicit economies.

The post Armed instability: Tackling the nexus between arms proliferation and organized crime appeared first on Global Initiative.

Criminal networks in the South Caucasus are expanding their reach across borders, exploiting both the region’s geographic position as a trade hub and its complex political environments.

The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) announces the departure of Ville Itälä, who has concluded his non-renewable seven-year term as Director-General of OLAF.