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Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime and Terrorism

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Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime and Terrorism NATIONS HOSPITABLE TO ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORISM A Report Prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the Director of Central Intelligence Crime and Narcotics Center October 2003 Authors: LaVerle Berry Glenn E. Curtis John N. Gibbs Rex A. Hudson Tara Karacan Nina Kollars Ramón Miró Project Manager: Glenn E. Curtis Federal Research Division Library of Congress Washington, D.C. 20540−4840 Tel: 202−707−3900 Fax: 202−707−3920 E-Mail: [email protected] Homepage: http://loc.gov/rr/frd/ p 55 Years of Service to the Federal Government p 1948 – 2003 Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime & Terrorism PREFACE This report assesses conditions that contribute to or are potentially hospitable to transnational criminal activity and terrorist activity in selected regions of the world. Such conditions include domestic factors such as government corruption and economic hardship, as well as international factors such as geographic location and relations with neighboring countries. Although the focus of the report is on transnational activity, domestic criminal activity is recognized as a key foundation for transnational crime, especially as the forces of globalization intensify. A number of different criminal and terrorist activities are addressed. Because the report aims at describing the most salient of those activities in each of many individually covered countries and regions, there is substantial variation in the coverage of a particular activity such as money laundering, for example. The primary aim is to portray conditions within a single country or region rather than to provide a continuum of a particular type of activity from country to country. This report uses the term “trafficking” to refer to two categories of illegal transnational movement of people: the buying and selling of women and children for illegal labor and for the sex trade, and the movement of illegal migrants through or into countries without fulfilling the documentation requirements of those countries. Although the second activity often is called “smuggling,” transnational criminal groups view both activities as the movement of a profit- bearing commodity. For that reason, this report refers to all transnational movement of illegal people or goods as “trafficking.” The report has been arranged geographically into the following major headings: Africa, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Western Europe, and the Western Hemisphere. This arrangement, which is based on the structure of information sources, differs somewhat from the regional listing found in the project’s Work Statement. Within the geographical headings, the report addresses individual countries with particularly salient conditions. Cases such as the Triborder Area (TBA) of South America and East and West Africa, where conditions largely overlap national borders, have been treated as regions rather than by imposing an artificial delineation by country. The bibliography has been divided into the same geographical headings as the text. - i - Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime & Terrorism The major sources for this report are recent periodical reports from Western and regional sources, Internet sites offering credible recent information, selected recent monographs, and personal communications with regional experts. Treatment of individual countries varies according to the extent and seriousness of conditions under study. Thus some countries in a region are not discussed, and others are discussed only from the perspective of one or two pertinent activities or conditions. Because they border the United States, Canada and Mexico have received especially extensive treatment. - ii - Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime & Terrorism TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE........................................................................................................................................ i INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 1 AFRICA.......................................................................................................................................... 2 LaVerle Berry and Glenn E. Curtis Introduction............................................................................................................................... 2 North Africa.............................................................................................................................. 4 Algeria................................................................................................................................. 4 Egypt ................................................................................................................................... 5 Morocco.............................................................................................................................. 6 Sub-Saharan Africa................................................................................................................... 8 Eastern Africa..................................................................................................................... 8 Contributing Factors ..................................................................................................... 9 Arms Trafficking ........................................................................................................ 12 Narcotics Trafficking.................................................................................................. 14 Trafficking in Humans................................................................................................ 15 Corruption................................................................................................................... 16 Money Laundering...................................................................................................... 17 Terrorist Activity ........................................................................................................ 18 Southern Africa................................................................................................................. 19 Mozambique ............................................................................................................... 20 South Africa................................................................................................................ 22 Western Africa .................................................................................................................. 26 Introduction................................................................................................................. 26 Narcotics Trafficking.................................................................................................. 27 Human Trafficking...................................................................................................... 28 Arms Trafficking ........................................................................................................ 29 The Liberia Problem ................................................................................................... 31 FORMER SOVIET UNION AND EASTERN EUROPE............................................................ 32 Glenn E. Curtis Introduction............................................................................................................................. 32 Albania.................................................................................................................................... 33 Former Warsaw Pact European Nations................................................................................. 36 Bulgaria ............................................................................................................................ 37 The Czech Republic........................................................................................................... 42 Hungary ............................................................................................................................ 42 Poland............................................................................................................................... 44 Romania............................................................................................................................ 45 Slovakia............................................................................................................................. 46 Nations of the Former Soviet Union....................................................................................... 47 The Baltic States ............................................................................................................... 47 Estonia......................................................................................................................... 48 - iii - Library of Congress – Federal Research Division Nations Hospitable to Organized Crime & Terrorism Latvia .......................................................................................................................... 49 Lithuania ..................................................................................................................... 52 Belarus.............................................................................................................................
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