New Report on Global Illicit Economy Looks at Trajectories, Impact and Future of Transnational Organised Crime

The Global Initiative’s new report ‘The global illicit economy: Trajectories of transnational organized crime’ gives a graphic illustration of how the global illicit economy has boomed in the past 20 years and the serious threat it poses to security, development and justice.

The flagship new report from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) shows how organized crime is a common denominator to the world’s major challenges and a driver of unsustainable development.

Published on the occasion of the 14th UN Crime Congress, the GI-TOC report surveys the global drivers of illicit economies over the last 20 years. Through vivid visualizations and analysis it focuses on the evolution of five major illicit economies over the past two decades: human exploitation, illicit environmental markets, illicit drugs, cybercrime and the illegal trade in licit and counterfeit goods. The report also looks at emerging trends of how organized crime may operate in the future, and concludes with recommendations on how to change the trajectories of crime.

Punctuated with interviews from journalists, authors and civil society leaders, this report moves from mega-trends to local impacts and finds a criminal underworld that has become seamlessly linked with the upperworlds of business and politics, blurring distinctions between illegal and legal.

‘This report shows how organized crime has gone global in the past 20 years and is harming so many aspects of life on our planet,’ says GI-TOC Director Mark Shaw. ‘Organized crime perpetuates and profits from the world’s major challenges and is a driver of unsustainable development.’

‘Left unchecked, the shadows of the future look even more sinister. New approaches and a global approach are needed if we are going to change the trajectories of organized crime,’ says Shaw.