Viktor Bout, Wikimedia Commons
By Sebastian Bae, Columnist
In the modern world, geography, ideology, and state control no longer restrict criminality and violence.[1] Weapons, drugs, and cash flow through expansive illicit networks that connect Mexican cartels, European arms dealers, and Afghan poppy farmers together. Consequently, states must adapt to the reality that violence and criminality have become global commodities, traded internationally through a shadowy network of hubs, facilitators, and organizations.
As the nexus between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, Turkey serves as a crucial hub in the international illicit market. William Langeweische said, “Turkey is the world’s grand bazaar” – where everything from people to nuclear contraband are bought and sold.[2] For instance, Turkey transits roughly 75 percent of Western Europe’s narcotics.[3] Illicit hubs rely on state graft, porous borders, and a booming informal market to prosper. The pursuit of profits enables illicit organizations of every variety to collaborate. For instance, the Tri-Border Area, straddling Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, serves a clientele spanning from Japan to Nigeria, including criminal syndicates to Islamic terrorists.[4] In 2000 alone, Paraguay’s Ciudad del Este produced roughly $13 billion from illegal merchandise sales.[5]
The illicit global market relies on specialized individuals – fixers, super fixers, and shadow facilitators – to facilitate transactions between states, terrorists, and criminals.[6] Often local elites and local fixers transport illicit commodities from production sites to domestic markets. Then, a super fixer utilizing transnational connections provides financial services and markets the goods to the larger international audience. Lastly, the shadow facilitator trades or acquires sophisticated commodities like advanced weaponry or high-technology components.[7] Fixers and facilitators rely on a combination of personal relationships and professional quid pro quo, serving as lynchpins in the global illicit network. Dubbed the “Merchant of Death,” Viktor Bout, initially a Belgium-based arms broker, supplied weapons to multiple sides to numerous African conflicts in the mid-1990s.[8] Similarly, Monzer al-Kassar, a Syrian arms broker, facilitated the US in the Iran-Contra scandal, provided weapons to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and armed the 2003 Iraqi insurgency.[9]
The international illicit network is not restricted to conflict zones and weak states, but also thrives in industrial nations. According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, “In absolute terms, transnational crime is strongest in the richest countries,” but often obfuscated by the legitimate economy.[10] In 2012, HSBC, a large London-based bank, admitted to laundering $881 million for Mexican drug cartels, bypassing US banking sanctions for years.[11] Cartel members would routinely enter HSBC branches, depositing thousands of dollars in cash in specific boxes tailored for HSBC teller windows.[12] Similarly, BNP Paribas, France’s largest bank, paid roughly $9 billion in fines for evading US sanctions against Cuba, Sudan, and Iran.[13] By actively stripping identifying information from transactions, BNP laundered $190 billion-worth of illegal transactions between 2002 and 2012.[14] Beyond mere ineptitude, internal BNP emails demonstrated “that a number of senior bank executives were aware of the deals.”[15] Both cases illustrate the active cooperation of ‘legitimate actors’ with illicit organizations from cartels to genocidal regimes.
Through the international illicit network, violent non-state actors have become powerful, wealthy, dangerous, and highly adaptable. Dismantling the international illicit network requires states to identify and target key network nodes like Viktor Bout.[16] States must learn to share intelligence, combine resources, and coordinate complex laws and enforcement. Until states collaborate better than criminals, the shadow network will continue to thrive.
Sebastian J. Bae is pursuing his Masters at Georgetown’s Security Studies Program, specializing in international security. He served six years in the Marine Corps infantry as a Sergeant, and deployed to Iraq in 2009. He previously studied at UC Berkeley for his undergraduate degree in Peace & Conflicts Studies, and did academic exchanges and fellowships at the University of Hong Kong as an undergraduate and the University of St. Andrews Centre for the Study of Political Violence and Terrorism as a graduate student. His professional and academic focus has been in counter insurgency operations and humanitarian interventions, particularly concerning the Right to Protect doctrine.
[1] Duncan Deville, “The Illicit Supply Chain,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 63-64.
[2] Patrick Radden Keefe, “The Geography of Badness: Mapping the Hubs of the Illicit Global Economy,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 97.
[3] Patrick Radden Keefe, “The Geography of Badness: Mapping the Hubs of the Illicit Global Economy,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 97.
[4] Patrick Radden Keefe, “The Geography of Badness: Mapping the Hubs of the Illicit Global Economy,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 103.
[5] Patrick Radden Keefe, “The Geography of Badness: Mapping the Hubs of the Illicit Global Economy,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 103.
[6] Douglas Farah, “Fixers, Super Fixers, and Shadow Facilitators: How Networks Connect,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 75-76.
[7] Douglas Farah, “Fixers, Super Fixers, and Shadow Facilitators: How Networks Connect,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 91.
[8] Douglas Farah, “Fixers, Super Fixers, and Shadow Facilitators: How Networks Connect,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 84.
[9] Patrick Radden Keefe, “The Trafficker,” The New Yorker, February 8, 2010, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/02/08/the-trafficker
[10] Patrick Radden Keefe, “The Geography of Badness: Mapping the Hubs of the Illicit Global Economy,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 105.
[11] Robert Mazur, “How to Half the Terrorist Money Train,” New York Times, January 2, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/opinion/how-bankers-help-drug-traffickers-and-terrorists.html
[12] “Outrageous HSBC Settlement Proves the Drug War is a Joke,” Rolling Stone, Dec. 13, 2012, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/outrageous-hsbc-settlement-proves-the-drug-war-is-a-joke-20121213
[13] “BNP Paribas: Capital Punishment,” The Economist, July 5th, 2014, http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21606321-frances-largest-bank-gets-fined-evading-american-sanctions-capital-punishment
[14] “BNP Paribas: Capital Punishment,” The Economist, July 5th, 2014, http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21606321-frances-largest-bank-gets-fined-evading-american-sanctions-capital-punishment
[15] “BNP Paribas: Capital Punishment,” The Economist, July 5th, 2014, http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21606321-frances-largest-bank-gets-fined-evading-american-sanctions-capital-punishment
[16] Douglas Farah, “Fixers, Super Fixers, and Shadow Facilitators: How Networks Connect,” in Convergence: Illicit Networks and National Security in the Age of Globalization, ed. Michael Miklaucic and Jacqueline Brewer (Washington DC: National Defense University Press, 2013), 92.