Rethinking the Regulatory Approaches Taken Towards Organized Crime in the Global South Region - 2

Is Financial and Economic Crime an African Problem?

Dr Folashade Adeyemo

This presentation will contribute to the existing discourse on asset recovery and asset tracing and explore the emerging issue of unexplained wealth. The presentation will approach this issue through an African lens, an approach which is often excluded from important and timely conversations. The core impetus of the presentation will be to explore and challenge some common assertions relating to African and its relationship with financial and economic crime. The first, is whether Africa is the seat for corruption and whether financial and economic crime is indeed an African problem with no end date in sight. While it is agreed that indeed, Africa has a high concentration of corruption, fraud and financial and economic crime, this should not presuppose that other developed economies are not recipients of these same issues. The second is to focus on Nigeria as a main case study, and focusing on how it deals with managing unexplained wealth, through the lens of politically exposed persons.

Do Things Fall Apart? (Black)listing and Its Implications for Developing Countries

Dr Nkechikwu Valerie Azinge-Egbiri

A dominant assumption is that the processes for evaluating and sanctioning countries for anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing (AML/CFT) failings are infallible and amplify countries’ compliance. Yet, there is scarce literature on the politics and biases of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)’s listing, which affects developing countries disproportionately. This presentation critiques the credibility of the FATF’s listing due to its implicit biases and argues that international institutions should pay less attention to the lists in determining their engagements with countries. Furthermore, the presentation asserts that combating illicit crimes requires a shift away from biased listing to macro-risk listing. Additionally, this presentation examines how countries react to the listing, and contend that contrary to the expected ‘stigma reaction’, the lists occasionally create a stigma paradox where countries engage in superficial compliance merely to get delisted.

Warp and Weft of Waqf and Warring: A Case of Pumwani’s Riyadha Mosque and Financing of Al Shabaab Terror Group

Daniel Manyasi Katira Otunga

Despite the much association of Islam brotherhood benevolence namely sadaqah and zakat, little is conveyed on waqf. This endowment, whether fixed or liquid asset, is perceived as a gift to Allah and not man, and thus is gifted forever and ever, here and after. With waqf, profits and returns on the investments are meant for supporting charities on shelter, food, and clothing. They also do cater for incomes, scholarships and healthcare, as well as emergencies and economic empowerment projects. Pumwani Riyadha mosque has such assets that earn the institution millions monthly income. This paper, through nine qualitative Key Informant Interviews from Pumwani settlement, probes the reality of waqf financing of Al Shabaab terror group activities in East Africa and beyond. Analysis of the findings brings out three major factors associated with the success of the violent extremism yonder financing; terrorism being associated with socio-economic deprivations, international sympathisers volunteering to fight against injustice and inter and intra-religious intolerance. The discoveries associate the fueling of war in Somalia as actually an enabler of illicit financial flow. This is an organised crime with multinational benefactors that ensures Somalia continues being fertile, a battle ground for piracy to thrive. More than jihad, it’s the flow of fake and genuine US dollar that strengthens Somali currency and Somalis investment in the Eastern Africa region and in the United Arabs Emirates. As a study independent of hard-power influence, this work gives a true picture of the grassroots perception of terrorism and resilience in facing radicalisation, community profiling and current gentrification informed by money-laundering in the real estate development. From primary source; through observation and personal narratives from relatives of the rebels, the returnees and community gate-keepers, this research work opens the Pandora box for other researchers to pick on knowledge gap and other research gap.

Hilmy Bramantyo and Gilgang Prahas

The province of Southeast Sulawesi, located in Indonesia, holds the world's largest nickel reserves, a valuable asset in the growing electric vehicle (EV) industry. As global transportation trends shift toward cleaner options, the demand for EVs has surged, with nickel being critical in batteries as the main raw material ingredient. Many studies have highlighted the positive impact of EV usage, primarily focusing on emission reduction. However, few studies address the negative environmental impact of EV battery production. Indonesia is encountering challenges due to unsustainable mining practices conducted by some mining entities. These practices include illegal mining and are exacerbated by pervasive corruption in the mining sector.

This study utilizes Rob White's theoretical framework on green criminology to investigate the misconduct of business entities in nickel mines, involving some mining entities that operate as an organization. As these mining entities behave like organized crime as defined by The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), where they not only conduct mining operations but also serious crime, i.e. devastate the surrounding environment, this study proposes a combination of environmental and organized crime with a new terminology called "enviro-organized crime." Organized criminal networks take advantage of lax regulations to engage in illegal mining and ignore the government’s regulation on sustainable practices, which worsens environmental degradation. It is important for scholars to rethink the issue of green crime in regard to the unsustainable process of producing batteries for EVs.

Anti-Money Laundering Regime Strengthening to Fight Against Illegal Wildlife Trade in Indonesia

Hotlarisda Girsang

Illegal Wildlife crime such as poaching, private property, trade, smuggling, and killing is a forgotten problem in Indonesia. It turns out that there is still too little to discuss. Wildlife crime plays a vital role in wildlife extinction, especially in Indonesia. However, Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, has been reported and considered the world's largest market for illegal wildlife. The vast and rich biodiversity makes Indonesia a critical market.

Indonesia is the largest exporter of wild animals in the world. It was recorded in the research report International Socioeconomic Inequality Drives Trade Patterns in the Global Wildlife Market compiled by Jia Huan Liew et al., a team of researchers from Hong Kong and Singapore (May 2021). According to the report, during the 1998-2018 period, Indonesia exported around 71 million wild animals to dozens of countries, the highest compared to other exporting countries.

The Financial Actions Tasks Force (FATF)/The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) explains that the Illegal Wildlife Trade is a significant transnational crime, generating billions of criminal proceeds annually. Wildlife traffickers exploit financial and non-financial sectors, damaging financial integrity, but jurisdictions rarely investigate.

The conditions of the Illegal Wildlife Trade above need to be handled. One of the tools that can be operated well is the anti-money laundering law. It is believed that implementing following the money will effectively reduce the Illegal Wildlife Trade.

The purpose of this article is to analyse what comprehensive money laundering regulations can do to tackle the characteristics of trans-organised crime, especially when dealing with acts that can harm the environment. It is a conceptual article that uses the qualitative method.

A Gender Perspective of Environmental Crimes and Illegal Trade in Africa: The Effects of Gender Roles, Norms and Discourse on Environmental Crimes

Cheludo Butale

Transnational Organised Crime has become a major driver of environmental degradation, soil and water contamination and biodiversity loss. The involvement of criminal networks in the supply chains of natural resources is linked with environmental crimes. The crimes are now widely recognized as threats on a global scale by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the UN Office for Drugs and Crime and the Financial Action Task Force. A gender perspective of environmental crimes is however, under researched, particularly in Africa. This study therefore, aims at examining gender roles and norms and impact of environmental crimes in Cameroon, Malawi and South Africa that mostly have wildlife and forests with illegal activities reported in the forestry and wildlife sector. The study further aims at examining the gender and environmental discourse of the African Union to explore relationships between language and power-relations as they impact upon gender in the environmental crime discourse. To examine environmental crimes, women's roles as perpetrators, defenders, and victims shall be examined. This study argues that gender roles and norms influence environmental crimes and exacerbate gender inequality. A feminist political ecology of wildlife is used in the study and complemented by a post-structural feminism approach. The frameworks centre on legal systems and gender norms and understanding the drivers or gender participation in crimes and impact. This study is descriptive and makes use of document analysis to observe the gendered aspect of environmental crime and complemented with interviews. The study suggests that environmental crimes can be overcome by mainstreaming gender in anti-money laundering and counterterrorism measures as well as climate change initiatives.

Emerging Technologies and Criminal Organizations in the Horn of Africa

Mohamed Muse

Emerging and digital technologies are essential to many in the Horn of Africa. They are used daily for communication, business, and personal transactions. The role of mobile money wallets, foreign Exchange Platforms, and Cryptocurrencies is particularly noteworthy, as they have become integral to financial transactions in the region. Many people in the Horn use emerging technologies such as digital money transfer applications, cryptocurrencies, foreign exchange (FOREX), and Betting, among other platforms.

These platforms are mainly used for legitimate reasons, such as sending or receiving money. However, they are vulnerable to illicit use by organized criminal groups and terrorists. Criminal and terrorist groups can exploit these platforms for their activities. The criminal groups can use these platforms for extortion (mainly within the countries in the Horn) and financing of their criminal activities, such as the illegal acquisition of arms and other explosive devices. The criminal and terrorist groups also use these platforms to launder the illegitimate earnings they collected through extortion and other illicit activities. The laundering funds are then invested back into the economy of the countries in the Horn of Africa.

This paper investigates emerging technologies and their use by criminal and terrorist organizations in the Horn of Africa. The data of the paper comes from multi-sited fieldwork in the Horn of Africa. In-depth interviews with financial security experts, academics, policymakers, regulations, and mobile money service providers, among other methods, were used to collect the data for this paper. The arguments are twofold. First, I argue that emerging technologies are vulnerable to illicit users in the Horn. Second, the current regulatory approaches are counterproductive and require more localization and contextualization to combat criminal organizations’ use of emerging technologies effectively.