Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime

With more people working from home than ever before due to the pandemic,. But another parallel pandemic is taking place, that of online child sexual abuse material which has taken a sharp rise around the world.

In this podcast, we’re discussing Child Online Sexual Abuse (CSAM), COVID and technology.

Presenter(s): Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo and Jack Meegan-Vickers.

Speakers:

Fernando Ruiz, Head of Operations at the European Cybercrime Centre, set up by Europol to co-ordinate crossborder investigations into cybercrime.

Amela Efendic is the director of the European Resource Centre for the Prevention of Trafficking and head of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Office for the International Forum for Solidarity-Emmaus.

Judie Kaberia is a fellow of the 2020 Resilience Fund of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

GI Research Paper: Transformative Technologies: How digital is changing the landscape of organized crime.

Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

In June 2020, EncroChat users received a flurry of panicked messages from the company claiming its encrypted network had been hacked by "government entities". What unravelled was one of the biggest hacks by law enforcement in history, who claimed many of its users are alleged organized criminals in Europe.

The hack was said to have revealed a litany of criminal behaviour - drug deals and shipments, money laundering and arms trafficking, corrupt police officers, a planning of a murder and even the discovery of a torture chamber, hidden within a shipping container.

But was the hack even legal? And what are the implications for the encrypted communications that many of us use everyday?

This podcast was based on the reporting of Joseph Cox at Motherboard, VICE News.

Guests:

Joseph Cox, Senior Staff Writer at Motherboard, VICE News.

Jake Moore, Cyber Security Specialist at ESET.

Edouard Klein, Intelligence-Driven Cybersecurity, Sekoia.fr

Tuesday Reitano, Deputy Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Reading:

How Police Secretly Took Over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime, Motherboard

Encrochat Investigation Finds Corrupt Cops Leaking Information to Criminals, Motherboard

Encrypted Phone Network Says It's Shutting Down After Police Hack, Motherboard

Europol, Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment (iOCTA) 2020

Al Jazeera, Opinion: The EncroChat police hacking sets a dangerous precedent

ComputerWeekly.com - Berlin court finds EncroChat intercept evidence cannot be used in criminal trials

ComputerWeekly.com - Secrecy around EncroChat cryptophone hack breaches French constitution, court hears

Presenter: Jack Meegan-Vickers

Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

A look at how a self-interested political and military elite used profits from illicit markets to fuel their own ambitions at the expense of the wider population. This is a story of corruption, dirty money, cocaine and illegal logging.

This is Part one of a two-part special on Guinea-Bissau, the small West African nation. In this episode we will chart the course of Guinea-Bissau from Independence to the present day through the eyes of civil society organisations, who step in to fill the void left by an absent state.

Guests

Augusto Mário (Pres. GNB Human Rights League)

Ude Fati (Economist, Head of Voz di Paz)

Fodé Mané (University of Bissau)

Rui Landim (Political Analyst)

Augusta Henriques (founder of Tiniguena, civil society activist)

Reading

Breaking the vicious cycle: Cocaine politics in Guinea-Bissau

The Seidi Bá cocaine trial: A smokescreen for impunity?

Mission not accomplished?: UNIOGBIS closes amid uncertainty in Guinea-Bissau

CPJ - Guinea-Bissau editor António Aly Silva abducted and beaten

Presenter: Jack Meegan-Vickers

On March 24th 2021, Islamist insurgents carried out an attack on the coastal town of Palma in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado. The days of fighting, looting, massacres, private military contractors, and dramatic rescues led to thousands more people fleeing to escape the violence.

The attack took place just a few kilometres from Total’s $20 billion-dollar natural gas project on the Afungi peninsula and in the same province as the huge ruby fields of Montepuez.

Last year the Global Initiative asked how this ongoing insurgency is impacting the illicit flows that travel through the region – after the attack at Palma, we have decided to revisit this subject.

This is a collaborative episode between Africa and the Global Illicit Economy and Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime.

Presenter: Lindy Mtongana

Speakers:

Prof. Adriano Nuvunga – Director of the CDD Mozambique

Zenaida Machado – Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch

Alastair Nelson – Senior Fellow, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Johann Smith – Independent Security Analyst in Mozambique

Colonel Lionel Dyck – CEO of the of Dyck Advisory Group (DAG)

Reading:

Observatory of Illicit Economies in Eastern and Southern Africa – Risk Bulletin Issue. 17

A Triangle of Vulnerability: Changing patterns of illicit trafficking off the Swahili coast

Podcast: Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime – Insurgency and illicit trade in Northern Mozambique

'Criminals and Terrorists': Framing Mozambique's Insurgency - OCCRP

Hundreds Missing After Mozambique Attack: Government Should Provide More Information About Situation in Palma

Amnesty International: Mozambique: Civilians killed as war crimes committed by armed group, government forces, and private military contractors.

Producer: Jack Meegan-Vickers

Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Part 1 - "The Death of a President"

In July 2021, the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated as he slept at home by a band of mercenaries. His murder sparked a wave of violent protests and a period of unprecedented crisis in the small Caribbean nation that the country has still yet to address nearly four years later.

For a long time, violent gangs were used by politicians to win elections, harass political opponents and stamp out opposition. But the political vacuum and ensuing chaos after the death of the President has seen their power grow immensely. They have committed horrendous atrocities against the population that control and each other.

Massacres, extortion, mass rape, looting, and blockades have brought about a situation where gangs control an estimated 90% of the capital Port-au-Prince. It has created a humanitarian situation of catastrophic proportions, as over one-million Haitians have been internally displaced as a result of the violence.

In Part 1 of Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti, we chart the fallout from the President's murder, the brutal expansion of the gangs power and influence, as well as the relationship between political and economic actors with those same gangs.

Speakers

Jacqueline Charles, Haiti/Caribbean Correspondent, Miami Herald.

Widlore Merancourt, Editor-in-chief for Ayibopost & reporter for the Washington Post on its Haiti coverage

William (Bill) G. O'Neill, UN Independent Expert on the Human Rights Situation in Haiti

Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, Senior Expert, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime

GITOC Links

The GI-TOC Observatory of Violence and Resilience in Haiti

Will the Artibonite massacre be a turning point in Haiti - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/artibonite-massacre-haiti/

Gangs of Haiti: Expansion, power and an escalating crisis - https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/GITOC-Gangs-of-Haiti.pdf

Violence in Haiti: A continuation of politics by other means? - https://globalinitiative.net/analysis/violence-in-haiti-politics-crime-gangs/

Additional Links

https://haitiantimes.com/fr/2021/07/27/gang-boss-leads-protest-rally-against-moise-assassination/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/24/haiti-held-hostage

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20210714-haiti-crime-boss-threatens-syrian-and-lebanese-businesses-following-presidents-assassination/

https://www.nytimes.com/es/2021/07/13/espanol/haiti-soldados-colombianos.html

https://haitiantimes.com/2023/12/20/haitian-senator-sentenced-moise-assassination/

https://haitiantimes.com/2025/02/12/badio-denies-jovenel-moise-assassination/

https://www.caribbean-council.org/ariel-henry-sworn-in-as-new-haitian-prime-minister/

https://www.crisisgroup.org/latin-america-caribbean/haiti/handling-aftermath-haitis-presidential-assassination

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/charles-ap-jovenel-moise-haiti-portauprince-b2498871.html

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/haiti-moves-constitutional-referendum-september-2021-06-29/

https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2021/0330/The-battle-for-democracy-goes-on-in-Haiti-as-Moise-gains-power

https://www.freedomskn.com/haiti-leader-urges-calm-requests-help-in-nations-crisis/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-56069575

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/09/haiti-police-say-26-colombians-two-us-haitians-took-part-in-jovenel-moise-assassination-president

https://news.sky.com/story/wife-of-assassinated-haiti-president-jovenel-moise-speaks-from-hospital-bed-12353342

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m9qR6Lv8_I

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-07-12/anatomy-of-an-assassination-the-final-hours-of-president-jovenel-moise.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFlRoCErQVU&t=6s

https://ayibopost.com/construction-work-underway-at-village-of-god-viv-ansanm-is-tearing-down-the-lower-part-of-the-town/

https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/c3gq57qzxn8o

https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/johnson-andre

https://insightcrime.org/news/haiti-crime-boss-death-signals-possible-shift-in-balance-of-power/

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/26/americas/lambert-haiti-senate-henry-intl-latam/index.html

https://haitiantimes.com/es/2021/10/20/strike-in-port-au-prince-other-cities-around-haiti-held-to-protest-gangs/

https://apnews.com/article/caribbean-port-au-prince-kidnapping-haiti-b1afcce986e48e51084f4e4096877a05

https://www.haitilibre.com/...