What will be the Main Business Affairs of Organized Crime Groups in 2024?
As asserted several times in my previous articles, one of the main features of Organized Crime Groups (OCG) is their capacity to find new business affairs and exploit natural disasters or national crises to increase their income. In the last years — and now — the entire world has been facing internal and international emergencies that are currently affecting the behavior of the OCG. For this reason, apart from the historical fields of work, I will try to answer the following question:
What Will Be the Main Business Affairs of Organized Crime Groups In 2024?
THE WAR IN UKRAINE AND ISRAEL
War has always represented a profitable business for OCGs. For example, in Italy, after the Second World War, Mafia organizations took control of the black market to ensure a continuous flow of money. The desperation of the population to afford a piece of bread and the need for basic goods — such as medicine — has only meant one thing for criminals: an incredible opportunity to make money.
Consequently, when the war in Ukraine and Israel started and the population was struggling to survive, OCG were rubbing their hands. In this regard, the first main business concerns human trafficking. Even before the war — mostly in Ukraine and Eastern Europe — young girls and kids were forced or tricked into going to Western Europe to become prostitutes or sexual slaves. Now, criminal organizations exploit the same established routes to smuggle those escaping from the bombs. Additionally, the second central business is the weapons market. Most of the weapons traded in Europe were used during the war in Yugoslavia and — after its end — sold to Mafia organizations which utilized them now as currency.
THE COVID CRISIS AND THE NEXT GENERATION EU FUNDS
In 2021, the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) elaborated the Serious and Organised Crime Threat Assessment (SOCTA) concerning the European Multidisciplinary Platform Against Criminal Threats (EMPACT), the principal program adopted by the EU to fight organized crime. The SOCTA includes all the main threats the member states have to face until the end of the EMPACT in 2024. Indeed, already in 2021, Europol asserted that medium-long consequences of the pandemic would have represented a huge opportunity for all the criminals. In this concern, Europol stressed that the immediate impact of the COVID-19 crisis has been most visible in the counterfeiting and distribution of substandard goods, cybercrime, and various types of fraud schemes.
Nevertheless, even though the pandemic has ended, the major concern now is the massive investments the EU and the national government are adopting to tackle the economic recession. In fact, the fear of possible interference from OCG pushed Europol to launch a police operation to ensure the billionaire fund is directed towards resilience and not in criminals’ pockets. Anyway, the majority of the recovery plans will be implemented during the current year, consequently, we have to attend to find out if the states have correctly impeded the criminals’ intrusion.
CRITICAL RAW MATERIALS AND AFRICA
Finally, even the recent shortage of semiconductors and the difficulties in accessing Critical Raw Materials (CRM, elements such as Cobalt, Germanium, or Lithium indispensable to building any kind of technologies) represent lucrative businesses for OCGs. Since the ’80s, several OCGs — first of all, ‘Ndrangheta — acquired diamond caves to take control of the business. Nevertheless, due to the explosion of the technology market and the rarity of the necessary materials to build our phones and computers, criminals moved to the CRM field. For example, ‘Ndrangheta holds affairs in several countries such as Congo, Senegal, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and Cote d’Ivoire, where they — apparently — even met the President. Due to the high requests for CRM, Western companies had to establish affairs with OGC which can ensure low prices thanks to the exploitation of young workers and the irregular waste disposal.
Besides the intext sources, the main references of the articles are: “La rete degli invisibili” by Gratteri and Nicaso (2019), “Ossigeno illegale” by Gratteri and Nicaso (2020), and “Fuori dai confini” by Gratteri and Nicaso (2022)
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