East Asia Criminal Gangs Earn $90 Billion A Year: Report
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Crime syndicates in East Asia and the Pacific are generating nearly $90 billion annually from illicit trade activities such as fake goods, drugs and human trafficking, claimed a UN report on Tuesday, highlighting the difficulty governments face to clamp down on transnational organised crime.
Crime syndicates in East Asia and the Pacific are generating nearly $90 billion annually from illicit trade activities such as fake goods, drugs and human trafficking, claimed a UN report on Tuesday, highlighting the difficulty governments face to clamp down on transnational organised crime.
In its most comprehensive study of organised crime threats for the region to date, the UN said that the top money-makers for crime groups were the trade in counterfeit goods ($24.4 billion), followed by illegal wood products ($17 billion), heroin ($16.3 billion) and methamphetamines ($15 billion).
The sale of fake medicines ($5 billion), environmental crimes ($3.75 billion) and the illegal wildlife trade ($2.5 billion) also ranked closely behind, while studies showed that fake goods shipped from the region to the U.S. and Europe was worth close to $24.4 billion a year.
China was said to be the largest source of counterfeit goods, with 75 percent of counterfeit products seized worldwide originating from the region. In the meanwhile, much of the illegal timber trade came from widespread illegal logging in nations such as Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and Cambodia.
[quote]”These transnational criminal activities are a global concern now,” said Jeremy Douglas, a regional representative of the UN agency, in a statement to Al Jazeera. “Illicit profits from crimes in East Asia and the Pacific can destabilise societies around the globe.”[/quote]“[For instance] between one-third to 90 per cent of anti-malarial drugs tested in Southeast Asia are fraudulent: They do not contain what they say they do. Sub-standard drugs have two serious public health consequences: One: people get sicker or die; Two: drug-resistant strains can develop – as we now see with anti-malarials – and cause a global health threat,” he added.
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Giovanni Broussard, a UN spokesman, further warned that the criminal activities were taking away revenue from legitimate businesses, which in turn denied the governments from much-needed tax receipts.
“This is a fight that we cannot lose,” Broussard said. “These criminal networks operate with no respect to borders.”
The UN urged the region’s leaders to launch “a co-ordinated response” to address the problem.
“East Asia and the Pacific have experienced rapid economic and social changes during the past decades and faced the considerable regulation challenges these changes create for public authorities,” the report said.
[quote]But while the developing economies of East Asia to grow at three times the pace of the global economy, “illicit profits from crimes in East Asia and the Pacific can buy property and companies and corrupt anywhere,” they added.[/quote]Read the full threat assessment on Transnational Organized Crime in East Asia and the Paciï¬c
