Organized crime gangs dealing in fake goods, drugs, human trafficking and the illicit wildlife trade earn nearly US$90 billion annually in East Asia and the Pacific, a UN report showed yesterday.
Transnational Organized Crime in East Asia and the Pacific: A Threat Assessment is the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of the subject, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said.
It estimates that the top money-makers for criminal groups are the trade in counterfeit goods (US$24.4 billion), illegal wood products (US$17 billion), heroin (US$16.3 billion) and methamphetamines (US$15 billion).
Fake medicines (US$5 billion), the black market trade in used electronics components to avoid legitimate recycling (US$3.75 billion) and the illegal wildlife trade (US$2.5 billion) also rank highly.
Migrant smuggling and the trafficking of women and girls for prostitution or general labor also earn crime bosses hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
UNODC deputy executive director Sandeep Chawla said the report opened the window on “the mechanics of illicit trade: the how, where, when, who and why of selected contraband markets affecting this region.”
“It looks at how criminal enterprises have developed alongside legitimate commerce and taken advantage of distribution and logistics chains,” he said at the launch in Sydney.
Chawla highlighted the growing problem of heroin. Consumption is rising across the region — estimated at 65 million tons in 2011 — with Chinese the main users and Myanmar the key producer.
“Myanmar is the principal source of opiates in Southeast Asia. Doing something about tackling opiates in Myanmar is a very important thing for the region,” Chawla said.
“Clearly that is something that more attention can be given to with the change in government that’s happening in the country at the moment,” he said.
Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC regional representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, said many of the organized criminal activities could have serious global health implications.
“Between one-third to 90 percent of anti-malarial drugs tested in Southeast Asia are fraudulent,” he said, with China and India the main culprits in production,” Douglas said.
“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 and cause a global health threat,” he said.
With rapid economic growth leading to a proliferation of criminal networks, he said the threat was now so great that it has the ability to “destabilize societies around the globe.”
“Illicit profits from crimes in East Asia and the Pacific can buy property and companies and corrupt anywhere,” Douglas said.
“We need to talk about this, and organize a coordinated response now. It takes a network to defeat a network,” he said.
The trade in counterfeit goods is the most lucrative activity, despite being considered a “soft” form of crime, with China the worst culprit.
According to the World Customs Organization, 75 percent of all fake products seized worldwide from 2008 to 2010 were from East Asia, primarily China, with the industry accounting for about 2 percent of world trade.
“The key players in counterfeit markets are brokers and logisticians who connect supply and demand,” the report said.
On the Chinese microblogging platform Sina Weibo, enthusiastic slackers share their tips: Fill up a thermos with whiskey, do planks or stretches in the work pantry at regular intervals, drink liters of water to prompt lots of trips to the toilet on work time, and, once there, spend time on social media or playing games on your phone. “Not working hard is everyone’s basic right,” one commenter wrote. “With or without legal protection, everyone has the right to not work hard.” Young Chinese people are pushing back against an engrained culture of overwork, and embracing a philosophy of laziness known as “touching
‘STUNNED’: With help from an official at the US Department of Justice, Donald Trump reportedly planned to oust the acting attorney general in a bid to overturn the election Former US president Donald Trump was at his Florida resort on Saturday, beginning post-presidency life while US President Joe Biden settled into the White House, but in Washington and beyond, the chaos of the 45th president’s final days in office continued to throw out damaging aftershocks. In yet another earth-shaking report, the New York Times said that Trump plotted with an official at the US Department of Justice to fire the acting attorney general, then force Georgia Republicans to overturn his defeat in that state. Meanwhile, former acting US secretary of defense Christopher Miller made an extraordinary admission, telling Vanity Fair that
The Palauan president-elect has vowed to stand up to Chinese “bullying” in the Pacific, saying that the archipelago nation is set to stand by its alliances with “true friends,” Taiwan and the US. Surangel Whipps Jr, 52, a supermarket owner and two-time senator from a prominent Palauan family, is to be sworn in as the new president tomorrow, succeeding his brother-in-law, Tommy Remengesau Jr. In a forthright interview, Whipps said that the US had demonstrated over the years that it was a reliable friend of Palau, most recently shown by its delivery of 6,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. “It’s important for
Boeing set a target of designing and certifying its jetliners to fly on 100 percent sustainable fuels by 2030, amid rising pressure on planemakers to take climate change seriously. Regulators allow a 50-50 blend of sustainable and conventional fuels, and Boeing on Friday said it would work with authorities to raise the limit. Rival Airbus is considering another tack: a futuristic lineup of hydrogen-powered aircraft that would reach the skies by 2035. The aircraft manufacturers face growing public clamor to cut emissions in the aviation industry, which added more than 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in 2019, according to
RSS