CrimeAs Crime Dips Worldwide, Agile Syndicates Adapt to Pandemic

By Jamie Dettmer

Published 26 May 2020

Countries around the world are reporting a dip in criminal activity. Due to stay-at-home orders and fewer opportunities for crime, there has been a noticeable decline in burglary, assault, murder, robbery and grand larceny. But law enforcement officials and analysts say a second look reveals a more complicated and disturbing picture. Cybercrime has exploded, with mounting reports of an increase in ransomware attacks. Headline crime may have dropped, and the statistics may have improved, but analysts say that as the pandemic reorders geopolitics and economics, it is doing the same in the world of crime.

El Salvador, one of the world’s homicide hot spots, reported something highly unusual early in the coronavirus pandemic — four murder-free days.  

Neighboring countries Guatemala and Honduras also have seen homicides plunge. For nations that have often led the world in per capita killings, the development has been welcome.  

Major cities across the United States have also reported dips in burglary, assault, murder, robbery and grand larceny — all due to stay-at-home orders and fewer opportunities for crime. 

Countries across the globe have reported reduced crime, an apparent silver lining in a contagion cloud that is reshaping the world. 

At first glance, global lockdowns and quarantines seem to have suppressed crime and reduced the spread of the coronavirus. But law enforcement officials and analysts say a second look reveals a more complicated and disturbing picture. Cybercrime has exploded, with mounting reports of an increase in ransomware attacks. 

Headline crime may have dropped, and the statistics may have improved, but analysts say as the pandemic reorders geopolitics and economics, it is doing the same in the world of crime. 

Gangs, Mafia and Small Businesses 
Organized crime groups have been taking advantage of fresh opportunities presented by the pandemic, from acting surreptitiously as suppliers to governments, to serving as “partners of the state in maintaining order,” warns a recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, a network of independent global and regional experts headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.  

In El Salvador, street gangs behind most of the murders that have plagued the country have been enforcing a lockdown ordered by the government, which has been prolonged until next month. Wielding baseball bats and issuing blood-curdling threats, the gangs have been keeping their barrios in line. Altruism doesn’t come into it, local observers say. The enforcement itself strengthens their authority.

In Italy, mafia groups have taken advantage of rising poverty and economic desperation in the south to present themselves as an alternative to the state.  

Giuseppe Provenzano is the Cabinet minister responsible for Mezzogiorno, the underdeveloped southern part of Italy that has long trailed the country’s wealthier north. Last month, he warned of the danger of gangs seeking to supplant the state by offering cash handouts and “loans” to struggling small businesses desperate for money to stay afloat. That gives the crime groups greater chances of buying a bigger share of the legitimate economy.