A new threat: organized crime, terrorists links

Lawmakers and security analysts around the world are growing increasingly worried about links between terrorists and organized criminal gangs.

Before Australia’s Parliament last month, the Australian Crime Commission testified that the government should no longer treat terrorism and organized crime separately and that the two have become closely linked.

Karen Harfield, the spokeswoman for the commission, said, “Disruption of crime within the aviation and maritime sectors and the prevention of terrorism need not be considered mutually exclusive objectives.”

“Both terrorist groups and criminal groups have consistently been noted as primary threats to Australia’s transport sector,” she said. “Criminal activity can expose aviation security vulnerabilities that might be exploited by terrorists.”

In other parts of the world, the line distinguishing terrorists and organized crime has blurred even further, with terrorist organizations engaging heavily in the drug trade.

In particular FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), the largest terrorist organization in Colombia, has become a major player in the drug trade to finance its military operations. Beginning in the 1990s FARC became increasingly involved in the drug trafficking, providing security for crops, labs, and airfields to fill the power vacuum left by the dissolution of the large Cali and Medellin drug cartels.

By 2000, it was estimated that FARC received as much as $400 million annually from its role in the drug trade.

According to Bruce Bagley, an expert on the Latin American Drug Trade at Miami University, “The money they are making from the drug trade has given them the degree of autonomy they need to pursue their agenda.”

Drug cartels in Columbia and Mexico are also directly collaborating with Islamic extremists in the Middle East.

A report released last year by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a defense think tank in Washington, D.C., found that Hezbollah and al Qaeda have been working with FARC to fund their operations.

A two year investigation, dubbed “Operation Titan,” led by U.S and Colombian authorities seized $23 million and 360 kilos of cocaine. Among the 130 arrested was a Lebanese man operating under the alias “Taliban” who was in charge of a money-laundering ring that funded Hezbollah.

While a separate investigation found that FARC had been working with al Qaeda in the Maghreb in Africa, and closer to the United States, in 2003 intelligence reports emerged warning that al Qaeda may be working with Mexican drug cartels to sneak into the United States.

Islamic extremists have also begun to function more like organized crime networks engaging in kidnapping, human trafficking, counterfeiting money, fraud, and armed robbery to raise money for their causes.

In 2002, a credit card fraud and smuggling ring was broken up in Charlotte, North Carolina after it was discovered that they were helping to finance Hezbollah.

Meanwhile extremists in countries like Iraq, Somali, and Afghanistan have continued to kidnap foreign nationals as a tactic to raise money.

A recent report released by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service finds that, “Although kidnappings have long been seen as a useful tactic by criminals and armies, the last few decades have seen a large increase in the number of people taken by individuals and groups associated with Islamist extremism.”

The report says that these terrorist organizations will likely continue to use kidnapping as it is a “lucrative tactic” and in “many cases require very little planning or materiel.”

These growing linkages between terrorist organizations and organized crime complicate efforts to crack down on drug cartels and add a new wrinkle to attempts to combat violent extremism.

“Criminal networks linking cartels and gangs are no longer simply a crime problem, but a threat that is metastasizing into a new form of widespread, networked criminal insurgency. The scale and violence of these networks threaten civil governments and civil societies in the Western Hemisphere and, increasingly, the United States as well,” warns the CNAS report.

In order to address these transnational issues, the report suggests taking a multi-faceted approach that includes military, political, and economic tactics.

The United States must “discretely” provide “the training, equipment and support for developing law enforcement capabilities for governments fighting cartels,” in addition to conducting kinetic operations on these groups, cutting off access financially, and assisting allied countries develop more robust civil institutions and stimulate their economies.