Director-General/Executive Director
Minister Nordio,
Excellencies,
On the anniversary of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime last September, I joined Minister Nordio in Palermo to celebrate the memory of two Italian judges who were iconic in fighting the Italian mafia 30 years ago, Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. Continuing the fight against organized crime is the best way to honour their legacy.
This is why I was pleased to see you devote your attention to the issue of transnational organized crime, one of the most dynamic and urgent challenges facing the world today.
Only a few days ago I was in Santiago, Chile, where the Chief Executives Board of the United Nations convened, and where the Secretary-General tasked UNODC with leading UN entities in developing a common UN framework on organized crime.
It is heartening to see that the G7 shares our commitment to stepping up responses against this threat.
The impact of organized crime is international, in the global North and South, in countries rich and poor.
Drug trafficking is often at the heart of this impact, triggering violence, impacting economies, and undermining the political process in many countries.
At this session, I want to focus briefly on five key developments in the illicit drug market today.
The first development is the explosive growth of synthetic drugs in different parts of the world.
In North America, well over 100,000 people lost their lives to drug overdoses last year, with fentanyl emerging as a particular concern.
In the Near and Middle East, Captagon seizures doubled from 2020 to 2021, surging in countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria. Last year, Iraq recorded an increase of more than 3,000 per cent in seizures.
In Southeast Asia, the methamphetamine business is valued at more than 70 billion dollars annually, by far the biggest drug market in the region.
Synthetic drugs have changed the landscape: they are often far more potent and lethal, their production is far more mobile and flexible, and the returns are huge.
They use an ever-growing pool of chemical precursors, many of them not under international control.
G7 members showed resolve on this topic through their participation in the global coalition to address synthetic drug threats, which the United States is leading, and UNODC is proud to support.
The second development I want to flag is the expansion of the cocaine trade.
As detailed in UNODC’s first-ever global cocaine report launched last year, the global cocaine supply has hit new peaks.
Cocaine production has been on the rise since 2014, and coca cultivation in Colombia grew by 13 per cent in 2022, driven by surging demand.
And the growth has fuelled violence and instability.
Last week, I was in Ecuador, which borders the two biggest source countries of cocaine in Colombia and Peru. Ecuador has been rocked by drug-related violence, driving the homicide rate up fourfold in five years.
In Europe, the cocaine market is growing, and trafficking routes to Europe are shifting, with more flows going through the Southern Cone route.
Belgium and the Netherlands have emerged as the main entry points, with record seizures in 2023.
In parallel, port cities in those countries are seeing alarming new forms of violence connected to organized crime.
Meanwhile, cocaine traffickers are innovating, expanding their use of shipping containers, and even using sophisticated techniques to “impregnate” cocaine into the material of legal goods from clothes to plastics.
The third development to keep an eye on is the unfolding opium situation.
In the wake of the opium ban by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan, opium poppy cultivation decreased by 95 per cent.
It has become clear that this reduction will be difficult to sustain. Income for Afghan farmers dropped dramatically without alternatives, and we are now seeing confrontations between farmers and the authorities. 250,000 farmers need alternative income opportunities urgently.
Also worth monitoring is the situation in Myanmar, where opium cultivation has increased by 18 per cent in 2023, the third consecutive year of increase since the military takeover.
The fourth development I want to highlight is the transformative change in criminal business models and operations.
Criminal groups today are far more de-centralized, diversified, and fragmented.
This has given rise to more agile, loosely connected criminal networks, with smaller groups controlling parts of the drug trafficking chain and relying on the services of one another.
Crime groups are also more adaptable, moving geographically or even shifting to different criminal markets to evade the law.
Meanwhile, new tech is creating new marketplaces for drugs and precursors, and financial technologies are being abused for illicit transactions. As was mentioned yesterday by you, Minister Nordio, technology has indeed a transformative impact on our world, both positive and negative.
Which brings me to the fifth and final development I want to underline: the emergence of sophisticated methods to launder criminal proceeds.
Drug traffickers use complex techniques to conceal money laundering activity, from breaking down transactions to trade-based money laundering.
They are increasingly using cryptocurrencies and exchanges to move money swiftly and obscure the trail, side by side with traditional methods such as the use of remittance systems like the “hawala”.
They hop across jurisdictions, exploiting vulnerabilities.
They use cash-intensive businesses to convert criminal proceeds into clean assets, making it difficult to follow the money.
And they rely on facilitators such as lawyers, accountants, and private sector interlocutors, aided by corruption.
In some parts of the world, we see stark examples of the convergence and evolution of drug trafficking, organized crime, and money laundering.
In the Golden Triangle and border areas of the Mekong region, criminal groups use casinos and online gaming platforms to launder the proceeds of the regional meth and heroin trades, while unregulated crypto exchanges are used to move and launder increasingly large volumes of illicit money across borders.
Some money laundering syndicates in Southeast Asia now offer banking services to groups in other parts of the world.
And in the Amazon Basin, cocaine traffickers launder their extensive profits through real estate, including in other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, through land grabbing and cattle ranching, as well as by exploiting regulatory gaps in the timber trade and the gold mining sector.
Distinguished Ministers,
The evolving drug landscape and associated money laundering require a parallel evolution in responses.
I would like to touch upon three areas of focus for more impactful interventions.
Firstly, shared political commitment must be strengthened and supported.
Trafficking and organized crime benefit from today’s geopolitical frictions. But these transnational threats can and should unite countries.
International groupings such as the G7 can extend dialogue across regions and with other groups such as the G20 and the G77, to focus on shared goals and harmonize policies.
We have a robust international framework to rally around, from the three international drug control conventions, to the UN Conventions against Transnational Organized Crime and Corruption.
These are complemented by regional strategies and frameworks for action that need support.
Secondly, political commitment must be backed by international cooperation to disrupt criminal operations.
This means working across borders and agencies to respond coherently, from harmonized legal frameworks to border operations, from intelligence exchange to financial monitoring, all the way through to adjudication.
It also means engaging with regulatory authorities and the private sector on a range of issues from precursor chemicals to the use of advanced tech.
UNODC’s work on the ground is testament that coherence brings results, whether it is our legal reviews to clarify jurisdiction, including to address trafficking on the high seas; our provision of expertise and equipment to hundreds of border and operational units in dozens of countries, supporting thousands of seizures; or our meetings and workshops bringing together different agencies to facilitate financial and criminal investigations.
And thirdly, justice systems need to be empowered to play their crucial role effectively.
Around 6 million people were in contact with the police for drug-related offences around the world in 2022.
Justice systems must be equipped to respond to different offenses proportionally; to avoid prison overcrowding and refer people to treatment when appropriate; and to preserve the rights and dignity of all.
They must also have the ability to go after criminal networks and their profits.
This requires strong investment in capacities and facilities.
And it requires efforts to make justice systems more modern and agile, including by leveraging technology and digitization for more efficiency and transparency.
Strengthening justice institutions strengthens responses to trafficking, money laundering, and organized crime.
Excellencies,
The Group of 7 enjoys substantial political and economic weight on the international stage.
As Justice Ministers of the G7, you can make a decisive contribution against organized crime and the illicit drug market by championing joint commitment and action, by supporting and investing in strategies, capacity building and prevention efforts in key regions, and by leading dialogue with the private sector.
UNODC will continue to be your partner, and I look forward to hearing your deliberations.
Thank you. Grazie mille.