Director-General/Executive Director
Distinguished Ministers,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you very much for joining us at this special event focusing on the very first International Day for the Prevention of and Fight against all Forms of Transnational Organized Crime.
From now until the 15th of November, 2024, we will join forces to raise awareness and call for action and collaboration to confront the challenges of organized crime.
I am very grateful to their Excellencies the Ministers of Justice of Italy, and Angola, and his Excellency the Attorney General of Uganda, for joining forces with UNODC to start on the path to this important day.
Your presence, along with the General Assembly resolution establishing the new international day, are evidence of our shared understanding that organized crime affects every part of the world, and our shared commitment to confronting this threat together.
Excellencies,
Organized crime steals.
Multi-billion-dollar industries like drug trafficking and migrant smuggling cash-in on people’s vulnerabilities, while organized fraud and scams target private money directly and take as much as they can get.
Criminal groups steal vital resources needed for essential services and sustainable development.
They steal natural wealth like wildlife, minerals, and timber that serve as lifelines for communities and backbones of economies.
They steal the cultural heritage of peoples when they plunder art and artifacts for profit.
And they steal the futures of millions, including young children made to carry and sell drugs, collect extortion money, or even kill, from Haiti to Sweden.
Organized crime corrupts.
Criminal operations require the rules to be bent, ignored, and broken.
And so criminal groups corrupt institutions, from justice and law enforcement to natural conservation and border control.
They corrupt financial systems, by laundering the proceeds of crime and exploiting regulation gaps.
They corrupt prisons, making them strongholds for gangs and centres for criminal planning and recruitment.
And they corrupt the very fabric of society, by violating the most basic human rights and often subjecting people to sexual exploitation and abuse as well as horrific violence, particularly women and children.
Organized crime kills.
Nearly 40 per cent of all homicides around the world are connected to crime, mainly organized crime and gang-related violence.
Many of those murdered are innocent victims targeted for being vulnerable, or simply people in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Others are officers of the law and justice officials, like Italian Judge Giovanni Falcone, who was murdered for standing up to organized crime.
Others still are victims of organized crime’s attempts to manipulate the political process, including mayors, politicians, and local officials.
Half of all homicide victims worldwide are killed with a firearm – many of them illicitly manufactured or trafficked.
And the lives claimed by organized crime go far beyond the guns.
Migrants who are smuggled by criminal networks take perilous journeys that often cost them their lives.
Members of local communities can find their livelihoods destroyed and even their water poisoned by criminal groups exploiting their environment.
Hundreds of thousands are dying of drug overdoses as traffickers flood markets with increasingly lethal substances.
Excellencies,
The threat of organized crime is morphing and becoming more sophisticated every day.
Today, we face drug trafficking networks that work fluidly across borders and continents, engaging in different forms of crime simultaneously, and providing services to each other across the criminal supply chain.
We face elusive and multi-layered money-laundering techniques that employ new technologies and jump across economies, sectors, and jurisdictions.
We face sophisticated AI scams that impersonate people with eerie accuracy, sometimes developed by young, skilled people who have been trafficked and forced into criminality.
And we face prospects like 3D printed guns that can be put together cheaply by anyone, from terrorists to petty criminals.
Excellencies,
Organized crime is pushing the boundaries.
It’s time to pull together to push back.
To enhance international cooperation and emphasize multilateral solutions.
To commit more financial resources to the fight against organized crime and invest in capacities across different regions.
To engage more partners and stakeholders and bring everyone into the fold, including youth, civil society, and the private sector.
To take a proactive approach and focus on prevention, protection, and early detection, through collaboration.
To follow the money and end impunity.
And to raise awareness of the dangers of organized crime in every region and every country, bring attention to the plight of victims, and foster collective action.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Throughout the coming month, UNODC will be raising awareness on the issue of organized crime, and galvanizing governments, stakeholders, and societies to take a stand, together.
We hope that you will join us with your voices, commitments, and action.
I thank all of our partners at this event once again, and I look forward to a productive month ahead, and a successful and impactful international day on November the 15th.
Thank you.
