convergence

Fighting Networks with Networks
Before an audience that included heads and senior officials from the U.S. Departments of
Justice, Homeland Security, State, the Treasury, and other law enforcement, security, and intelligence
agencies, at the White House ceremony to unveil the SCTOC, then–Under Secretary
of State Williams Burns (now Deputy Secretary of State) articulated the adverse impact of
transnational criminal threats on U.S. foreign policy:
Organized crime, in its many forms, is a threat to decent, hardworking people across
the world. It empowers warlords, criminals, and corrupt officials. It erodes stability,
security and good governance. It undermines legitimate economic activity and the rule
of law. It undermines the integrity of vital governmental institutions meant to protect
peace and security. It costs economies tax revenue and promotes a culture of impunity.
It undercuts our fight against poverty and slows sustainable development.
While the problem of transnational illicit networks is as ancient as the trade routes
that many such networks still employ today, the United States and its partners recognize the
importance of net-centric partnerships to confront converging threats and the lethal nexus of
organized crime, corruption, and terrorism along global illicit pathways and financial hubs.
Of growing concern are illicit financial hubs and the complicity of today’s banks and
market-based facilitators and super fixers—such as lawyers, accountants, black market
procurers of commodities and services, and cross-border transport movers. Illicit financial
hubs and sanctuaries help to create the permissive environment that enables illicit funds to
enter through vulnerable points in the system and be transferred very rapidly, often with
little control or regulation, anywhere in the world. All it takes is a single illicit actor or bank
to accept an unsavory client for illicit funds or goods to spread and disguise themselves
across the globe.
These illicit channels are also allowing kleptocrats, criminals, and in some cases terrorists
or their sympathizers to inject billions of dollars of illicit wealth into the stream of licit commerce
and business, corrupting markets, financial institutions, officials, and communities. The
international community can no longer turn a blind eye on the complicity of facilitators and
super fixers who perhaps unwittingly construct illicit financial hubs and permissive sanctuaries
by converting illicit financial flows into licit investments and legal liquid assets, or injecting
illicit goods into legitimate commerce.
Breaking the corruptive power of transnational illicit networks will be a key area of focus
for the United States under the new SCTOC, and the State Department will work with international
partners to expose criminal activities hidden behind legitimate fronts, investigate
actors and networks that run afoul of U.S. laws, protect strategic markets and the integrity
of the global financial system, and employ all elements of national power and public-private
partnerships to dismantle criminal organizations and cross-border networks.
For those nations that may lack the necessary means and capabilities to combat today’s
transnational criminal threats, the United States is committed to assisting these partners—
especially those that have the will to fulfill their international law enforcement commitments—to
develop stronger law enforcement and criminal justice institutions necessary for
ensuring the rule of law. As the SCTOC underscores, the State Department will spearhead a
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