convergence

Luna
rests in private hands. Private sector actors are the first responders in dealing with transnational
organized crime. As such, they have timely information at their disposal on how organized
crime is attempting to hijack the global economy from the ground up.
Governments can play a role in encouraging industry groups to develop and share best
practices and standards for preventing organized criminal infiltration. This is a growing
problem around the world. Certain key industries are increasingly facing unfair competition
from organized crime networks seeking to burrow their way into the legitimate economy. Organized
crime must not be allowed to capitalize on the gains of globalization and undermine
the benefits of rule-based, competitive trading systems.
Governments must help businesses perform due diligence in ensuring that criminally
influenced businesses are kept out of the global supply chain. Businesses must adopt internal
security measures to make themselves harder targets for global crime. The growing infiltration
of transnational crime into licit industry and commerce is a threat to the expansion of open
markets and global trading regimes that underpin the modern global economy. Bringing the
rule of law to the international flow of goods and services is essential in order to have a longterm
impact against transnational crime.
Public-Private Partnerships to Combat Illicit Trade and Illegal Economy
The illegal economy poses an existential threat when it begins to create criminalized markets
and captured states, which launches a downward, entropic spiral toward greater insecurity
and instability. In countries that have been corrupted by criminal networks, market- and
state-building become less attainable, economic growth is stunted, efforts toward development
and poverty eradication are stifled, and foreign direct investment is deterred.
The United States is supporting the OECD, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and
other international partners to provide knowledge-based platforms for international public and
private stakeholders to raise awareness of the threat posed by illicit trade and illegal economy
to economic growth, development, and global security, and to share experience on practical
approaches to the control of illicit activities as well as of the negative externalities of the illicit
economy. Engaging the public and private sectors through innovative public-private partnerships
will be particularly important for securing the integrity of the global supply chains and
for ensuring long-term sustainable licit commerce and productive markets.
The steep rise in mobility of goods, people, capital, and information that has accompanied
globalization is largely comprised of lawful and beneficial exchanges, but an increasing
share is illicit. Criminal entrepreneurs and illicit networks sometimes use or exploit legitimate
businesses and legitimate global supply chains to carry out financial frauds, industrial espionage,
money laundering, and other illicit activities. Hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue
from these activities flow through the global economy every year, distorting local economies,
diminishing legitimate business revenues, deteriorating social conditions, and fueling conflicts.
Public-private partnerships ensure the support and cooperation of the businesses and
other market actors whose legitimate revenues are threatened by illicit trade and the illegal
economy. These partnerships can also help create legitimate markets to replace and shut down
illegal markets. Nurturing a network of government and business leaders who support inno-
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