CAPITALISM'S ACHILLES HEEL Dirty Money and How to

100 CAPITALISM’S ACHILLES HEEL
dollars of illicit proceeds we don’t want. When this is fully internalized, then
the West can begin to curtail drug trafficking and other forms of global
crime much more effectively.
Thugs and Racketeers
While drugs are the largest single component, they do not constitute the
majority of cross-border crime. Much bigger than drugs is the combination
of human trafficking, illegal arms trading, smuggling, counterfeiting, fraud,
piracy, environmental offenses, and a host of other illicit pursuits. These activities
have soared in the last 15 years, with the collapse of socialist
economies and the acceleration of globalization.
Two key factors underpin the rapid growth in international crime: (1)
alliances and agreements spanning national, regional, and ethnic divisions
assure enormous profits for criminal syndicates choosing to cooperate rather
than compete, and (2) the ease with which money is shifted among groups,
laundered across borders, and transferred into the legitimate financial system
is the primary facilitating mechanism that makes such operations so successful.
Global crime is out of control and will remain so as long as dirty money
flows effortlessly into respectable—particularly western—accounts.
A selective listing of some of the major types of crimes that involve
cross-border activity and brief notes on their scope, origin, or direction only
begins to suggest the magnitude of this phenomenon. (See Table 3.8.) Terrorism
will be treated separately in the next section. Money laundering suffuses
all of these pursuits.
These crimes generally have a lower risk level than drug trafficking. And
because most have emerged as major concerns in recent decades, estimates of
their magnitudes are in some instances still being formulated. Just the combination
of counterfeiting and smuggling appears to exceed the drug business.
Along with narcotics, a huge revenue generator for criminal syndicates is
human trafficking across borders and sexual exploitation in destination
countries. This is the fastest growing form of cross-border crime and the
ugliest aspect of globalization.
Within the subject of illegal migration, a distinction is made between
those who are trafficked and those who are smuggled. Human trafficking
refers to forceful recruitment or fraudulent inducement for the purpose of