The world is losing the fight against international gangs

Globalisation and technological progress are leading to a boom in organised crime.

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As the world teeters on the brink of what could become the worst trade wars since the 1930s, with international capital flows falling and cross-border trade and investment stagnating, there is one glaring exception to this unravelling of globalisation: International gangsters and organised criminals are on a roll.

They are merrily pursuing opportunities around the world, moving goods across borders, establishing country-spanning supply chains and hiring talent internationally.

"I fear the world is losing the fight against gangs and organised crime," says Mr Jurgen Stock, who on Nov 7 stepped down after a 10-year stint as the secretary-general of Interpol, an international police organisation.

"The growth in the breadth, scale and professionalism of organised crime is unprecedented."

At first glance, Mr Stock's alarm seems misplaced. Most parts of the world that are not at war have steadily become less violent and more law-abiding. In the first 20 years of this century, the worldwide murder rate fell by around a quarter, from 6.9 per 100,000 people to 5.2. Even in countries where worries about crime have increased in recent years, such as America, the violent-crime rate has fallen by half since the early 1990s.

Yet there has also been a global surge in organised crime that started around the turn of the century, says Mr Mark Shaw, the director of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime, an NGO. Driving it are three new developments: the spread of technologies such as encrypted apps and cryptocurrencies, which let mobsters link up and move their earnings around the world in ways that would have been unthinkable previously; the spread of synthetic drugs that are cheaper and more powerful than plant-based ones; and the rise of agile, diversified multinational criminal groups.