Source: Yahoo Brazil - WORLD - 17/06/2010

Vienna, 17 June (EFE) - Organized crime has become globalized and has gained power to the point of posing a worldwide threat to stability and peace, the UN warned today.

“International crime has become a threat to peace and development, including the sovereignty of nations,” warned the director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, in the report “Globalization of Crime: an assessment of the threat of organized crime across borders ”.

"Criminals use weapons and violence, but also money and bribes to buy elections, politicians and power, including the military," he adds.

The figures that the UN publishes are alarming: cocaine trafficking generates US $ 72 billion a year, while heroin generates US $ 55 billion, and smuggling of immigrants US $ 6,6 billion.

The international agency's estimates put the value of cocaine arriving in North America from the Andean region at $ 38 billion a year, while the same drug shipped to Europe generates $ 34 billion.

However, only a small part of that value is in the countries of origin. In the case of heroin in Afghanistan, for example, only US $ 2,3 billion - 5% of the total - remains in the hands of the country's residents, whether they are peasants, intermediaries or insurgents.

Also according to the UN, 70% of the money coming from cocaine is in the hands of intermediary dealers in consumer countries, while the rest goes to producing and intermediary nations.

Other crimes that generate a lot of money are counterfeiting products, which make the mafias $ 9,8 billion a year. Most of these goods are produced in Asia and sold in Europe.

Counterfeits also threaten people's health: the UN estimates that half of the drugs in Africa and Southeast Asia are fake, with the consequence that, instead of curing, they can make illnesses worse.

Ecological crimes such as pruning and selling protected wood and the illegal sacrifice of thousands of elephants for the sake of ivory also fill the pockets of mafias, with more than $ 3,5 billion a year.

The fate of thousands of people is also in the hands of organized crime. In Europe alone, 140 people are deprived of their liberty, sexually exploited or subjected to forced labor.

To enter the US and Europe illegally, millions of people entrust their luck to human traffickers, who impose abusive prices and conditions on emigrants.

The report not only provides a diagnosis of the situation, but also some possible solutions, such as trying to reduce the financial funds that allow money laundering for organized crime.

"Enforcement of the law against mafia groups will not end illicit activities if the underlying markets remain untouched, including the army of white-collar criminals, who cover up and clean up their incomes," the report said.

Achieving the Millennium Goals would also be an antidote against organized crime, as development reduces the power of mafias, which benefit from people's needs.

In any case, the magnitude of the problem prevents an exclusively national response, which is why the UN calls for greater international cooperation and the adoption of international instruments such as the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. EFE