The index is a scale demonstrating the presence of organized crime and the resilience to it across 193 United Nations member states.
Myanmar has the highest criminality score (8.15), followed by Colombia (7.75) and then Mexico (7.57).
In Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) scores 7.35 and Nigeria 7.28.
South Africa is given a criminality score of 7.18.
The index said Africa remained a “hotbed of illicit activities and a stronghold for criminal actors, whose influence is aggravated by prolonged conflicts.”
It described the continent as acutely affected by human trafficking and arms trafficking, both at 7.78, the highest regional averages in the world for these types of crimes.
The report said human trafficking was the most pervasive criminal market in Africa.
“The prevalence of this criminal practice is correlated to various factors, including the numerous ongoing conflicts in Africa, the economic push factors that leave people vulnerable to trafficking, and the involvement of state-embedded actors in facilitating these activities,” said the GI-TOC.
It said Eritrea and South Sudan were among the biggest markets in the world for human trafficking.
“Military conscription continues to be a systemic and corrosive practice in Eritrea, breeding resentment and significant outward migration, which fuels the human smuggling market,” said the index.
“This phenomenon has also been aggravated by the civil war in neighboring Ethiopia, with the government ordering mass mobilization in an attempt to bolster the army and increase security.
“On the other hand, South Sudan has a more diverse market for human trafficking, with practices ranging from forced labor to domestic servitude and sexual exploitation.
“However, the main issue in the country concerns children, who continue to be recruited as soldiers, with thousands of minors estimated to be in combat roles, or who are employed in construction, mining, and agriculture, where they are subject to exploitative situations.”
The report said financial crimes were increasing exponentially in Africa, with the main actors being corrupt government officials, in collusion with networks of criminal groups.
It added that Africa was seeing high levels of “cyber-enabled financial fraud” perpetrated by highly organized criminal syndicates such as Black Axe, which is of Nigerian origin but with a global footprint.
The GI-TOC said Black Axe was responsible for online romance scams, “peddling fictitious romantic relationships to defraud victims of money and steal their personal and financial data,” crimes it had perpetrated across the world, with many of its victims in the United States.
It branded North Africa, which includes countries such as Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco, as the highest-scoring region for financial crimes in the world.
Libya, according to the index, was the country most afflicted by financial crimes.
“This is attributable to very high levels of public sector fraud, which is rife in the country and involves billions of dollars allegedly going missing through public contracts, and the engagement of high-level officials and bank employees in corruption schemes through which armed groups and their warlords have gained access to state funding.”
Turning to Somalia, GI-TOC said it continued to be a “critical hub” for the smuggling of illegal weapons, with transnational links and ties with other illegal markets, such as piracy and drug trafficking.
The report noted: “The illicit flows of arms from Yemen to Somalia increased in the reporting period, as did the number of illegal weapons circulating in the country, ranging from pistols to machine guns.
“Firearms are commonly trafficked by clan militias, the extremist group al-Shabaab, governmental groups, and transnational trafficking networks based in the north, particularly Puntland and eastern Somaliland.”
Reflecting on the findings, a director at GI-TOC, Julian Rademeyer, said explosives trafficking was rife in Central African countries such as DRC, Central African Republic, Chad, and Cameroon.
These explosives were being used by extremist groups including Boko Haram and ISIS in West Africa and a variety of rebel groups.
The index indicated that illicit trade in gold was widespread in DRC, where both pro-government and rebel militias profited from the market. It said more than 90 percent of the DRC’s gold was smuggled to neighboring countries, including Uganda and Rwanda, where it was often refined and exported to international markets.
Rademeyer said “state-embedded actors” remained the most dominant agents in facilitating illicit economies and inhibiting resilience to organized crime in Africa.
According to the GI-TOC report, a growing number of “foreign criminal actors” had a strong grip on the continent.
It stated: “With regard to foreign actors, investigations into the activities of the Wagner Group have shown that the [Russian] mercenary organization has increasingly become involved in many illicit economies.
“The group has also been known to engage in the smuggling of gold and other mineral resources in countries in Central Africa, such as the Central African Republic.
“Within East Africa, the Wagner Group has gained significant political influence in Sudan, where it has developed extensive commercial interests as well as playing a mercenary role.”
In terms of resilience to organized crime, GI-TOC gave Africa a score of 3.85, the lowest of all regions.
It said Africa was characterized by ineffective law enforcement, the absence of a free civil society to provide support, poor institutional capacity, corruption, and the growing influence of state-embedded actors.
The GI-TOC indicated particular concern for South Africa, the continent’s second-largest but most developed economy.
Its index shows South Africa experienced the biggest increase in organized crime levels of all countries, rising from 19th in the world in 2021 to 7th in 2023.
An excerpt from the report reads: “With a high criminality score of 7.18, the country is an undeniable criminality outlier within Southern Africa.
“Against a background of ... decade-long increasing criminality, erosion of critical infrastructure, and undermining of democratic processes through organized corruption, and violence for hire, South Africa boasts a number of pervasive criminal markets heightened by the influence of criminal actors—especially state-embedded actors responsible for years of state capture—and criminal networks that are highly interconnected.”
Mr. Rademeyer said South Africa’s crime groups, often strengthened by corrupt relationships with government and law enforcement officials, meant that the “criminal economy is now entrenched deeply within the country, leading to a crisis of trust in government and law enforcement.”
The index said mafia-like groups, violent and very well-armed, were now present in all South African cities and were involved in extortion and assassinations.
Some, it said, were allegedly acting as “surrogates” for certain politicians.
The report explained that foreign criminal actors, particularly from West Africa, South America, China, Pakistan, Israel, and southern and eastern European nations, had a strong presence in South African criminal markets.
It described South Africa as a “haven” for the international mafia to launder money and establish front companies for money-laundering activities.
The index said South Africa had an extremely high level of corruption in its public sector.
“The ruling party [African National Congress] has used its majority in parliament to block crucial legislative oversight investigations, protecting its representatives from corruption inquiries,” the report noted.
The GI-TOC, however, gave South Africa a good score (5.63), for resilience to organized crime.
It said the country’s judiciary remained strong and independent, while several civil society and non-government organizations were “critical elements” in the resistance to crime.
But, said Mr. Rademeyer, South Africa’s overall resilience to organized crime had fallen significantly since 2021.
“South Africa is at a particularly dangerous time in its history,” he told The Epoch Times. “The country is facing an existential threat to its people, to its democracy, from violent organized crime.”
The GI-TOC described South Africa as a “nexus” of multiple forms of organized crime, from human trafficking and illicit trade in weapons and wildlife to narcotics and cybercrime.
It said highly sophisticated extortion networks were spreading but also evolving to “masquerade” as legitimate security companies.
It described the “millions” of illegal firearms in South Africa as a “ticking time bomb,” and added that the country’s organized crime groups— with “excellent” international connections—had established the country as a “critical node” in global drug trafficking, especially cocaine and heroin.
Mr. Rademeyer said South African law enforcement agencies lacked “coherent strategic purpose and willingness to detain and prosecute” those behind organized crime operations.
“We do see arrests and prosecutions being made, but it’s always of the low-level criminals. We never see leaders of criminal networks being arrested and jailed,” he said.
Mr. Rademeyer believed lack of adequate leadership in government and within law enforcement were “huge obstacles” in South Africa’s fight against organized crime.
The index noted the “alarmingly high number” of informants and whistle-blowers that were being murdered in South Africa, as retribution or to prevent them from sharing information with investigators about organized crime operations.
Mr. Rademeyer said there was “little political will” in the country to combat organized crime.
“South Africa’s a place where more money is spent on VIP protection for politicians than for the police directorate tasked with investigating complex cases of organized crime,” he commented.
“The index shows that South Africa’s at a point now where it has no choice but to act, otherwise organized crime will pervade every corner of its economy and society.”
