Amphetamines, Anarchy, and Assad

Originally Published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Available Here.

As Syria’s bloody civil war boils on, the nation has become fertile ground for the growth of criminal activity.  As we described in the August AOC brief, Syria has become a regional hub for weapons smuggling, the illicit trade in antiquities, and now drug trafficking.  Recent reports have begun to emerge from Syria that amphetamine laboratories are being discovered in cities such as Homs, while drug traffickers in Lebanon have highlighted the ease with which they are able to smuggle drugs through the country. The chaos, poverty, and greed of war-torn Syria heightens the likelihood that such activities will grow in scope, financially benefitting criminals and combatants while drowning the region in narcotics and exacerbating the fragility of both Syria and its neighbours.

While several types of drugs are smuggled through Syria, the one currently raising concern is captagon. Captagon was the brand name of an amphetamine type stimulant, sold commercially until it was banned in 1986. Apart from the name, the current incarnation of the drug shares few chemical similarities with the original. Modern, illicitly produced captagon is usually composed of amphetamines cut with a mix of adulterants. The drug’s popularity has grown rapidly in the last decade, primarily in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries where it is taken as an energy booster and aphrodisiac. The value of the captagon market is massive, and increasing. Individual doses sell for $20 in Saudi Arabia; with some estimates pegging the number of captagon tablets successfully smuggled into that country at over 500 million.

While captagon has been popular in the Middle East since the 1980s, high levels of demand for the drug didn’t take off until the early 2000s.  Initially, the market was supplied either by laboratories in southeastern Europe – primarily in Bulgaria, though laboratories were also uncovered in Slovenia and Serbia. The drug was then smuggled through Turkey, Syria, and Jordan before being sold in Saudi Arabia. By 2006 captagon laboratories began to appear in Turkey, including two uncovered in Gaziantep on the Turkish/Syrian border. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Syria began producing captagon that same year, while in 2007 Lebanon seized both precursor chemicals and the laboratory equipment for producing the drug.  Also by this time 75% of the global illicit production of captagon’s chemical precursor was shipped to “two countries in the near and Middle East.”

Wherever it was being produced, by 2006 captagon had started to flood Saudi Arabia. In that year, Saudi Arabia seized 12 tons of the drug; roughly equivalent, as the UN Office of Drugs and Crime dryly noted in the WDR 2009, to “to the sum of all UK seizures – the biggest amphetamine market in Europe – from 2000 to 2006.” In Syria, the level of captagon seizures doubled between 2007 and 2009, to 22 million tablets. Most trafficking routes still moved overland through Syria and into Jordan, though there are some indications that a route through Iraq was active by 2010.

The Syrian civil war has entrenched the nation’s role as an entrepot for the Middle East’s amphetamine market. Labs have been uncovered in Syrian cities such as Homs, as well as in northern areas held by insurgent groups. As well, an increasing number of Syrians have been arrested throughout the Middle East for captagon smuggling. While it is unclear which groups are involved in the production and smuggling of the drug, it is likely that both the Syrian regime and at least some of the rebel organizations are financially benefitting. The patchwork nature of territorial control along traditional smuggling routes likely force traffickers to pay tolls or bribes to both sides. One apparent benefit for the traffickers is that the dire economic straights of Syria’s law enforcement and military personnel have apparently made bribery, and thus smuggling, far easier.

It is possible that Syria could evolve into a thoroughfare for other types of narcotics as well. Cocaine trafficking, and a small domestic cocaine market, developed in Syria during the 2000s, with 77 KG of the drug seized in 2007.  Heroin seizures also grew dramatically during the 2000s, averaging 80 KG/year between 2007 and 2011.  For drug traffickers, Syria is a geographically well-positioned staging ground not only for the Middle East’s amphetamine market, but also for Europe’s far more lucrative cocaine and heroin market. The smuggling networks that bring weapons in and humans and antiquities out of the country could well be used for narcotics trafficking. The focus by both the insurgents and the government on perpetuating the stalemated civil war lessens the likelihood that any sort of meaningful action will be taken to halt the trade in drugs.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Barclay’s Bank Kiboshes Somali Remittances

Originally Published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Available Here.

In May, Barclays Bank announced it would be withdrawing banking services from 250 money transfer services, including a number that provided remittance services to Somalia and Somaliland. This was the last western bank serving Somalia.  Barclay’s rational for the service termination revolved around the weak internal controls against money laundering and terrorist finance many of the businesses reportedly had.

In reality, it is more likely that it was a fear of risk that motivated Barclays to act. Over the last decade, anti-money laundering regulations have become increasingly strict. In recent years, financial regulators have moved aggressively against banks handling “dirty money”, often levying massive fines for non-compliance. The $1.9 billion settlement HSBC reached with the U.S. this August, has prompted an increasingly risk averse banking community to minimize their exposure to businesses deemed to be potential money laundering and terrorist finance threats.

Anti-money laundering (AML) efforts are a tricky balancing act for banks. At a base level, AML efforts necessitate that exercise due diligence in providing banking services and implement “know your customer” (KYC) rules.  The challenge for many remittance services is that many users, and especially recipients, do not possess the official identification necessary to meet KYC requirements. Being unable to guarantee that those who engage in remittance activities via their banking partners are not laundering money or funding terrorists, banks have opted for the extreme option and excised them from their banking systems.  A report by Thompson Reuters issued this month offers a pragmatic, risk-based approach to KYC requirements.

In taking this decision, Barclay’s may have mitigated the risk that it faces, but its actions will have significant consequences for the economy, development and thus stability of Somalia, whose future is again looking more fragile.  This stems of the importance of remittances for senders and receivers, as well as the size of the economic flows. Somalia alone receives $1.2 billion in remittances annually. Many Somali families depend on remittance to supplement their incomes.  Furthermore, this decision is in fact only minimally effective, or possibly even counter-productive, in the broader battle against money laundering and organized crime. Given the importance of the remittance flows, there is little chance that the Somali diaspora will cease sending money simply because the legal channels are withering away.  Instead they will turn to informal, often untraceable money remittance systems – such as hawalas – to support their families in Somalia.

The shift from formal, traceable systems – despite their flaws – to untraceable channels hinder the efforts of FIUs and law enforcement agencies to identify and trace actual terrorist and criminal finance. It may even provide a benefit to criminal actors, as the new channels for otherwise licit remittance funds pulsing through the informal challenges will overwhelm and camouflage the far smaller number of illicit transactions. Thus, Barclay’s decision has produced few winners – not the migrants, the remittance receivers, nor law enforcement agencies. In an ironic twist, the only beneficiaries appear to be Barclay’s itself and the international criminals and terrorists that it ostensibly acted to impede.

Arms Trafficking in Syria: A Case of the Biter Getting Bitten

Originally Published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, Available Here.

The grinding maelstrom that is Syria’s civil war continues to churn. While the grievances behind the conflict are complex and variable, there is one enabling factor that has been vital – access to weaponry. Despite pleas from insurgent groups for more arms, the geographic reach of the conflict and its intensity are indicative of a situation awash in guns. This is a striking shift for a country that historically has had far fewer weapons in civilian hands than its neighbors. Where then does the plethora of weapons in insurgent hands come from, and how have they arrived there?

The most important early source of weaponry for the insurgents were government stockpiles. Government weapons and ammunition have fallen into rebel hands in three ways: purchased from corrupt government officials, via direct assault, in some cases immediately using captured weapons to sustain rolling offensives or brought by defecting soldiers. Since the beginning of the conflict Syria’s military has struggled to staunch a steady stream defectors from joining the insurgents. The presence of these former soldiers bring has both increased the lethality of the insurgency, and helped to shape the types of weapons in demand.

Since the beginning of the conflict the Syrian insurgency has also been supplied weapons smuggled in from neighboring countries. Initially, weapons trafficking groups operated on a small-scale, almost ad-hoc basis and were basically apolitical. Individuals and local smuggling networks procured weapons in Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkey, from commercial and civilian sources. Highlighting the irony of weapons being smuggled back into Syria which, in in previous years its government had smuggled to insurgent groups in neighboring states, a western diplomat noted, “it’s a case of the biter getting bitten.”

The start of the conflict caused a spike in regional weapons prices, with prices for Ak-47s, sniper rifles and handguns in Iraq increasing nearly four-fold. While expensive, regional sources were able to provide a host of weapons, including AK-47s, M-16s, shotguns, sniper rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers, anti-tank missiles, and Katyusha rockets. Once procured, the weapons were moved across the often unguarded border between Syria and its neighbors by vehicle, donkey, or by foot, before being offered for sale inside the country. As the conflict ground on, and the potential for profits increased, ad-hoc smuggling efforts were taken over by established arms trafficking and professional criminal groups.

A more centrally organized effort to source weapons began in 2012. Representatives of the Free Syrian Army made contact with weapons dealers in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region, hoping to procure weapons that would then be smuggled across the Turkish-Syrian border. The Syrian rebels also reached out to militia groups in Libya for assistance. The Libyan groups have proven to be a particularly important source of weapons for the Syrian insurgents. Brokers in Libya procure weapons that have either been donated by sympathetic groups, or purchased from the well-stocked black market. Once sufficient quantities have been stockpiles the weapons are shipped by sea or air to Syria’s neighbors. After the Lebanese government seized 60,000 rounds of ammunition being shipped through the northern port of Tripoli, the Libyan groups have mainly transported their weaponry via Turkey, and in a small number of cases Jordan. While the exact amount of weaponry smuggled via this channel is unclear, some smugglers have claimed that over 28 metric tons have been delivered via air alone.

Efforts by Libyan brokers to supply the rebels have coincided with, and perhaps been tied to, efforts by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to arm the rebels. Active support for the insurgency emerged in early 2012, spearheaded by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. At present, the weapons are primarily sourced from Eastern Europe, Croatia, Libya, and Sudan, with the Qataris and the Saudis purchasing and transporting the weapons to Turkey and Jordan. A rough division labor has emerged, with Qatar primarily supplying groups in the north of the country, while Saudi Arabia provisions those groups in the south. The official pipeline both a magnitude of order larger than unofficial efforts – delivering an estimated 3,500 tons of weaponry – it is also providing increasingly sophisticated weaponry. In at least two recent cases, Qatar is believed to have provided rebels with portable anti-aircraft systems. While the United States is not believed to have provided large amounts of weaponry, it has played a role in developing the arms pipeline and in vetting the Syrian groups that receive the weapons.

The weapons channels supplying Syria’s insurgents comprise a complex, overlapping web of state, non-state and criminal actors.  As the war grinds on these smuggling webs will become increasingly entrenched, and highly vulnerable to exploitation by organized crime groups. One needs look no further than the Balkans – where officially sanctioned smuggling routes were appropriated by crime groups as soon as the conflicts ended – for a vision of the organized crime challenge the Middle East may face in the coming decade.

Book Review: Africa and the War on Drugs

Originally Published by African Arguments

It is devilishly difficult to accurately track and describe the international trade in narcotics. Trafficking routes emerge with startling rapidity, states alternately demonize and then decriminalize different drugs, while fickle consumers spur the development of markets for new types of narcotics overnight. The illicit organizations conducting the trade have every reason to camouflage their activities, leading statistics on production, usage, and trafficking patterns to be outdated or inaccurate.

Nonetheless, the narcotics trade is a vital subject for policymakers and researchers to grapple with. The markets for the most popular narcotics – cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines, and heroin – dwarf markets for licit drugs, such as cigarettes, coffee, and tea. Only the market for alcohol outstrips that for illicit drugs. However, unlike alcohol, the market for narcotics is illegal, in whole or in part, in all countries. Often violent organized crime groups dominate the trade; their operations have been linked to violence, corruption, and the misery of addiction.

Over the last decade, concerns as to the impact of narcotics on African nations have mounted. From crime-riddled slums in South Africa to narcotics assisted insurgency in Mali, governments, NGOs and international organizations have loudly proclaimed the deleterious impact of narcotics production, trafficking and consumption on African states and their citizens. However, the discussion of drugs in Africa has been remarkably un-nuanced. Few have attempted to chart the history of narcotics in Africa, or to pick apart the complicated relationship many African states and societies have with drugs. In Africa and the War on Drugs, Neil Carrier and Gernot Klantschnig attempt such an analysis.

An Atypical Look at a Complex Issue

Africa and the War on Drugs is a compact study that nonetheless digs deep into the minutia of narcotics production, consumption, and trafficking throughout the continent. The authors highlight the longstanding use of licit and illicit mind altering substances in Africa. Coffee, khat, and cannabis have been grown, traded and used throughout Sub-Saharan Africa for hundreds of years. The substances were used in different times and places for ritual, recreational, and medicinal purposes.

The advent of the colonial period led to the introduction of new substances, including alcohol, opiates, and tobacco. The colonial period also led to the introduction of legal curbs on substance use throughout the continent, an effort that had little impact on consumer demand for the sanctioned commodities. The criminalization of narcotics progressed during the independence era, even while new types of narcotics gained popularity. Amphetamines came to dominate the drug market in South Africa, while heroin and cocaine markets developed in East and West Africa respectively.

In Africa and the War on Drugs, Carrier and Klantschnig offer an explicit critique of orthodox thinking on narcotics, and especially the prohibitionist approaches favoured by the United States and other international actors. This approach allows the authors to explore the impact of narcotics in Africa from some rather atypical angles.  Acknowledging the history of drug production and consumption in Africa, the authors explore the development benefits that narcotics can yield. Focusing on cannabis and khat, the authors highlight the economic importance of drug cultivation for the rural poor. Africa’s role as a hub for narcotics trafficking, an entrepí´t as the authors term it, is also explored. Carrier and Klantschnig argue that the trafficking of narcotics through Africa is not new, as some have suggested, but rather the continuation of an age-old trade. They describe the khat, cannabis, and kola (a caffeinated nut) trade, indicating how traders have linked producing and consuming areas throughout the continent for hundreds of years. Even heroin and cocaine, drugs commonly assumed to have largely avoided Africa until recently, have in fact been traded and consumed on the continent for decades. Shockingly, they note, “in 1989, 40 percent of patients entered southern Nigerian drug treatment facilities for heroin use and 14 percent for cocaine use.”[1] The use of these hard drugs was initially driven by youth who had experimented with them while abroad. However, the authors note that in Nigeria, heroin has rapidly gained in popularity amongst low income populations.

Carrier and Klantschnig also highlight that the socio-cultural context of drug consumption in Africa differs dramatically from what is typically found in Western nations. An example highlighted by the authors is the functional use of marijuana in Africa, where, in some cases, consumption of the drug “enables [users to] work harder at physically demanding jobs.”[2] The ritualistic uses of khat and marijuana are also highlighted.

In discussing the use of traditional “hard drugs” “” cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine “” in Africa, the authors reveal the existence of destructive addictions in Africa. The authors explore the impact of hard drugs on South Africa, where epidemics of crack, tik, and mandrax have devastated many urban areas. Desire and desperation for the drugs have fuelled the growth of urban gangs and compelled some addicts to engage in the highly risky commercial sex trade. The authors paint a vivid, disturbing picture: while South Africa is treated as unique, it may well offer a window into the sort of destructive drug culture that may emerge in Africa in the coming decades.

Finally, Africa and the War on Drugs argues that for Africa, concerns about drug related violence are misplaced. The authors view the lack of retail markets for cocaine and heroin, as well as the small-scale nature of the drug groups as inhibiting the emergence of widespread narco-violence. They go on to highlight the different strategies which African states have employed in responding to narcotics: complicity, neglect and repression. Each of these approaches is investigated through the lens of a state; each strategy is found to be wanting. Throughout the book, the authors evince the point that “the war on drugs in Africa is at its heart an initiative driven by Western interests.”[3]

In Africa and the War on Drugs, Carrier and Klantschnig offer up a trove of information on drug issues in Africa.  They succeed in challenging the “stereotypical portrayal of substance use in Africa.”[4] By flipping the argument, asking whether “drugs can help development” or whether illicit narcotics are more harmful or common than licit ones, the authors offer a new way of thinking about drugs on the continent.

Gaps and Guesses

However, Africa and the War on Drugs also suffers from its authors’ attempt to go against conventional wisdom. Their focus on the failings of prohibition leads them to minimize the negative impacts that narcotics have in Africa. The authors argue that Africa’s demand for drugs is minimal, and the impact addicts have on society is over blown. They dismiss the proposition that “drugs are a source of widespread harm for African youth, or that their problematic consumption is the cause of social harm.”[5]

Unfortunately, this hopefulness is out of sync with reality. Across Africa there are hints that drug consumption trends are changing. The routing of cocaine through West Africa to Europe has sparked a nascent crack epidemic. From Guinea to Ghana, addicts have taken to the drug over the last five years – in Guinea-Bissau one expert estimated that 20-30% of the youth are active users [6]. The rapid increase in crack use is driven in part by its low cost, ranging from 70 cents a hit in Bissau to $2.00 in Accra.[7] In Nigeria amphetamine production laboratories have been uncovered, potentially signalling the emergence of a destructive new epidemic. Oddly, while Carrier and Klantschnig vividly describe the horror of South Africa’s amphetamine epidemic, they seem to treat it as a unique situation. Sadly, the Nigerian labs lay bare the wistfulness implicit in the authors’ reasoning.

A shift in consumption trends is unsurprising, and in many ways unavoidable. The dynamic economic growth has led, in the words of the World Bank, to the “fastest growing middle class in the world.”[8] The emergence of a dynamic middle class in Africa promises to make the continent a prime market for a host of goods – it is nearly unavoidable that globally popular narcotics, such as cocaine, meth, and heroin, will be amongst them.

Carrier and Klantschnig are correct about the general peacefulness of drug production and trafficking in Africa. However, today’s peace and security may be transitory. An increase in drug use coupled with increasing incomes promises to make Africa’s drug market lucrative. It is highly likely that gangs, similar to those described by the authors in South Africa, will emerge and seek to control drug retail markets throughout the rest of the continent. The situations in South Africa and along cocaine transit routes in the Western Hemisphere are instructive. In both, high levels of criminal violence have accompanied the maturation of retail drug markets. In some countries in the Western Hemisphere, drug related violence has surpassed levels previously seen during civil wars. There is no reason to think African countries are immune from such violence. Speaking of crack addicts in Guinea-Bissau, one government health worker noted, “No police approach them. They can’t because of the condition of these people “” they are becoming dangerous.”[9]

Africa and the War on Drugs is also remiss in its analysis of the danger drug trafficking poses to African countries. Drug trafficking and drug consumption are on the rise in countries spectacularly under-equipped to deal with them. As the authors indicate, few public health services are available for addicts. Public security services are often either underfunded or co-opted in their fight against narcotics. An increase in drug consumption will strain the ability of governments to effectively respond, increase opportunities for corruption, and likely degrade already stretched public health infrastructure.

Carrier and Klantschnig should be congratulated for Africa and the War on Drugs. They have dug deeply into an opaque subject, and produced a valuable study. The onus is now on other researchers to follow them, challenging conventional thinking on drugs in Africa, and uncovering valuable new information on this dynamic and dangerous trade.

Nonetheless, their book leaves some key questions unaddressed. First, will drug gangs turn Africa into a production point for hard drugs? The authors highlight early 20th century attempts to cultivate both coca and poppies in Africa, while amphetamines are already being produced throughout the continent “” will production efforts increase and diversify? Second, what types of groups will emerge to handle retail drug sales? Will they take the form of South Africa’s urban gangs, or the violent, transnational Maras of Central America? Finally, how will African states adapt to the new drug realities? Will they become co-opted and semi-criminalized, as in Guinea-Bissau, approach the issue with benign neglect, as in Lesotho, or ferociously repress the trade, as in Nigeria?

[1] Neil Carrier and Gernot Klantschnig, Africa and the War on Drugs, Zed Books, London, 2012 pp. 43

[2] Carrier and Klantschnig, pp. 36

[3] Carrier and Klantschnig, pp. 2

[4] Carrier and Klantschnig, pp. 16

[5] Carrier and Klantschnig, pp. 131

[6] Jessica Hatcher, Guinea-Bissau: How Cocaine Transformed a Tiny African Nation, Time Magazine, Posted October 15th, 2012, Accessible at http://world.time.com/2012/10/15/guinea-bissau-how-cocaine-transformed-a-tiny-african-nation/#ixzz2PJov3XSb, Accessed April 2nd, 2013; Travis Lupick, Drug traffic fuels addiction in Sierra Leone, Al Jazeera, Posted January 26th, 2013, Accessible at: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/01/2013121105523716213.html, Accessed April 2nd, 2013; Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Cocaine usage fast spreading in Ghana, GhanaDot.com, Accessible at http://www.ghanadot.com/social_scene.kunateh.032209a.html, Accessed at April 2nd, 2013

[7] Hatcher, 2012; Lupick, 2013; Kunateh.

[8] Wolfgang Fengler, The East African ride to Middle Income, World Bank Blog: African can… End Poverty, Posted February 21st, 2012, Accessible at http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/the-east-african-ride-to-middle-income, Accessed April 2nd, 2013

[9] Hatcher, 2012