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The second week of the Marshall Center’s Countering Transnational Organized Crime (CTOC) program is underway, examining how transnational criminal networks threaten national security and the most effective countermeasures to combat them.
Topics this week include the expansion of Chinese transnational criminal organizations, including their integration into the legal economy, their use of corruption and influence networks, and their evolving relationship with nation-states.
For an in-depth analysis of the evolution and expansion of Chinese organized crime, CTOC participants heard from Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution Dr. Vanda Felbab-Brown.
"One of the big changes over the past 20 years is that the norms against organized crime are breaking down, with more governments using them for their own purposes," Felbab-Brown said.
According to Felbab-Brown, Chinese criminal organizations, once largely confined to Southeast Asia, have significantly expanded their reach to Latin America, North America, and beyond. Unlike traditional cartels, she explained that these groups operate more discreetly, relying on corruption, underground banking, and money laundering to facilitate a range of illicit activities including drug trafficking, illegal logging and wildlife trade.
And while Chinese criminal groups are typically less violent than their Latin American or Albanian counterparts, they are deeply embedded within both legal and illegal economies, making them more difficult to combat.
A significant focus of Felbab-Brown’s discussion went further to explain China’s selective enforcement approach toward organized crime. Historically, she noted, Beijing has demonstrated its ability to crack down on organized crime - most notably through Xi Jinping’s anti-crime campaign from 2011 to 2014 - though it often does so based on political considerations rather than purely law enforcement objectives.
For example, Dr. Felbab-Brown stated, China’s Belt and Road Initiative has created opportunities for illicit activities to intertwine with legal business ventures, allowing criminal networks to expand under the cover of legitimate enterprises.
Another major course topic was the fentanyl crisis, with Chinese brokers supplying precursor chemicals to Mexican cartels. Despite renewed U.S.-China cooperation on anti-money laundering efforts in 2024, challenges persist in prosecuting these brokers due to gaps in China’s legal framework.
As global cocaine production reaches record highs and drug markets continue expanding across Europe, Africa, and Asia, the CTOC program is providing a critical platform for policymakers and security professionals to develop strategies to combat the convergence of terrorism and organized crime.
“The insights from this program will help nations better understand the threats they face and foster stronger international cooperation in countering transnational organized crime,” said Marshall Center College of International and Security Studies Professor Dr. Lin Todd, who also serves as the Countering Transnational Organized Crime Program director.
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The Center’s Countering Transnational Organized Crime program examines how transnational criminal networks threaten national security and the most effective countermeasures to combat them. The program provides a comprehensive overview of the intersection between organized crime and terrorism, focusing on issues such as drug trafficking, human smuggling, trafficking in persons, and money laundering.
By addressing these challenges from a global perspective, the Marshall Center is reinforcing its commitment to enhancing security and stability worldwide.
| Date Taken: | 02.24.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.27.2025 07:41 |
| Story ID: | 491518 |
| Location: | DE |
| Web Views: | 24 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, A global approach to countering transnational organized crime, by Sarah Loicano, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
