Follow @Kalpoint_com

Organised crime is global threat

Posted on: Fri June 18, 2010

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations sounded the alarm on Thursday about the global threat from crime syndicates and urged coordinated action to target their profits through anti-money laundering and anti-corruption measures.    

 Organised crime has gone global, reached macro-economic levels and poses a serious threat to the stability, even the sovereignty, of states, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) told the UN General Assembly.    

He said criminals were using the profits of crime and the threat or use of force to influence elections, politicians and power even the military. Costa said vulnerable countries, particularly in west Africa and Central America, were at greatest risk and called for improved development and security to make them less attractive hosts to the parasites of crime.     

He spoke as he unveiled UNODC s new report on The Globalisation of Crime: A Transnational Organised Crime Threat Assessment, the first strategic review of the security threat posed by organized crime.    

The study shows that organised crime is making billions of dollars a year from the trafficking of drugs, guns, people, natural resources, counterfeit products, as well as maritime piracy and cyber crime, he added.

Courtesy : The News