TRANSNATIONAL CRIME
Global transnational criminal organizations and networks will threaten U.S. interests and allies by trafficking drugs, exerting malign influence in weak states, threatening critical infrastructure, orchestrating human trafficking, and undermining legitimate economic activity.
- Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community
The 1787 Plan of Action
Why do we need this?*
Drug Trafficking
The foreign drug threat will pose continued risks to U.S. public health and safety and will present a range of threats to U.S. national security interests in the coming year. Violent Mexican traffickers, such as members of the Sinaloa Cartel and New Generation Jalisco Cartel, remain key to the movement of illicit drugs to the United States, including heroin, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and cannabis from Mexico, as well as cocaine from Colombia. Chinese synthetic drug suppliers dominate U.S.-bound movements of so-called designer drugs, including synthetic marijuana, and probably ship the majority of U.S. fentanyl, when adjusted for purity.
Approximately 70,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2017, a record high and a 10-percent increase from 2016, although the rate of growth probably slowed in early 2018, based on Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data.
Increased drug fatalities are largely a consequence of surging production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl; in 2017, more than 28,000 Americans died from synthetic opioids other than methadone, including illicitly manufactured fentanyl. The CDC reports synthetic opioid-related deaths rose 846 percent between 2010 and 2017, while DHS reports that U.S. seizures of the drug increased 313 percent from 2016 to 2017.
Other Organized Crime Activities
Transnational criminal organizations and their affiliates are likely to expand their influence over some weak states, collaborate with U.S. adversaries, and possibly threaten critical infrastructure.
Mexican criminals use bribery, intimidation, and violence to protect their drug trafficking, kidnapping-for-ransom, fuel-theft, gunrunning, extortion, and alien-smuggling enterprises.
Gangs based in Central America, such as MS-13, continue to direct some criminal activities beyond the region, including in the United States.
Transnational organized crime almost certainly will continue to inflict human suffering, deplete natural resources, degrade fragile ecosystems, drive migration, and drain income from the productive – and taxable – economy.
Human trafficking generates an estimated $150 billion annually for illicit actors and governments that engage in forced labor, according to the UN’s International Labor Organization.
Wildlife poaching and trafficking; illegal, unregulated, unlicensed fishing; illicit mining; timber pilfering; and drug-crop cultivation harm biodiversity, as well as the security of the food supply, water quality and availability, and animal and human health.
One think tank study estimates that cybercrime, often facilitated by cryptocurrencies, and intellectual property theft resulted in $600 million in losses in 2017; such crimes threaten privacy, harm economic safety, and sap intellectual capital.
* Taken directly from:
United States. "Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community." Director of National Intelligence Daniel R. Coats. 29 Jan 2019