White House Takes on Threat Posed by TransNational Organized Crime

July 25, 2011



FACT SHEET: Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime



“This Strategy is organized around a single, unifying principle: to build, balance, and integrate the tools of American power to combat transnational organized crime and related threats to our national security—and to urge our partners to do the same… While this Strategy is intended to assist the United States Government in combating transnational crime, it also serves as an invitation for enhanced international cooperation. We encourage our partners and allies to echo the commitment we have made here and join in building a new framework for international cooperation to protect all our citizens from the violence, harm, and exploitation wrought by transnational organized crime.”



-- President Barack Obama

Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime





In the U.S. National Security Strategy, the President committed his Administration to the pursuit of four enduring national interests: security, prosperity, respect for universal values, and the shaping of an international order that can meet the challenges of the 21st century. The expanding size, scope, and influence of transnational organized crime (TOC) and its impact on U.S. and international security and governance represent one of the most significant of those challenges.



Transnational Organized Crime Threatens U.S. and International Security


In January 2010, the United States completed a comprehensive assessment of transnational organized crime – the first such assessment since 1995. The assessment concluded that TOC networks are proliferating, striking new powerful alliances, and engaging in a range of illicit activities as never before. The result is a convergence of threats that have evolved to become more volatile, and destabilizing.

· TOC penetration of states is deepening, leading to co-option in some states and weakening of governance in many others. TOC networks insinuate themselves into the political process through bribery and in some cases have become alternate providers of governance, security, and livelihoods to win popular support. The nexus in some states among TOC groups and elements of government – including intelligence services personnel – and big business figures threatens the rule of law.


· TOC threatens U.S. economic interests and can cause significant damage to world financial system by subverting legitimate markets. The World Bank estimates that about $1 trillion is spent each year to bribe public officials. TOC groups, through their state relationships, could gain influence over strategic markets.


· Terrorists and insurgents increasingly are turning to crime and criminal networks for funding and logistics. In FY 2010, 29 of the 63 top drug trafficking organizations identified by the Department of Justice had links to terrorist organizations. While many terrorist links to TOC are opportunistic, this nexus is dangerous, especially if it leads a TOC network to facilitate the transfer of weapons of mass destruction material to terrorists.


· Some well-established organized criminal groups that have not previously been involved in producing narcotics are now seeking to develop their own distribution and trafficking networks.


· Human smuggling and trafficking-in-person networks are growing more violent and lucrative, and exploiting the most vulnerable, especially women and children.


· TOC networks are stealing U.S. intellectual property. Between FY 2003 and FY 2010, the yearly domestic value of customs seizures at U.S. port and mail facilities related to intellectual property right violations leaped from $94 million to $188 million


· TOC networks are increasingly involved in cybercrime, which costs consumers billions of dollars annually, threatens corporate and government computer networks, and undermines worldwide confidence in the global financial system.


· Often connecting these transnational threats are “facilitators,” who operate in both the licit and illicit worlds and provide services to criminals and terrorists.


Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime

· The Strategy has five strategic objectives:



1. Protect Americans and our partners from the harm, violence, and exploitation of transnational criminal networks.

2. Help partner countries strengthen governance and transparency, break the corruptive power of transnational criminal networks, and sever state-crime alliances.

3. Break the economic power of transnational criminal networks and protect strategic markets and the U.S. financial system from TOC penetration and abuse.

4. Defeat transnational criminal networks that pose the greatest threat to national security by targeting their infrastructures, depriving them of their enabling means, and preventing the criminal facilitation of terrorist activities.

5. Build international consensus, multilateral cooperation, and public-private partnerships to defeat transnational organized crime.



· There are 56 priority actions in the Strategy under the following chapters:


1. Start at Home: Taking Shared Responsibility for Transnational Organized Crime;

2. Enhance Intelligence and Information Sharing;

3. Protect the Financial System and Strategic Markets against Transnational Organized Crime;

4. Strengthen Interdiction, Investigations, and Prosecutions;

5. Disrupt Drug Trafficking and its Facilitation of Other Transnational Threats; and

6. Build International Capacity, Cooperation, and Partnerships.


· By prioritizing existing resources, the Strategy also introduces the following new and innovative capabilities and tools:


1. A new Executive Order will establish a sanctions program to block the property of significant transnational criminal organizations that threaten the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States.

2. A series of legislative proposals to enhance the authorities available to investigate, interdict, and prosecute the activities of top transnational criminal networks. Collectively, the Administration’s proposals reinvigorate the statutory landscape to be more responsive to extraterritorial threats and the increasingly global reach of criminal syndicates.

3. A new Presidential Proclamation under the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act will bar admission to the United States of persons designated under the Executive Order and other comparable sanctions programs. The Proclamation also provides additional legal authority for barring admission to the United States of persons subject to United Nations Security Council travel bans.

4. A new rewards program will supplement the success of existing narcotics rewards programs in obtaining information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the leaders of transnational criminal organizations that pose the greatest threats to national security.


· The Interagency Policy Committee on Illicit Drugs and Transnational Criminal Threats, led by the National Security Staff and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, will oversee implementation of the Strategy.

Durbin Holds First Senate Meeting on Mexican Drug Cartels

From the Office of U.S. Senator Dick Durbin

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) chaired a hearing today on the ongoing and bloody violence involving Mexican drug cartels. The violence, which took more than 6,000 lives last year, is partly the result of the alarming flow of drugs, guns and bulk cash across the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Violence across our border in Mexico has claimed more than 6,000 lives last year and 1,000 lives since January, but it is not simply a Mexican problem,” Durbin said. “America’s drug addiction, and the dollars and guns that travel across our border, keep the drug cartels in business. Until we take cooperative steps to defeat the cartels, this violence will continue to escalate.”

According to a recent Justice Department report, Mexico-based drug trafficking organizations represent “the greatest organized crime threat to the United States.” Mexico-based drug trafficking organizations are notoriously violent and well armed. These criminal organizations control drug distribution and trafficking in many U.S. cities and have had a severe impact in border states and other parts of the country.

In Illinois, the Justice Department found that three Mexican drug cartels – Federation, Gulf Coast and Juárez – are active in Chicago, East St. Louis and Joliet. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Mexican drug cartels supply the vast majority of the cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana distributed in the Chicago area and downstate. Law enforcement officials estimate that $10 to $24 million in drug proceeds are sent from Chicago to America’s Southwest border each month.

A significant obstacle to containing and prosecuting drug cartels and their agents is Mexico’s lack of a fair and effective criminal justice system. Corruption plays a considerable role in law enforcement’s inability to control the violence. The situation has deteriorated to the extent that Mexican President Felipe Calderon was recently forced to deploy the country’s military into areas of the country where law enforcement was no longer able to maintain order.

The problem, however, is not restricted to the Mexican side of the border. Cartels are active in at least 230 U.S. cities – up from roughly 50 in 2006. In Phoenix last year, 366 kidnappings for ransom were reported – far more than any other American city – and nearly all were connected to the Mexican drug trade.

This is partly the result of the America’s insatiable demand for illegal drugs. It is estimated that nearly $10 billion in drug money is shipped from the U..S. back to Mexico each year. These funds enable traffickers to expand operations, bribe law enforcement and purchase weapons.

Weapons are often purchased at U.S. gun shows from unlicensed sellers who are not required to conduct background checks as part of the sale. Cartels also use “straw buyers” – individuals with clean criminal records – to buy weapons for them. According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, more than 90% of guns seized in Mexico can be traced to the United States.

Testifying at the hearing were: William Hoover, Assistant Director for Field Operations, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Anthony P. Placido, Assistant Administrator and Chief of Intelligence, Drug Enforcement Administration; Kumar Kibble, Deputy Director, Office of Investigations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security; Terry Goddard, Arizona Attorney General; Denise Eugenia Dresser Guerra, Professor at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and contributing writer to the Los Angeles Times; and Jorge Luis Aguirre, a journalist who fled Ciudad Juárez after receiving death threats and who is in hiding in El Paso, Texas.

Durbin became Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Crime and Drugs Subcommittee last month. Besides the issues surrounding Mexican drug cartels, Durbin plans to focus the Subcommittee’s efforts on issues including federal support for state and local law enforcement, gang violence, racial disparities in the criminal justice system, sentencing reform, and prison reform.

The hearing was held jointly before the Senate Judiciary Crime and Drugs Subcommittee and the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. Senator Dianne Feinstein co-chaired the hearing.

Durbin to Chair First Senate Hearing on Mexican Drug War

From the Office of U.S. Senator Dick Durbin

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) will chair a hearing on the Mexican drug war tomorrow, TUESDAY, March 17th, 2009 at 10:30am. The hearing will be held in room 226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington.

The hearing, Law Enforcement Responses to Mexican Drug Cartels, is the first Senate hearing on the issue and will examine all sides of the ongoing and bloody drug war on America’s southern border including the alarming flow of drugs, guns and bulk cash across the U.S.-Mexico border. The hearing will also discuss initiatives to stem that flow.

According to a recent Justice Department report, Mexico-based drug trafficking organizations represent “the greatest organized crime threat to the United States.” Mexico-based drug trafficking organizations are notoriously violent and well armed; over 6,000 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico last year. These criminal organizations control drug distribution and trafficking in many U.S. cities and have had a severe impact in border states and other parts of the country.

Testifying at the hearing will be: William Hoover, Assistant Director for Field Operations, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Anthony P. Placido, Assistant Administrator and Chief of Intelligence, Drug Enforcement Administration; Kumar Kibble, Deputy Director, Office of Investigations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security; Terry Goddard, Arizona Attorney General; Denise Eugenia Dresser Guerra, Professor at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and contributing writer to the Los Angeles Time; and Jorge Luis Aguirre, Journalist who fled Ciudad Juárez after receiving death threats and is in hiding in El Paso, Texas.

The hearing will be held jointly before the Senate Judiciary Crime and Drugs Subcommittee and the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control. Senator Dianne Feinstein will co-chair the hearing.