Transnational Crime and Security Threats in Asia

‘TRANSNATIONAL CRIME AND SECURITY THREATS IN ASIA’
Michael Wesley
Introduction
Transnational issues have been affecting international relations since the 1970s, acknowledged intellectually
but not practically by the national security structures of nation-states (hereafter ‘states’) the late 1990s. The
terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and the ensuing ‘Global War on Terror’—which, along with terrorism,
has had to confront problems such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), illicit financial
flows, irregular people movements, the drug trade, networks of criminal facilitators and corruption—have
brought transnational issues to the forefront of national security considerations. Transnational threats are
here to stay as issues of practical national security importance, not the least for having changed permanently
the logic of strategic competition and alignment among states. And, they are certainly permanently
established as enduring features of Asia’s international relations.
In this essay, ‘transnational’ is defined as any activity that originates from within society (rather than from
within the decision structure and resources of the state), 1 is commissioned and undertaken by agents
operating in several national jurisdictions, and is transmitted or replicated across national borders. 2
Following international conventions, ‘Crime’ is defined as conduct constituting an offence according to the
laws adopted by states and international organisations. 3 A ‘security threat’ is deemed to be an activity or
known intent to degrade the safety, property, or values of a society, and ultimately the independence or
viability of a state. In this essay, the author begins by examining the nature and causes of transnational
crime and security threats, and how they threaten states and societies. The work then evaluates seven types
of crime and security threat against a framework of state and societal vulnerability.
Transnational Crime and Security Threats: Nature and Causes
Transnational crime and security threats have existed for decades, in Asia and more broadly, but have
increased in number, range, aspiration and virulence with the quickening pace of globalisation.
It is
important to note that the areas of greatest growth in transnational criminality are regions in which there have
been substantial increases in cross-border flows of people, money and commodities. 4
Contrary to a
widespread belief, transnational threats do not congregate around states or regions of failing governance:
1
The involvement of state agencies makes an activity international rather than transnational.
Transnational activities are those that are advanced intentionally by their agents; ‘trans-boundary’ phenomena are
events that occur across national borders but not as a result of the intentional efforts of agents to carry out these
effects; thus terrorism and crime are transnational, while pollution, pandemics and resource degradation are transboundary.
3
See Article 2(c) United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime, December 2000.
4
Perhaps the most mistaken geopolitical understanding of the origins and dynamics of transnational threats is provided
by Thomas P. M. Barnett in his book The Pentagon’s New Map, (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004) in which
he argues that the greatest transnational threats come from those states least connected to the flows of globalisation.
2
1
there is no causal connection between fragile states and transnational threats. 5 Rather, illicit transnational
networks arbitrage among different structures and standards of governance, making use of the different
opportunities offered by different jurisdictions to assemble the most effective and profitable operations that
transnational networking enables.
Globalisation offers criminal and terrorist groups both more effective means to operate seamlessly across
borders and much greater opportunities to make money and attack what they oppose. Advances in
information and communications technology enable secure, costless, instantaneous transnational
networking. This has driven a general trend towards less hierarchic, formal, permanent organisation of
terrorism and criminality. 6 An increasing proportion of transnational terrorism and crime is the work of highly
decentralised, flat network structures, many of which are ‘transactional’, meaning that they form, disperse
and reform in different permutations based on specific projects. As a result, the most dangerous
transnational threats we face exhibit what biologists call ‘emergent behaviour’, where the dynamic
interactions of agents reacting to local situations give rise to collective behaviours that are more flexible and
complex than a centralised, hierarchic organisation could manage. 7 Globalised communications enable farflung groups to observe and adapt the most effective techniques they see used elsewhere. Law enforcement
and security personnel comment that the absence of structures that give rise to status conflict, such as the
succession problem in mafia-like fraternal organisations, dramatically reduce the use of violence within
modern, networked criminal and terrorist groups, and that contemporary transnational criminals and terrorists
resemble entrepreneurs more than traditional crime or terrorist character types. 8 Many of these operations
are well compartmented and have good operational security, and are able to move flexibly among different
forms of criminality.
Globalisation also provides high volume cross-border flows of people, commodities and money within which
terrorists and criminals can camouflage their transnational transactions. The advancing internationalisation of
financial and banking systems and the advent of ‘digital money’ have increased the ability of illicit networks
to transfer and launder money while making it harder for law enforcement agencies to track and control
these activities. 9 Often the most dangerous transnational flows are not people or goods but information – be
it the inspiration to carry out a terrorist act and the design of a bomb, or methamphetamine recipes, or tips
about the best locations for a pedophile to operate with impunity. Increasing migration has facilitated the
development of cross-border social networks that can be activated for criminal or terrorist purposes. 10
Smuggling has become more common and varied with the opportunities provided by the rapid increase in
volumes of internationally traded commodities.
5
For examples of the ‘petri dish’ analogy, see Elsina Wainwright, ‘Responding to State Failure – the Case of Australia
and the Solomon Islands’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 57:3, November 2003 and Francis
Fukuyama, State Building, London: Profile Books, 2004.
6
John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime and Militancy, Santa Monica:
RAND, 2001.
7
See John H. Holland, Emergence: From Chaos to Order, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
8
Klaus von Lampe and Per Ole Johansen, ‘Organized Crime and Trust: On the conceptualization and empirical
relevance of trust in the context of criminal networks’, Global Crime, 6:2, May 2004, p. 177.
9
Mette Eilstrop-Sangiovanni, ‘Transnational Networks and New Security Threats’, Cambridge Review of International
Affairs, 18:1, April 2005, p. 10.
10
H. van de Bunt, D. Siegel & D. Zaitch (Eds.), Global Organized Crime: Trends and Developments. Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003.
2
Globalisation also offers greater opportunities for criminal or terrorist entrepreneurs to make money or
prosecute their political agendas. The rapid social and economic transformation of developing states is
breaking down traditional structures and expectations while creating new opportunities, both legal and illegal.
The diffusion of materialist cultural influences and values has transformed crime opportunities, while driving
changes in values that reject the fatalistic acceptance of the relatively impoverished conditions under which
people have traditionally lived. 11 These social changes produce more ‘self-starting’ criminals and terrorists
and provide them with more people and situations to exploit. Globalised communication has enabled both
the transnationalisation of grievance and the greater awareness of criminal or terrorist opportunities that exist
across borders. 12 Transnational networks are increasingly able to exploit broader awareness and ease of
interaction to arbitrage between different jurisdictions, different legal regimes, and different standards of
governance.
Measuring Virulence and Vulnerability
Societies have survived and prospered for millennia despite the existence of crime and terrorism; it is
therefore important to be careful not to assume that all forms and manifestations of transnational crime and
terrorism are threats to the economic development and societal stability of regional countries. Some types of
crime and terrorism are less disruptive to the everyday functioning of societies than others (indeed, some
crime types have provided vital services in economies in transition); while some societies have greater
resilience against the activities of malevolent actors, thanks to institutionalised mechanisms of social control,
high levels of social homogeneity and cohesion, and greater capacities for surveillance and enforcement. 13
But in order to adequately protect societies from these threats, it is important that we first are able to
measure the ability of crime and security threats to disrupt economic development and societal stability. This
author proposes doing so via two sets of measures. The first relates to the transnational enterprises
themselves. First, to what extent does the enterprise strive to create, or benefit from, political, social and
economic instability in host societies? Second, what is the growth potential of the enterprise, in terms of the
spread of its activities through and among societies, and in terms of its capacity to generate benefits for its
perpetrators that could gradually overwhelm or displace legitimate economic, political or social activity in host
societies? The second set of measures relates to the vulnerabilities of regional states. The vulnerability
measures relate to accessibility, or the presence of conditions that attract and facilitate the operation of
malevolent transnational actors, and to susceptibility, or the ability of the operation of crime and terrorist
groups to disrupt societal and economic integrity and function. These measures enable a focus on priority
issues in transnational crime and security, an appraisal of individual or collective counter-measures, and the
design of comprehensive strategies of engagement.
11
Mark Findlay, The Globalisation of Crime: Understanding Transitional Relationships in Context, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 66.
12
Wallace, P. (1999). The Psychology of the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13
J. Craig Jenkins and Doug Bond, ‘Conflict-Carrying Capacity, Political Crisis, and Reconstruction’, Journal of
Conflict Resolution, 45:1, February 2001, p. 4.
3
Transnational Crime and Security Threats in Asia
There are seven basic types of transnational crime and security threats in the Asian region. Most of these
have existed in the region for decades or centuries; but globalisation has transformed most of them in terms
of their virulence, the people and groups involved, and their capacities to operate across and destabilise
societies. Few countries in the region contemplate re-erecting territorial barriers to globalisation in order to
deal with these threats, and consequently the region’s states confront a new order of challenge in attempting
to bring these manifestations of globalisation’s dark sides under control.
Violent Religious Radicalism and Separatism. The upsurge of violent religious radicalism and separatism
in Asia has occurred in the context of a global rise of piety and religion-based identification among Muslims.
Rapid social and economic transformations in Muslim countries, and the experience of a rapidly growing
Muslim diaspora in the West, has led to a gradual divorce of Islam from its traditional communal roots,
practices, and expectations, and the corresponding attachment to an individualised, faith-based Islam to
assuage feelings of disconnectedness. 14 At the same time, globalised communications have increased
awareness as never before of the conflicts involving Muslim communities in different parts of the world,
leading to a rise in Muslim identification with their co-religionists and a rising sense of anger, particularly
against the West, at the plight of Muslim communities perceived to be under attack.
Within this milieu, fundamentalist Islam has gained great traction. Narratives of the decline and humiliation of
Islam at the hands of the West have become widespread, as have diagnoses that blame Islam’s eclipse on
the contamination of Islamic principles and practices with decadent influences. 15 Injunctions to return to the
purity of the Islamic principles set out in the Koran, Sunnah and Hadith have been very influential. A smaller
subset among fundamentalists advocate the use of violence to drive impure Western influences from Muslim
lands and overthrow corrupt regimes to install Sharia-based systems of government. Many of these violent
fundamentalists were galvanised by the experience of serving among the mujahidin in Afghanistan, where
they fought alongside Muslims from a range of cultures and regions and perceived themselves to have
driven out a superpower and caused its eventual collapse. 16
In Asia these currents of religious observance, awareness and activity have found some fertile soil. Militant
fundamentalist movements have existed in the region for centuries; a key previous manifestation was the
Darul Islam movement of the 1940s and 1950s in Indonesia, which played a key part in the country’s
independence struggle but was brutally crushed by the new Republic. The relaxation of religious control and
the devolution of power in post-Suharto Indonesia has seen an upsurge in fundamentalist movements, often
in areas that had been centres of Darul Islam militancy in the 1940s and 1950s. In the southern Philippines
and southern Thailand, Muslim minorities have drawn on their religious affiliations to emphasise their
14
Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Ummah, London: Hirst and Co., 2004.
See Anonymous, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America,
Washington: Brassey’s, Inc, 2003.
16
Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam, trans. Anthony F Roberts, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap
Press, 2002.
15
4
separateness from the Christian and Buddhist majorities, respectively. Conditions of socio-economic
disadvantage in these regions have fuelled simmering separatist struggles. 17
The six years following 1998 saw the rise of violent Islamist activity across Southeast Asia as a genuinely
transnational activity. Radicals returned to the newly democratic Indonesia, some of them with direct
experience of the Muslim International in Afghanistan. Connections thickened with militants in the southern
Philippines, and a terrorist training centre was established at Camp Hudaibya in Mindanao. Violence flared
between Christian and Muslim communities in eastern Indonesia, and the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terrorist
campaign began in earnest with a chain of bombings of churches across the archipelago on Christmas in
2000. Bombings in Bali and Jakarta targeting Westerners in the ensuing years marked another shift in
tactics, following al Qaeda’s strategy of attacking the ‘far enemy’ (the West) in order to most efficiently
secure local Islamist objectives.
Until recently, there were signs that jihadist terrorism directed at global or Western interests was on the
decline across Southeast Asia—there had been no major terrorist attacks in the region since 2005. It
seemed that law-enforcement efforts had been successful in degrading JI’s senior operational leadership,
and new leaders appeared to have regarded the terrorist campaign as having damaged JI’s cause by
eroding popular support for the movement; 18 indeed polling data had indicated that popular support for
political parties advocating the imposition of Sharia had fallen to historic lows in recent years. Interrogations
of recently captured JI leaders suggested that the new leadership of the organisation had reverted to the
original strategy mapped out in the early 1990s, of long-term, patient fundamentalist proselytising to build
support to a stage where the struggle for a caliphate becomes more feasible. The stabilisation of rule in
Indonesia under the Yudhoyono government has brought an end to violent communal conflict in eastern
Indonesia; peace agreements in Aceh, an increase in state effectiveness, growing public respect for law and
order, and new reconciliations between Indonesian nationalism and Islamic identity have all drained support
from radical Islamism. 19 Also, the ceasefire agreement between the Philippines government and the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and a weakening of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) had reduced violence in
the southern Philippines, and dampened the flows of jihadists between the Indonesian archipelago and the
southern Philippines.
However significant and increasingly isolated violent sub-groups remain, with the capacity to carry out major
attacks against state and Western interests, particularly in Indonesia and the southern Philippines. Although
not as prominent as during 2002-2005, the issues of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan had continued to be the
focus of Muslim anger. The faction surrounding Noordin Top, and younger cadres who chafe at JI’s new
direction and want violent revenge against authorities, still have the ability to cause significant violence. 20
This was demonstrated by the 17 July 2009 bombings of two luxury hotels in Jakarta, the Marriott and the
Ritz-Carlton), believed to have been undertaken under Top’s leadership. And, as mentioned, violent
17
See International Crisis Group, “Southern Thailand: Insurgency, Not Jihad”, Asia Report No. 98, 18 May 2005;
International Crisis Group, “Southern Philippines Backgrounder: Terrorism and the Peace Process”, Asia Report No.
80, 13 July 2004
18
International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: Jemaah Islamiyah’s Current Status”, Asia Briefing No. 63, 3 May 2007
19
International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: Decentralisation and Local Power Struggles in Maluku”, Asia Report No. 64,
22 May 2007
20
International Crisis Group, ‘Terrorism in Indonesia: Noordin’s Networks’, Asia Report No. 114, 5 May 2006.
5
separatist conflicts continue to simmer in parts of Thailand and the Philippines. 21 New militant groups have
emerged in both countries, such as the Rajah Sulaiman movement in the southern Philippines and Jemaah
Salafi in southern Thailand. While there is evidence of minority groups travelling to study at pesantrens in
other countries in Southeast Asia, there is little evidence that transnational terrorist groups such as JI have
been able to establish substantial footholds in separatist areas. These are separatist conflicts that have not
significantly transnationalised. However, many of the areas of separatist violence concentrate in areas in
which key vulnerabilities of these states cluster: pockets of socio-economic disadvantage, rapid population
growth and low employment, proximity to key resources or economic zones leading to resentment at the
economic backwardness of minority communities. These conditions have the tendency to attract
transnational criminal organisations, such as Sri Lankan Tamil crime groups that operate in southern
Thailand and send profits back to the Tamil Tigers.
Violent religious radicalism and separatism in Southeast Asia have a major capacity to disrupt economic
development and societal stability in the region. Many current and future perpetrators are deeply embedded
into local communities across the region, and recent surveys reveal that up to 10% of Indonesians support
jihadist violence. Terrorist attacks in places such as Bali have had ongoing economic consequences, while
the cycles of violence in the southern Philippines and southern Thailand are key contributors to those
regions’ continuing economic marginalisation. There are strands within extremist thinking that specifically
target the representatives of globalisation and modernisation in regional economies. Terrorism, by its very
nature, seeks to erode the bonds of social trust that underpin societal stability and function.
Even in places where there has been a decline in extremist violence, the possibility of an upsurge in attacks
on state and Western interests remains. A weakening of governmental legitimacy and authority, the
perception of new opportunities for fundamentalist movements to gain influence, the loosening of centralprovincial control and co-ordination, or the outbreak of new conflict in the Muslim world could provide new
opportunities for Islamists. Violent religious radicalism and separatism in Southeast Asia represents a
serious ongoing challenge to economic development and societal stability, particularly in its ability to scare
off travel, tourism and investment in countries as a whole and in particular to depressed regions.
People Smuggling and People Trafficking. There is a general trend towards the steady increase in legal
and illicit movement of people across borders in Asia. 22 Growing demand among communities to move
towards areas of better economic opportunity has created profit opportunities for a range of criminal
organisations, ranging from traditional ‘snakehead’ groups to smaller ad hoc operators. There are several
drivers behind this rising demand for transnational mobility. Most basic are poverty, high birth rates and
persecution of key rural populations in southern China and across Southeast Asia. Population mobility and
accessible communications technologies have increased awareness of the socio-economic opportunities
available in other regions and countries, increased expectations of the capacity to improve standards of
living, and eroded the fatalistic acceptance of the relatively impoverished conditions under which people
have traditionally lived. Another set of drivers is cultural. In some regions such as northern Thailand,
children, and in particular young women, are expected to provide for the welfare of the extended family. It is
21
22
Most of Indonesia’s separatist-based conflicts are currently in abeyance.
United States of America, Trafficking in Persons Report, 2007, Washington: D.C.: Department of State, June 2007.
6
accepted that often they must travel elsewhere to do so, and acknowledged that the sex industry offers the
best prospects for securing the family’s welfare. Across the region, communities have become increasingly
attuned to the benefits of remittances from family members working abroad; many of these flows have
become so large as to have significant positive benefits for national economies, such as that of the
Philippines.
People smuggling and people trafficking are distinct activities—the former facilitates the illegal movement of
people across borders while the latter features the ongoing coercive exploitation of people moved either
legally or illegally within or between countries. Yet both activities often begin from the same circumstances
and motivations but morph into one form or the other depending on the exploitation opportunities that
present themselves. People who are originally smuggled can often incur real or fabricated debts to the
smugglers, allowing the smugglers to keep them in indentured labour conditions to pay off those debts. The
main industries that make use of both smuggled and trafficked labour are the sex industry, domestic
workers, and manual labour, particularly in the building industry. There is little evidence that traditional large
organised crime groups are involved in people smuggling or people trafficking, although many organised
crime groups, particularly those that control the sex industry in regional countries, often benefit from constant
supplies of trafficked people. Rather, most smuggling/trafficking operations are carried out by ‘otherwise
ordinary citizens whose familial networks and fortuitous social contacts have enabled them to pool resources
to transport human cargoes around the world. They come from diverse backgrounds and form temporary
alliances to carry out smuggling operations. With the exception of a shared commitment to making money,
little holds them together.’
23
Smugglers/traffickers are often from the same ethnic or regional group as the
people they are moving illegally. Anecdotal evidence suggests that smuggling/trafficking networks gather
detailed intelligence on border protection systems that is then rapidly and widely disseminated through the
network.
Until recent years, there was low commitment among regional countries to tackle these problems. For many
regional governments, the legal and illegal outflows of their people represented a safety valve against
population pressures in depressed regions, while remittances have come to be seen as a form of
outsourcing of social welfare and a significant buffer to otherwise serious balance-of-payments deficits.
Entrenched cultures of corruption in many regional countries are a significant facilitator of the work of human
traffickers and people smugglers, and represent a significant obstacle to stamping out these activities. More
recently, substantial campaigns by Australia and the United States have led to more of a focus on combating
people smuggling and human trafficking, respectively. The Australia-sponsored Bali process has promoted
the perception that people smuggling is a shared problem among many of the states of Southeast Asia,
while the annual State Department Reports on People Trafficking, and the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress
and Punish Trafficking in Persons (2000) have motivated regional countries to take action against human
trafficking in order to avoid being named as states of concern in the State Department’s reports.
Notwithstanding these efforts, the trend of people movements is rising, driven by intensifying push and pull
factors and providing ample opportunities for criminal exploitation. Although people smuggling and human
23
Sheldon Zhang and Ko-Lin Chin, ‘Enter the Dragon: Inside Chinese Human Smuggling Operations’, Criminology,
40:4, November 2002.
7
trafficking raise serious social justice and human decency concerns, on balance they present relatively lowlevel threats to the economic development and societal stability of regional countries. The export of labour
(whether exploited or not) constitutes for some societies a combination of a release valve for underemployed
people, a source of remittances, and a form of outsourced welfare. With respect to people smuggling, there
is some evidence that large scale influxes of entrepreneurial immigrants from southern China into some
Melanesian societies is leading to dangerous ethnic tensions and undermining local economies; but such
outflows represent minimal economic or societal stability threats either to source or transit countries in Asia.
In most East Asian countries, regions and cities that become destination or transit points for illegal
immigrants have demonstrated a substantial capacity to absorb these people; even those cities that are
showing signs of strain are challenged more by domestic urbanisation flows than the much smaller
transnational people flows. At worst, human smuggling and people trafficking support and rely on forms of
criminality, such as corruption and document forgery, that are more dangerous to the economic viability and
societal stability of regional countries.
Illicit Drug Production and Smuggling. The production and smuggling of illicit drugs has long been a
major concern in East Asia. The ‘golden triangle’ stretching across Myanmar, Laos and Thailand has been
one of the world’s leading production centres of heroin for decades. Over the past decade, the problem of
illicit drug production and distribution in East Asia has become much more serious, driven largely by a
change in the technology of drug production. The advent of synthetic drugs, mainly in the form of
methamphetamines, has driven changes in illicit drug markets, production and distribution chains, and the
forms of criminality that perpetrate the illicit drug trade. The UNODC estimates that one-half of world
production of synthetic amphetamines occurs in Asia, with China (50% of world production) and Myanmar
(43%) the largest producers of methamphetamines. It estimates there are over 10 million users of illicit
amphetamines in Southeast Asia.
The market for illicit drugs has manifested a remarkable inelasticity to the availability of different types of
drugs: heroin users, for instance, appear to be able to switch to other forms of narcotics when confronted
with a heroin shortage. The greater availability of synthetically produced amphetamine-type substances
(ATS) appears to have led many regular drug users to switch to these drugs; this has manifested in a
general decline in heroin production and use across the region 24 and a corresponding (though larger than
the decline in heroin production and use) rise in ATS production and use. Another change in the illicit drug
market concerns the profile of users of ATS: many synthetic drugs have found a market among the
prosperous middle classes—especially in Muslim countries where alcohol consumption is frowned upon.
Drugs such as ‘ecstasy’ do not have the same negative associations as heroin or cocaine, and their use as
party drugs among young professionals is on the rise across the region. As a consequence, ATS have found
markets across the social spectrum in Asian countries: from impoverished rural villagers addicted to cheap
‘yaaba’ or ‘shabu’ pills, to drug addicts on the margins of society, to the young professionals at the centre of
the region’s economic dynamism. There is a high degree of diversity in demand for different types of drugs in
different countries, but the ease and flexibility of production systems means there is little problem in
matching supply with demand. Several analysts have noted that no apparent saturation point has yet been
24
Although there are signs of a recent upsurge in opium production in Myanmar and Laos.
8
reached in drug markets: the steady rise in global illicit drug production seems to have been met at every
point with expanding demand.
The development of ATS has proved a boon for drug producers and distributors across Asia. Synthetic drugs
do not rely on large plantations or complex refining processes: mass-produced precursor chemicals are
relatively easy to obtain (legally in most jurisdictions in the region) from large factories in southern China,
and increasingly India. The drugs can be produced almost anywhere: many ATS are manufactured in small
one-room labs, although some ‘superlabs’ (factories capable of producing massive quantities) have been
discovered in the region. The production process can be distributed between locations: partially ‘cooked’
ATS can be transported to different places for final assembly into tablet or crystal form relatively easily, aided
by the fact that in many jurisdictions, these substances are not illegal until assembled in their final form. The
Internet has revolutionised the way that synthetic drugs are assembled and traded. Recipes for the
manufacture of ATS are available on the Internet, although the bulk of ATS production is the work of
professional ‘cooks’, usually of Chinese or Taiwanese origin, who travel between laboratories, manufacturing
ATS and training others to do so.
25
As a result, production of ATS can be moved much closer to drug
markets, reducing the need for large scale smuggling operations. There is also a trend towards the aforementioned ‘superlabs’: factories able to produce up to 1 tonne of ATS per day. When ATS are smuggled, it is
easier to do so than with more traditional illicit drugs: small, hard tablets or crystals are easier to conceal and
distribute. The ‘golden triangle’ remains a significant producer of heroin and ATS, but production of the latter
is increasingly distributed across the region. Thailand’s success in stamping out drug production has pushed
production operations across into Laos and Cambodia. There is evidence that traditional transit countries
such as the Philippines have become significant production and destination countries as well.
The ease of production and distribution of ATS, the large profits that can be made from this activity, and the
expanding demand for synthetic drugs has driven significant changes in the forms of criminality involved.
Major ATS production operations across the region are dominated by extended family groups based in
southern China, who have easy access to precursor supplies. There appears to be little vertical integration of
production, smuggling and distribution of ATS: different groups are involved in different stages of the
process, forming chain networks based around specific transactions and brought together solely by the profit
motive. There are very few reports of violence or monopolistic behaviour among these criminal groups:
anecdotal evidence suggests that the new drug barons resemble entrepreneurs more than traditional
mafiosi, and regard violence as a threat to profits.
26
Most analysts agree that the magnitude of profits on
offer, and the ever-expanding demand for ATS, renders the use of monopolistic violence futile.
These characteristics of ATS, which manifest at the production, distribution and consumption stages, point to
worrying future trends and the challenges involved in monitoring, detection, demand mitigation, and law
enforcement. 27 ATS users are not as obvious as heroin or marijuana addicts, and many young middle class
addicts have understandable incentives to conceal their consumption. Most forms of ATS have not yet
25
Often a ‘cook’ builds his reputation by disseminating a wide variety of ‘recipes’ for different drugs.
Michael Kenney, ‘The Architecture of Drug Trafficking: Network Forms of Organisation in the Colombian Cocaine
Trade’, Global Crime, 8: 3, 2007.
27
Gary Reid, Madonna L. Devaney, Simon Baldwin, ‘Drug production, trafficking and trade in Asia and Pacific Island
countries’, Drug and Alcohol Review, 25:6, 2006, p. 648.
26
9
attracted the stigma of opium or heroin, and continue to be perceived as acceptable or even fashionable
among certain demographics of users. Highly flexible production and distribution systems compound
detection and monitoring difficulties. Production labs are often small, easily concealed and moved and
sporadically used; and shipments can be more easily concealed and transported. The high profits available
to criminal groups dramatically increase the corruption potential of these operations. In states such as
Myanmar, the extensive involvement of the armed forces in the ATS trade vastly complicates any genuine
enforcement efforts mounted by the central government.
Each of these characteristics mean that ATS production, distribution and consumption is a major potential
challenge to economic growth and societal stability; when added to ongoing problems with heroin production
and distribution, and the emerging problem of ketamine distribution from India, the magnitude of the
challenge of illicit drugs becomes manifest. No society has been able to quarantine itself from illicit drugs; on
the contrary the drug trade has a marked capacity to turn transit and production regions into centres of illicit
drug abuse. The drug trade’s links to disease, spreading criminality and corruption of state function represent
real challenges to economic development and societal stability. 28 While opium poppy production can
produce high profit-to-acreage returns for impoverished rural communities, ATS production can have much
more damaging social and environmental effects. The production of ATS often involves the use of dangerous
chemicals and the generation of toxic or carcinogenic by-products. These have serious consequences for
the health of locals who provide the labour to many of these laboratories, and can cause serious
environmental problems when chemical residues are channeled into local streams.
Due to high profits, ease of operation and ever-expanding demand, the production and trade of synthetic
drugs is the crime type in East Asia with the greatest potential for expansion. This feature alone gives it an
unprecedented capacity for criminalisation of societies and economies, and to crowd out legitimate economic
activity. The possibility of crossover between drug production and violent activism, as has occurred in
Myanmar and Colombia, also needs to be taken seriously. 29 For instance, the sales of ‘yaaba’ pills in
Thailand are currently being used to fund the insurgency in the south of the country. Perhaps the greatest
threat to societal stability from ATS comes from its effect on users. Most ATS drugs are more addictive and
neurologically damaging than heroin or cocaine, and there are no reliable detoxification programs yet
developed for addiction to ATS. The potential for different formulas and the use of toxins in synthetic drugs
has serious and unpredictable effects on their capacity to cause death and permanent dementia among
large numbers of users. Several ATS drugs have manifested the tendency to cause users to exhibit violent
or anti-social behaviour. The irreversible neurological damage caused by many ATS drugs is likely to have a
retarding effect on economic growth, particularly given the use of these drugs by young, professional
classes. A key unknown is just how elastic the market for synthetic recreational drugs will be among
members of the professional middle class across the Asian region.
Money Laundering, Fraud and Extortion. A species of transnational crime that both underpins other types
of criminality and generates significant criminal profits in its own right are the various activities that attend the
28
29
Niklas Swanstrom, ‘The Narcotics Trade: A Threat to Security? National and Transnational Implications’, Global
Crime, 8:1, February 2007.
Richard M Gibson and John B. Haseman, ‘Prospects for Controlling Narcotics Production and Trafficking in
Mvanmar’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 25:1, April 2003.
10
illicit manipulation of identity documents, money and intellectual property. Into this class of crime can be
gathered money laundering, document forgery, cybercrime, intellectual property rights violations, illegal
gambling, and loan sharking. Many of these activities have been accelerated by the forces of globalisation,
such as the increasing reliance of transnational commerce and travel on remote identification and
documentation; rising trends in transnational people and financial flows, increasing amounts of money
derived from criminal sources that needs to be ‘laundered’; growing demand for mobility in transitional
societies, and rising expectations of escape from fatalistic village lives among rural populations in Asian
countries. White-collar crime has persisted, largely without fear of detection.
Money laundering and document forgery are transnational crimes in their own right and also major facilitators
of other types of crime and security threats. Significant amounts of criminal profits are laundered through
East Asia, increasingly using the casinos of centres such as Macau to hide the illicit origins of a rising tide of
criminal profits. Money laundering in the region is facilitated by investment inflows of large volume, by
business links between local communities and diaspora communities in the West, and by the growing
volume of remittances flowing into the region. Large flows of tourists through the region facilitate a lively
industry in credit card fraud and skimming. This cash economy, plus social change and rising demand for
mobility, has expanded opportunities for illegal gambling and loan sharking, both of which are on the rise
across the region.
Bangkok has emerged as the leading global centre of document forgery. Anecdotal evidence suggests there
is a six-to-eight week lag between changes in legitimate travel documentation and the ability of Bangkokbased forgers to produce useable copies. The most sought-after identity documents are the more easily
forged passports of member countries of the European Union, complete with fraudulent visa stamps attesting
to fictitious travel histories. Laos and Cambodia are also becoming locations for high-quality document
forgery. The region’s global reputation as the leading centre of document forgery has acted as a magnet to
criminal groups and terrorist organisations, many of which find Southeast Asian capitals to be conducive
environments in which to assemble the various components of their operations.
The advent of the Internet has presented a new frontier of opportunities to traditional fraudsters. Poor and
marginalised communities are increasingly gaining access to computers and Internet connectivity through
the remittance process: family members working overseas often send home computer equipment and money
for connectivity as a way of maintaining their links with their families and native communities. But these
computers can be used for other purposes as well. Internet scams have become increasingly sophisticated,
while the commission of the crime across several jurisdictions complicates the task of law enforcement and
prosecution.
30
The Internet has provided new opportunities for identity theft and fabrication;
there is
evidence of the growing use and sophistication of ‘muling’, or the use of Internet chat rooms to steal identity
information. The Internet also provides expanded opportunities for intellectual property theft, as the on-line
operations of major companies can be hacked into for crucial commercial-in-confidence information. There is
also the capacity to use the Internet to cause malicious damage or inconvenience to companies and millions
of Internet users; perhaps the best-known example is the ‘love bug’ virus that originated in the Philippines in
2000 and caused chaos estimated to have run into the millions of dollars.
30
Susan W. Brenner, ‘Cybercrime Jurisdiction’, Crime, Law and Social Change, 46, 2006.
11
These crime types are not necessarily prejudicial to economic growth and societal stability. In many
transitional societies the ‘black economy’ can work as a facilitator of economic activity, provider of
employment and supplier of commodities not available due to supply distortions. However, they do constitute
crucial enablers of more damaging crime types and security threats, and have made parts of the region
natural ‘hubs’ for criminal and terrorist organisation. They also degrade the ability of enforcement systems to
monitor and combat more dangerous crime and security threats, while adding significantly to the underlying
problems of corruption in regional countries.
Prostitution, Paedophilia, Child Sex Tourism, Pornography. A major trend over the past decade has
been the growth of the sex industry in Asia, particularly involving the exploitation of vulnerable social groups.
This has been the result of several interacting factors. There has been a global boom in the sex industry,
including the production, distribution and social acceptability of pornography. The Internet has played a
crucial role in this, facilitating distribution of and access to increasingly specialised markets in sexual services
and pornographic material. The Internet also plays a crucial facilitating role in allowing customers to escape
the social stigma considerations that could inhibit users in a non-virtual setting. It also vastly expands
marketing and networking possibilities; analysts have pointed out the symbiotic relationship between
advances in the technology of Internet commerce and the expansion of the Internet-based sex industry. 31
There is an emerging trend for users of child pornography on the Internet to transition to child sex tourism.
The sex industry in East Asia is underpinned by general social acceptance of prostitution in many of the
region’s societies, as well as by persisting cultures of exploitation of women and children coexisting with
conditions of poverty and rising economic expectations. The transnational flow of commerce within and
through the region is a major driver in the expansion of the regional sex industry.
The regional sex industry has important links with other transnational threats, relying heavily on human
trafficking and indentured exploitation systems, often encouraging drug use among prostitutes and their
customers through facilitating easy access, and contributing to the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases.
Certain cities or regions develop reputations as centres of the sex industry, acting as magnets for drawing
customers, perpetrators and victims such as orphaned children and trafficked women. There is a tendency
for victims to become perpetrators and facilitators over time, generating a self-perpetuating dynamic of
expanding criminality and victimisation. Much of the region’s sex industry is fuelled by economic disparities.
Promises of education and money in poor regions facilitate sexual crimes while making it easy for
perpetrators to avoid prosecution by paying off families, informants and prosecutors. Many Western
paedophiles are able to gain access to large numbers of vulnerable children by attaching themselves to
language training schools in rural locations. An emerging trend is for village families to use their own children
for Internet pornography, using the greater accessibility of the internet for a form of sex trafficking without the
need for physical movement of victims.
Finally, involvement in the sex industry causes immense psychological and emotional damage to its victims
and often places them in great danger. While these are serious social justice issues, problems of prostitution,
31
Donna M. Hughes, ‘The Internet and Sex Industries: Partners in Global Sexual Exploitation’, IEEE Technology and
Society Magazine, Spring 2000, p. 36.
12
paedophilia and pornography are not major challenges to economic growth and societal stability. Their main
dangers to economic growth and societal stability lie in their links to other, more harmful crime types and
security threats.
Piracy, Violent Robbery, Kidnap and Extortion. A combination of geographic factors, historical traditions
and new opportunities has made Southeast Asia a centre for maritime piracy, kidnapping and extortion. Over
half of all maritime commerce passes through or near the Indonesian and Philippines archipelagos, while the
region’s climate and cultures has also made it highly attractive to leisure activities. Piracy has been a
traditional way of life for some local communities across such archipelagos, and continues to offer lucrative
rewards in an environment increasingly rich in targets. It ranges from the small, ad hoc gangs in the Sulu
Sea to the larger, more planned operations in the Malacca Straits. These forms of violent crime, as well as
terrorism, in the region are made possible by the significant flows of smuggled weapons and armaments
components through the region, particularly from and through Myanmar and the southern Philippines.
There have been fluctuations in numbers of piracy-related attacks in Southeast Asia in recent years, but the
general trend is one of increase. Often, criminal gangs assume political grievances or religious personae as
a way of justifying their use of violence. A prominent example is that of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which
has adopted the Islamist cause and has carried out numerous terrorist attacks towards these ends.
However, most analysts agree that the ASG’s primary motivation is criminal profit through piracy and
kidnapping, and that its political-religious agenda is largely a legitimising device.
The problems of piracy, kidnapping and extortion have long been endemic in maritime Southeast Asia. The
upsurge in these activities in recent years has had little impact on either maritime commerce in the region or
the attractions of the region as a holiday destination. It is unlikely, therefore, that such crime types will have a
major effect on economic growth and societal stability in any of the region’s countries. The exception is
groups such as the ASG, which are prepared to resort to terrorism in pursuit of political-religious causes;
however, in such cases the threat is from terrorism rather than from piracy or kidnapping activities.
Illegal Resource Exploitation. The East Asia and Southeast Asia regions both suffer from the illegal
exploitation of natural resources, and host a large number of enterprises, both licit and illegal, that are the
perpetrators of illegal resource exploitation in other regions, such as the South Pacific. The over-harvesting
of forests and fisheries, and the smuggling of gems and endangered wildlife has been driven by expanding
consumer appetites for exotic possessions in the West and in developing Asia. Southeast Asia offers
several historic and contemporary conflict zones, such as the border regions of Myanmar, Thailand,
Cambodia and Laos, with entrenched economies for smuggling logs, gems or wildlife. These smuggling
economies are undergirded and intertwined by well-developed systems of official corruption. A key
development in recent years, especially in relation to fishing, has been that of the ‘displacement effect’,
whereby the overfishing of certain regions drives both large-scale commercial operations and smaller
subsistence-based communities into adjacent waters to fish, thereby threatening the fish stocks in
neighbouring regions.
13
The indications are that resource exploitation is rising, though figures are unreliable. Indonesia, for instance,
has the second largest rate of deforestation globally, comprising 14.53% of annual global deforestation;
Myanmar is fourth with 3.62%; Cambodia is fourteenth with 1.7%; and the Philippines eighteenth with
1.22%. 32 A combination of weak and/or corrupt governance, weak regimes of property rights and economic
incentives (forestry typically has around one-tenth of the capacity to support livelihoods compared to other
land use patterns) underpins illegal logging and deforestation in East Asia as in other regions. 33
The main dangers here are posed by large criminal cartels and large legal companies that are able to deploy
large amounts of money and sophisticated equipment, and to link into global distribution chains. The
operation of such enterprises often has a major criminalising influence both in East Asia and in other regions.
Many types of illegal resource exploitation are worrying from the perspective of environmental sustainability.
A range of trafficked wildlife are facing extinction, while logging leads to major issues of deforestation, soil
degradation and erosion, global warming, and the problems of the ‘haze’ from burning forest and peat matter
in Indonesia. Many of these activities, and especially illegal fishing, has negative impacts on the future
viability of local communities, and in particular indigenous groups. These crimes can have significant
localised impacts on the economic viability and societal stability of broad communities in some regional
countries. An example is Cambodia, where the environmental effects of deforestation are beginning to
impact heavily on rural communities, and where the growing pressures of resource exploitation are affecting
fisheries in the Tonle Sap and the Gulf of Thailand, with the potential to adversely affect large numbers of
Cambodians.
Conclusions
This survey of transnational crime and security threats in East Asia has been oriented towards assessing
their ability to disrupt economic development and societal stability. Four criteria have been utilised to
measure and analyse the seriousness of these threats to economic and social viability, including:
•
the intent and ability of the perpetrators to disrupt economic development and societal stability;
•
the potential for the growth and transnational spread of particular activities, and their capacity to
overwhelm or displace legitimate economic and social activity;
•
the capability of transnational criminals and violent extremists to gain access to regional states and
operate with confidence within them; and
•
the vulnerability of regional economic development and societal stability to the operation or side
effects of these crime types and security threats.
Measured against these criteria, the crime types and security threats with the most potential to disrupt
economic development and societal stability are, in descending order:
violent religious radicalism and
separatism, illicit drug production and smuggling, and money laundering and identity fraud. Violent religious
32
33
UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAOSTAT, at http://faostat.fao.org; accessed 2 December 2007.
D. O. Didia, ‘Democracy, Political Stability and Tropical Deforestation’, Global Environmental Change, 7:1, 1997,
pp. 63-76; S. McCarthy and L. Tacconi, ‘Power and Deforestation in the Tropics’, Paper presented to the 103rd
Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 31 August 2007.
14
radicalism and separatism, especially when it manifests as terrorism, has as its strategic and tactical intent
the disruption of societies’ economic development and societal stability; Islamist terrorists also specifically
target prominent manifestations of the globalising economy and modernising society. Terrorist or separatist
campaigns have been major contributors to the economic stagnation and social fragmentation of areas such
as southern Thailand and the southern Philippines. The ideology of violent Islamism has shown itself to be
easily spread among Muslim communities, and to be particularly influential among young radicals who are
impatient with the caution and apparent moderation of older activists. Despite recent law enforcement efforts,
extremist groups continue to operate throughout Southeast Asia, with some even extending their activities
beyond Muslim countries.
Illicit drug production and smuggling in East and Southeast Asia does not strive to disrupt economic
development and societal stability, but its potential to combine with political discontent and morph into
‘narco-terrorism’ and to spawn drug armies means that this could change. The high profits from and
expanding demand for synthetic drugs means this is the crime/security problem with the greatest potential
for transnational growth and spread, and the strongest capacity to overwhelm or displace legitimate
economic and social activity. All regional states have experienced an expansion in demand for either heroin
or ATS, and law enforcement data suggests an increase in both smuggling and transnational production. At
current levels, illicit drug production and use does not significantly disrupt economic development or societal
stability, but if left unchecked it could do so in several regional states. Several societies in the region have
become more vulnerable to disruption after the recent Asian and global financial crises moved a greater
proportion of their workforces into the informal sector.
Although they don’t target economic development and societal stability, money laundering and document
fraud seek to evade or disrupt any state’s ability to monitor and regulate commercial activity and population
movements in their territory. Given that they are dependent on much larger legitimate money and people
flows, these activities do not have a major growth potential or the capacity to displace or overwhelm
legitimate economic or social activity. But these activities have shown an ability to operate in most regional
countries, and are second-order threats to economic development and societal stability through their
facilitation of other crime/security problems.
These and other crime/security threats have been the subject of national, regional and international efforts
towards mitigation, prevention and enforcement. Overwhelmingly, the majority of these efforts have been
channelled towards improving the effectiveness of detection, enforcement and prosecution, although there
are notable programs engaged in demand-reduction and the rehabilitation of victims. This will be arguably
the major area of growth in international co-operation in Asia over the next decade. The measure of Asian
states’ success will be the extent to which they are able to protect their societies from these dynamic and
virulent threats that are in large part dangerous by-products of Asia’s own economic dynamism.
15