International Journal on Criminology Volume 2, Number 1, Spring 2014 | Page 39

Criminal State and Illicit Economy
laundering without recognizing the central
role played by financial opacity in the global
economy... 62
Beyond, this illicit and criminal
force challenges the very foundation of
modern states, based on sovereignty, since,
whatever the actors or techniques, organized
crime and the illicit trades they operate
are transnational. Not only borders
became more difficult to control due to the
explosion of commercial flows but crossing
them represent a great profit incentive to
criminals.
Two figures in this regard. "The value
of the drugs doubles with every border
crossed: a gram of heroin worth $3 in Kabul
may reach $100 on the streets of London,
Milan or Moscow" 63 . One kilo of sildenafil
citrate, the active ingredient of Viagra,
only costs 60 dollars in South Asia, diluted
in thousands of tablets, this modest investment
can be worth 300,000 64 .
Thus, as an illustration of the polycriminal
nature of transnational organized
crime, "a line of cocaine snorted in Europe
kills one square meter of Andean rain forest
and buys one hundred rounds of AK 47 ammunition
in West Africa" 65 .
Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of
Illicit and Criminal Markets
Geoeconomics of Drugs
The geoeconomics of drugs is well
known. "The overall value of the illicit drug
market was estimated at about $320 billion
for the year 2003, equivalent to 0.9 per cent
of global GDP" 66 .
Of course, the heroin trade partly
fuels both insurgency and terror. In total,
the Taliban's income from the opiate trade
in 2009 was around $155 million (ranging
from 140 to 170) 67 . Beyond, "UNODC
estimates suggest that the value of Afghan
traders’ opiate-related sales was equivalent
to slightly more than 60 per cent of the country’s
GDP in 2004. While this proportion decreased
to 16 per cent in 2011, this figure is
still very significant" 68 . In other words, the
opium trade would be worth an equivalent
of one sixth of the Afghan "wealth".
Moreover, beyond the opiate trade,
"the total corruption cost has increased by
some 40 per cent over the last three years to
reach $3.9 billion". "Nearly 30 per cent of Afghan
citizens paid a bribe when requesting
a service from individuals not employed in
the public sector of Afghanistan in 2012, as
opposed to the 50 per cent who paid bribes to
public officials" 69 .
is a central justification for the laissez-faire economic philosophy. In this sense, the central disagreement between
economic ideologies can be viewed as a disagreement about how powerful the 'invisible hand' is" (Wikipedia).
Nowadays, organized crime, based on illicit trades economy, can play a social role thus embodies this invisible
hand.
62
Mickaël R. Roudaut, Marchés criminels—Un acteur global, Op. cit.
63
UNODC, Addiction, Crime and Insurgency—The Transnational Threat of Afghan Opium, Press release p. 2,
October 21, 2009.
64
Foreign Policy, “The Deadly World of Fake Drugs”, September–October 2008, 61.
65
Antonio Maria Costa, then UNODC Executive Director, UN Press Release, February 24, 2010.
66
UNODC, World Drug Report 2012, 60.
67
UNODC, The Global Afghan Opium Trade—A Threat Assessment, July 2011, p. 30.
68
UNODC, World Drug Report 2012, p. 67.
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