Crime Archive

From the early 1950s until 1990, when Afghanistan’s opium production surpassed that of Myanmar, most of the world’s illicit opium originated in mainland Southeast Asia. This is partly because the region’s rugged hills and mountains, heavy monsoon rains and lack of transport infrastructure have long protected rebel armies and illegal opium poppy cultivation from the writ of central governments and anti-drug agencies. Myanmar’s turbulent political history and internal wars since its independence in 1948 also contributed significantly to Asia’s long reign as the global leader in illicit opium production, as the opium economy and the war economy clearly nurtured one […]

West Africa is rapidly becoming a major player in the global trade in illegal drugs and a central focus of the efforts to control it. Escalating arrests of West African drug traffickers at foreign airports, container shipments of cocaine seized off the West African coast and the collapse of entire African states under pressure from global drug cartels are some of the images used by international drug-control experts and the media to illustrate West Africa’s growing role in the trade in heroin and cocaine during the past decade. International experts claim that after having played an insignificant role in the […]

Since 2001, Afghanistan has become synonymous with the term “narcostate” and the associated spread of crime and illegality. Though the Afghan drug economy peaked in 2007 and 2008, cultivation this year still amounted to 325,000 acres, and the potential production of opium reached 6,400 tons (.pdf). Narcotics production and counternarcotics policies in Afghanistan are of critical importance not only for drug control there and worldwide, but also for the security, reconstruction and rule of law efforts in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, many of the counternarcotics policies adopted during most of the past decade not only failed to reduce the size and scope […]

In June 2011, Ollanta Humala was elected president of Peru after campaigning on a platform of change. Significant for Peru, but also for South America more broadly, Humala advocated for moderate, not revolutionary, change — calling for a better and fairer distribution of the fruits of Peru’s impressive economic growth and for lower levels of corruption and crime. That kind of program won’t entail upending the prevailing system. It will, however, require serious institutional reform. The Peruvian case dramatically illustrates wider trends in South America, where sustained economic growth and sound macroeconomic policymaking in recent years have coexisted with continuing […]

On Sept. 6, members of Afghanistan’s upper house of parliament declared that the Afghan government and the international community have failed in their counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan. Just three months earlier, Afghan Deputy Minister for Counternarcotics Baz Mohammad Ahmadi told reporters that more than 3 million Afghans continue to participate in the illicit drug industry. He pleaded with the international community to support further operations, especially in Afghanistan’s border provinces, and to consider establishing a counternarcotics academy within Afghanistan. Ten years after the United States first invaded the country on Oct. 7, 2001, the drug menace emanating from Afghanistan remains […]