Crime Archive

New financial technology—so-called fintech—has rapidly become an important part of the financial industry, from mobile payment systems to cryptocurrencies. But it also represents a new area of national security vulnerability for the United States. The U.S. is a leader in fintech investment and development for now, but other countries are quickly catching up in key areas. U.S. policymakers should act to improve fintech regulations and coordinate a strategy in order to ensure that this kind of technology remains a strength, rather than a vulnerability, for the U.S. There has been a huge investment boom in fintech in recent years, with […]

In this week’s editors episode of the Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief Judah Grunstein, managing editor Frederick Deknatel and associate editor Elliot Waldman discuss the Christchurch shootings, the emergence of white nationalist terrorism and its implications for national security in Europe and the U.S. They also examine Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Italy and France, and what it reveals about the European Union’s internal divisions over whether to engage with China as an economic partner or confront it as a strategic competitor. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can […]

Peruvian authorities are touting an aggressive new military-led effort aimed at eliminating widespread illegal gold mining activities, which have caused massive deforestation and pollution in the fragile Amazon rainforest. But this kind of militarized environmental management could further complicate an already messy situation in Peru. On March 5, senior Peruvian defense officials inaugurated the first of four new military bases near the remote Tambopata National Reserve—part of their new campaign, codenamed Operation Mercurio, or Mercury, focused on restoring order and eliminating illegal mining in the southeastern region of Madre de Dios, the epicenter of illegal gold mining in Peru. President […]

Editor’s Note: This article is the first in a new series on gun policy and the debate over gun control around the world. Last week, two gunmen opened fire at a high school near Sao Paulo, killing eight people, including five schoolchildren. The mass shooting has cast a spotlight on the issue of gun control in Brazil, as President Jair Bolsonaro makes a concerted push to relax restrictions on firearms. In an interview with WPR, Robert Muggah, co-founder and research director at the Igarape Institute in Brazil, discusses Brazil’s polarizing debate over guns and how Bolsonaro’s policy initiatives might be […]

The mass shooting last Friday at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, by a self-avowed white supremacist, and the violence in Paris on Saturday by the last vestiges of the Yellow Vest movement, have nothing substantively in common. But despite being discrete phenomena, they illustrate two of the greatest emerging threats to the internal cohesiveness of Western liberal democracies: the normalization of ethno-sectarian violence, and the legitimization of political violence. Both threats have been hiding in plain sight for many years now. The Department of Homeland Security signaled the growing danger of far-right and white nationalist terrorist groups in the […]

Pakistani authorities announced last week that they had arrested 44 people affiliated with violent extremist groups. Among those taken into custody, according to Pakistan’s interior minister, were two relatives of the founder of Jaish-e-Mohammed, the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the attack in Kashmir last month that killed 40 members of India’s security forces. But it is too early to know whether this means Islamabad is finally taking meaningful steps to crack down on the militant organizations it has long harbored, cautions Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program and senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson […]

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series about press freedom and safety in various countries around the world. The first documented slaying of a journalist this year took place in Ghana when Ahmed Hussein-Suale, a member of the highly regarded investigative outlet Tiger Eye P.I., was gunned down near his family home in Accra on Jan. 16. Police believe he was assassinated for his journalistic work. In an interview with WPR, Vivian Affoah, a program manager at the Media Foundation for West Africa in Accra, discusses Hussein-Suale’s case, the obstacles that Ghanaian journalists face in their work […]

There has been much to criticize about President Donald Trump’s handling of America’s national security, including his recent declaration of a national emergency on the southern border. But while that declaration might be misguided, Trump has been right about one thing: The United States has never developed an effective strategy for the actual security challenges south of the border. Since the United States became a global power in the 20th century, it has used a sequenced method for addressing emerging threats—first building an understanding of them, then developing a working consensus among security experts and political leaders, and then relying […]

Last month, a bipartisan group of senators reintroduced a bill designed to expand the range of coercive measures the United States can impose on Russia for its broad range of malign activity, from election interference to ongoing intervention in Ukraine. The updated version of the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, or DASKA, contains an array of new measures, including ones targeting the Russian energy and banking sectors. Among the most notable are congressional efforts to expand financial transparency, which would put the U.S. in a much better position not only to counter dirty Russian money flowing through the […]