Organised Crime and Policing at RUSI

📢 Miss out on our last Conference Report, 'Financial Investigations in Illegal Wildlife Trade Cases: Lessons from Nigeria' from Lauren Young and Elijah Glantz? Recognising the vital importance of Nigeria as both a source country and transport hub for a variety of illegally poached, sold and exported wildlife species - many of which are critically endangered - RUSI has accompanied key enforcement and justice actors in Nigeria to integrate financial investigations into their existing tool kit. At the core of this initiative is a desire to target well-resourced, senior-level traffickers, alleviating the disproportional enforcement efforts against subsistence level offenders. To effectively target these criminal actors, key Nigerian authorities such as the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit, Nigerian Customs Service and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission have participated to a series of trainings. The Conference Report summarises activities and findings from RUSI's workshop held in Summer 2023under it's 'Follow the Money II' project in West and Central Africa, made possible by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The report touches on key challenges and obstacles - as well as opportunities - to integrating financial investigations, drawing on Conference discussions and follow-up conversations over the course of the following year. Access the full Conference Report here: https://lnkd.in/ecGyZ4Rt

Last week, Organised Crime and Policing at RUSI researchers Elijah Glantz and Alastair Greig were in Yaoundé, Cameroon, to support the delivery of the TRAFFIC-led workshop to strengthen multiagency financial investigations into the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). The workshop brought together a variety of Cameroonian public sector stakeholders and equipped them with the tools to carry out financial investigations, including the use of Open-Source Intelligence, Suspicious Transaction Reports and best practice for evidence-gathering at crime scenes. This training culminated in a complex roleplay scenario of a realistic timber-trafficking case requiring multiagency and international collaboration, forcing participants to draw upon the skills they had acquired during the week. Many thanks to the one and only Mark Heffer, whose decades of financial investigations experience were an invaluable resource, as well as to the local TRAFFIC team and other speakers who made the week such a success. This workshop formed part of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL)-funded project “Combatting the Facilitators of Illegal Wildlife Trade in Cameroon”. Make sure to follow (OCP) to stay informed about the latest analysis on IWT. To learn more about our IWT work, visit our website: https://lnkd.in/efx6dZqM

💶 Last month, researchers from Organised Crime and Policing at RUSI attended and presented at the 21st plenary session of the Action Group against Money Laundering in Central Africa (GABAC) in Libreville, Gabon. Joining a variety of regional public sector stakeholders as well as key private, NGO and IGO partners, the weeklong event focused on steps taken by member states to enhance their response to money laundering and terrorist finance. 🤝 RUSI's Elijah Glantz presented the findings of RUSI’s ongoing research into illicit financial flows and the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) in Central Africa. The research, facilitated by Romain Esmenjaud and with input from all seven member states’ Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), provides insights into FIUs' self-assessed strengths and weaknesses. The research highlights the pressing need for greater inter-agency, inter-sector and international co-operation to turn recent legislative progress into concrete successes in real-world financial investigations on IWT cases. 🐘 The GABAC-endorsed project findings and dissemination form part of RUSI’s multi-year project entitled ‘Combatting the Illegal Wildlife Trade in West and Central Africa: Phase II’, funded by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Watch this space for the publication of the final report in early 2025! To learn more about this project and our work on IWT, visit our website: https://lnkd.in/ggD-BxBA 

💡 Last Thursday, Organised Crime and Policing at RUSI, Wildlife Conservation Society and Uganda Bankers' Association held a workshop for compliance officers from UBA member banks, as part of a series of engagements designed to support compliance officers in identifying red flags for suspicious transactions related to the illegal wildlife trade (IWT) in Uganda. 💸 Cecilia Namuddu Muhwezi from Standard Chartered spoke to her experience in West Africa, highlighting the importance of banks conducting financial compliance to detect illicit finance linked to IWT and the need for public-private partnerships to overcome obstacles to this approach. 💬 Representatives of the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Financial Intelligence Authority and Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Antiquities then introduced compliance officers to IWT trends in Uganda and outlined the limitations of current wildlife crime investigations. The presentations facilitated an energised discussion on strategies for improved cross-sector information sharing to enable more effective financial investigation on IWT cases, resulting in practical ideas for next steps. 🙌 The high level of attendance and engagement by both sectors was unprecedented. Many thanks to USAID Uganda for funding the workshop as part of its USAID/Uganda Combating Wildlife Crime Activity (2020-25), and to our local partners, for making the event such a success.

🐘 Last Wednesday, CEOs of Ugandan banks gathered for a breakfast discussion hosted by Organised Crime and Policing at RUSI, Wildlife Conservation Society and Uganda Bankers' Association as part of a broader initiative to promote the use of financial compliance to combat the illegal wildlife trade (IWT). 🏦 Speakers from the Uganda Wildlife Authority, Financial Intelligence Authority, Uganda Bankers' Association and Standard Chartered stressed the importance of recognising IWT as a serious predicate offence for money laundering in Uganda and urged CEOs to commit to integrating due diligence on IWT-related anti-money laundering risk into bank compliance protocols, as well as actively monitoring for suspicious transactions and sharing financial intelligence with the public sector to support wildlife crime investigations. 🙏 Many thanks to USAID Uganda for funding the event as part of its USAID/Uganda Combating Wildlife Crime Activity (2020-25) and to our inspiring speakers and local partners for making the event possible.

It was a busy week up in Birmingham! It was a pleasure to speak at the National Interagency Liaison Officer event at this year's The Emergency Tech Show. With our practitioner colleagues, I was thrilled to get a chance to present some of our #10Years10Threats programme findings - highlighting the scale and rate of change across the UK's most pressing serious and organised crime threats. From human trafficking to ever-changing narcotics to the prospect of 3D printed gun proliferation, it was a golden opportunity to share our research with those in the field. Grateful to the London Fire Brigade for the invitation and the commitment to bring researchers and practitioners closer together! Across the city, Pilar Domingo and I waved the Organised Crime and Policing at RUSI banner the inaugural SOC ACE Research Programme was action packed with phenomenal researchers - led by the one-and-only Heather Marquette. Often in our own research silos, it was eye-opening to see the innovative and impact-driven research conducted by RUSI colleagues and others under the SOC ACE umbrella!

How can donors reform law enforcement and militaries involved in organised crime? Can you train wolves to guard sheep? At RUSI, we’re exploring why some countries successfully tackle security sector involvement in organised crime. Too often, donor funding for security sector reform is wasted because the root issue is ignored: you can’t simply train or rebrand corrupt forces. Our research* in Colombia, Georgia, and South Africa shows that success comes from strengthening both police AND prosecutorial units together. Politically, reforms gained momentum when old systems fragmented, but consolidation and centralised reforms—backed by public support—were key to lasting change. Donors often emphasise partnerships, but it’s critical to consider the "spoilers" reforms need to address. Something I know Andrea Quattrin at FCDO has been thinking about with crime sensitivity. *I lead this project with the excellent Louis-Alexandre Berg, Alexander Kupatadze, Lucía Tiscornia and Mark Williams all funded by the also excellent SOC ACE Research Programme. #SOCACE2024, #securitysectorreform, #securityassistance, #policereform Organised Crime and Policing at RUSI Royal United Services Institute

👏 We were delighted to see Mohammed Shahid Ahmed, Chief of Staff at the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), talk about the power of using 'follow the money' approaches to combat illegal wildlife trade (IWT) in a high-level panel at the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime summit held in Stockholm earlier this week. 🐘 💰 Over the last four years, the Organised Crime and Policing at RUSI has worked closely with the NFIU to advance the use of AML strategies to combat wildlife and forestry crime in Nigeria and across the wider region, through the use of evidence-based research to inform and optimise capacity building and engagement with regional stakeholders, financial intelligence units and private sector actors. 👥 👤 OCP researchers and experts past and present have all contributed to this programme, with ground-breaking research conducted by Alexandria Reid and Mark Williams. Multi-agency training workshops have been delivered by Lauren Young and Genevieve Kotarska, supported by Neil Bennett, our technical consultant and financial investigations guru. And public-private sector dialogue has been facilitated by Elijah Glantz and Jenny Scotland. The work has been supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, as well as numerous other partners or stakeholders, who have expertise and programmes in this area, including the Environmental Investigation Agency, Cecilia Namuddu Muhwezi at Standard Chartered, and United For Wildlife. It definitely takes a village, as they say…! 🌳 🐘 💵 Nigeria may be the largest transit hub for transcontinental flows of elephant ivory, pangolin scales, and African rosewood, but it is also a jurisdiction which is leaning in and taking tangible steps to build and implement robust policies to proactively address this problem.   😍 We are delighted to be supporting that response, and grateful to Mohammed for the shout out below.  #AML #IllegalWildlifeTrade #FollowTheMoney #FinancialInvestigation

✍ New from Dr Anna Sergi for The Informer! With sky-high ambitions, the Messina Straight Bridge is a long-ago proposed public works project to connect Sicily to the Italian mainland. Parked in the dream-inception phase for decades, Dr Anna Sergi writes of the almost 'mathematical certainty' that Italian organised crime and corruption will seize the opportunity to enrich themselves at the expense of near-guaranteed time and cost overruns. Covering the mafia-afflicted history of the project, she warns of the inherent risks of the project re-gaining momentum. Read the article on SHOC now: https://lnkd.in/eVzrQdN6

👋 Say hi Alastair Greig to the latest addition to Organised Crime and Policing at RUSI! Alastair is joining as a Research Analyst, working across OCP's portfolio spanning everything from serious and organised crime in the UK to sub-Saharan environmental crime. He holds an MA (Hons) in International Relations and French from the University of St Andrews with Distinction in Spoken French. Prior to joining RUSI, he worked in France and most recently in Hong Kong, where he lived alongside and helped rehabilitate former members of organised crime syndicates. Alastair also has experience as an Investigations and Law Enforcement Development Intern with the Mumbai office of International Justice Mission (IJM), a global anti-human trafficking NGO. His research there focused on bonded labour in the state of Maharashtra and contributed to IJM’s Bonded Labour Protection Model, a template for tackling debt bondage across South Asia. To learn more about Alastair and the team, check out his profile on the RUSI website today: https://lnkd.in/gvWHsJJr