Economy

Report cites Kenya as a hotspot for organised crime

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Anti-graft agency offices in Nairobi. Kenya has been cited for rampant corruption, among other ills. FILE PHOTO | NMG

A new Interpol and European Union-backed report on global crime trends has put Kenya in list of countries with the worst organised crime problems in the world.

The Enact Organised Crime Index Africa 2019 that was launched on September 24 on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York says Kenya demonstrates “large and diverse criminality profiles” including high levels of corruption, crime-related violence and the presence of criminal actors.

“Organised crime has introduced a level of fragility that belies apparent strength of these three countries (Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria) economically and politically, and which undermines the democratic traditions and institutions that these countries have been building,” says the report.

“Organised crime groups exploit weak or dysfunctional State institutions, porous borders and disadvantages in social welfare and local political economies to continue and expand their operations.”

To measure a country’s risk to organised crime, the report considers a number of areas, namely economy, physical geography and natural resources, social cohesion and conflict, socio-demographics as well as global engagement and trade.

While Kenya rated highly for criminality, the report also says it has high levels of resilience.

“Criminality is measured as an average of two subcomponents, so, for other countries, such as Tanzania, Cameroon and Kenya, their high criminal market scores alone do not mean they are ranked among the highest scoring countries in terms of overall criminality (for which they were ranked 17th, 13th and 11th, respectively,” says the report.

“This would indicate that criminal markets alone do not necessarily play a driving role in organised crime in these countries, and that one also needs to consider the role of influential criminal actors.”

The report names Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and South Africa, as among the highest markets for heroin.