International Crime, Terrorism, and Organized Crime Trends

International Crime, Terrorism, And Organized Crime Trends

Comparing contrasting topics international crime, terrorism, organized crime trends

This research has confirmed the possibility of close correlation between money laundering activities, Islamic terrorist fundraising, organized crime, and corruption of public officials throughout Brazilian Hizballah region. The organized crime networks and the Islamic extremists of Brazil must be examined in collaboration because they are connected to wider networks in Latin America zone and across the world. All the organized activities and terrorists in Brazilian Hizballah were facilitated by corrupt officials, which were driven by the benefits of lucrative criminal activities conducted such as business ventures by terrorists and organized crime groups. Consequently, there was a mutually beneficial association among the three sectors. In this study, Brazilian Hizballah will serve as a microcosm.

Introduction

A number of free-Trade American regions with massive Middle Eastern populations permit organized crime mafias, Islamic terrorist groups, and corrupt officials of the government to grow in a symbiotic, mutually beneficial relationship. This study focuses on Brazil and the United States whilst comparing the topics of international crime, terrorism, and organized crime trends in Brazil. The study has focused on the most significant and the largest of these regions: Brazil. Estimates have shown the extent to which corrupt officials and organized crime benefit from this duty-free area. It is shown that Islamist fundamentalist advocates in Brazil and other areas in Latin America send between $400 million and $600 million annually (Duyan & NATO Emerging Security Challenges Division, 2012). The money is obtained through arms dealing, drug trafficking and other illegal acts like money laundering, product piracy and contraband to radical Islamist movements in the Middle East. The support networks of TBA's Islamic extremists include Iquique, Margarita Island, and core areas of Arab people within this zone like Brazilian Hizballah.

Further, the violent Islamic group members allegedly began recruiting sympathizers and planting agents among the Muslim and Arab immigrants residing in Latin America around early 1980s in the face of the civil war in Lebanese. This led to the formation of Hizballah cells in the Brazil because of proselytization of Hizballah in the Lebanese communities. Islamist organizations like the al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, Hizballah and the Islamic Resistance Movement actively utilized Brazilian Hizballah as a support base. Reportedly, al Qaeda created a strong presence in the area from at least the early 1990s (Hoffman, 2006). By the wake of 2000s, approximately five hundred Hizballah agents were believed to be residing and working in Brazil's Hizballah area (Giraldo, 2007). A number of Palestinian and Lebanese extremists relocated to Brazilian Hizballah from Colombia. With support from corrupt officials and organized crime, these Islamic terrorist movements used Brazilian Hizballah to generate revenues via illegal activities including counterfeiting, drugs and arms trafficking, forging travel documents, money laundering, and even pirating music and software. Additionally, they offered assistance and haven to other groups of terrorists that transited the zone. Reportedly, Al Qaeda used the Ciudad Del Este are to carry out significant fund-raisings.

Individuals suspected to be Hizballah terrorists made Brazilian Hizballah be their base for conducting major terrorist attacks in the 1990s (Almeida, 2008). One attack was against a Jewish Community while the other was against the Israeli Embassy. Since the early attacks in 1990s, Islamic terrorists in the region have continued to confine their acts to criminal fundraising to support their terrorist movements (Giraldo, 2007). This support included plotting of terrorist activities to be conducted out in other nations.

Terrorist Fund-Raising activities in Brazilian Hizballah Region

Trafficking of Narcotics

In this region, Narcotic trafficking in relation to Lebanese Mafia became the main activity of organized crime syndicate and the Islamic terrorist group and organized crime. With considerable hidden airstrips and lax border controls, Brazilian Hizballah became popular with gunrunners, contraband smugglers, and drug traffickers. A vast volume of small airplanes took off from clandestine airstrips from the territory of Paraguay and entered the Brazilian air space. Some of these groups also crossed the Misiones Province in Argentina. Brazilian Hizballah was a conduit for drug smuggling that served as a transit nation for Andean cocaine. One route along the Brazil- Bolivia-Paraguay went across Ciudad Del Este, and Foz do Iguacu to the ports of Santos, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and the ports of Paranagua (Giraldo, 2007). Regardless of the Brazil's relatively limited role, as a conduit for drug smuggling, it is obvious that trafficking of narcotics remained a main activity in the zone. In addition, the Lebanese Mafia and the Hizballah network were heavily involved in it. A number of Lebanese citizens were captured with volumes of cocaine in Beirut airport. Recently, the citizens were in charge of running coffee bars in the Islamic center. The suspects were considered fugitives.

Other Fund-Raising Activities

It is estimated that Hizballah received $100 million annually from Iran (Hoffman, 2006). Besides this statistic, the group similarly used funds from the related communities like the Shiite in the Lebanese from the United States, West Africa and Brazil was the most important source of funding. The local Arab population concealed money laundering among Islamic in Brazil, whereby huge sums of money were sent to relatives living in the Middle East. A few of these remittances were suspected to be directed to Arab terrorist movements especially Hizballah. In early 2003, officials from Brazil associated Lebanese terrorists in the country with counterfeiting U.S. dollars, money laundering among other illegal activities (Duyan & NATO Emerging Security Challenges Division, 2012). As evidenced, they claimed that countless U.S. dollars stamped by the currency exchange banks of Lebanese, some of these dollars were in phony bills and wire transfer receipts were made between the Brazil and Middle East.

In response, Brazil created a coordinated policy to combat terrorism in nations that formed Mercosur (Common Market of the South). Brazilian Hizballah had offered logistical aid to terrorist groups through giving money to movements operating worldwide. Activities like drug trafficking and illegal trafficking of immigrants in the region were singled out as components tied to terrorism, in some way. Authorities in Brazil estimated that over $6 billion were involved in illegal funding through laundering in the TBA (Giraldo, 2007). Each nightfall, dozens of armored trucks loaded with money for laundering left the Brazilian town towards the border. Similarly, Brazilian authorities issued an order to suspend remitting of dollars abroad. However, this order excluded armored trucks or vans leaving Brazil as vans ferrying dollars crisscrossed the bridge in Brazil.

In the late 2000s, groups of Islamic extremists, particularly Arab residents sent almost $600 million to Hamas and Hizballah through financial institutions in Hizballah. Various groups of Arabs continued to remit money in Brazil apparently between 1997 and 2001. It is argued that these funds were obtained from arms trafficking and related illegal acts (Giraldo, 2007).

Clandestine Terrorist Communications in Brazil

Open source indications show that Islamic terrorist network in Brazil maintained telephone communications worldwide operatives among them America. The FBI allegedly traced a number of mobile phones between the U.S. And at least one town in Brazil immediately after the 2001, September terrorist attack. The role played by Brazilian Hizballah Islamic terrorists in this attack remains unconfirmed (Almeida, 2008).

A number of al Qaeda agencies in Brazil might have been aware of the September attacks and discussed the plan in an identified mosque within the Foz do Iguacu area. This was a contentious issue in 2001 when some Moroccan students were later arrested in Brazil (Lum & Kennedy, 2012). The students maintained that they overheard a group of Islamic extremists planning the Al Qaeda attacks against Washington and New York in Foz do Iguacu some days before the attack. Press reports in Brazil indicate that the students contacted an attorney visiting them in prison and requested him to deliver an urgent letter to Israeli, Brazilian authorities and U.S.. The latter warned these authorities of an impending attack with twofold explosions, which could happen in the United States.

Later, Brazil became part of the Islamic terrorist base for their clandestine communications network referred to as PABX that was meant to evade eavesdropping on phone conversations by satellites through connecting a number of telephone networks. It was possible to make calls from Brazil to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to Brazil without raising suspicions. As a result, police in Brazil finally detected close to seven clandestine communication bases in the area of near Foz do Iguacu. These bases were used to receive and make mobile calls to and from Afghanistan and Middle East. Prior to the U.S. September 11 attack, investigators in Brazil became suspicious of what they believed to be illicit schemes aimed at cutting down the cost of making telephone calls (Almeida, 2008). However, after the attack, suspicions shifted to potential terrorist attack as the illegal calls landed in nations such as Lebanon, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Concerned about what was categorized as an action of the Islamic extremist unit in TBA, Brazil launched undercover operations the area. A few weeks later, Brazil learnt that a number of clandestine telephone exchanges likely to be connected with Islamic extremists. This caused the Brazilian police to close dozens of telephone switching operations in near Foz do Iguacu and other close cities, likely to be utilized to evade American satellites monitoring the traffic of telephone.

Some Brazilian businesspersons living in near Foz do Iguacu between 1999 and 2001 contracted equipment operators for clandestine telephone switching activities (Duyan & NATO Emerging Security Challenges Division, 2012). They owned an electronic products store when they shifted from Lebanon. According to phone records, most of the traffic involved nations like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. As a result, dozens of Brazilian clandestine operators were arrested in Foz do Iguacu. They were suspected of running illegal telephone services in Guaira and Ponta Pore towns. Most of these businesspersons were found with computers and fake passports.

Brazil-Related Islamic Terrorist Activities in the Southern Cone

The organized crime networks and the Islamic extremists of Brazil must be examined in collaboration because they are connected to wider networks in Latin America zone and across the world. In addition, Islamic extremists who were based in Brazil have continued to spread out and established new networks of support, currently in areas popular with organized crime movements. In 2002, Brazilian intelligence officials published comments about two trends concerning the groups of Islamic extremists initially based in Brazil (Lum & Kennedy, 2012). These extremists dispersed to smaller cities within the zone. For instance, they were seen in cities like Brazil's Uruguaiana, popular for its scarcity of police and potent marijuana crops.

The Islamic extremists of Brazil such as corrupt officials and Mafia members were also attracted to the money laundering hotspots along the border of Brazil. They included Ponta Pora in Brazil, Coronel Sapucaia, and Paraguay's Pedro Juan Caballero. In addition, intelligence officials realized that Islamic extremists were spreading branches across nearby countries with established Muslim and Arab communities like Chile, Iquique, Venezuela, Maracaibo, Ecuador, and Guayaquil. Indications also cited that Islamic extremists spread to Sao Paola following the implementation of increased security measures in Brazil zone: a second tri-border developed between Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil (Lum & Kennedy, 2012).

Recent developments

One of the largest criminal gangs in Brazil has issued threats to unleash a stream of terrorist attacks in the course of next year's presidential elections and World Cup. This threat follows Government's efforts to transfer jailed terrorist leaders to a solitary confinement in Sao Paulo (Duyan & NATO Emerging Security Challenges Division, 2012). The lead gang of terror activities has also planned to target police officers and to organize prison strikes. These revelations were intercepted by intelligence agencies in Brazil. Since then, Brazilian government has made massive security investment ahead of the football tournament.

The threat to organize terrorist activities in next year's World Cup has been confirmed by Brazilian investigators. Reports indicate that terrorist group leaders continue to conduct crime operations while still in prison through mobile phones. The World Cup security warning rose after Brazilian security officials announced that bosses of these terrorist cartels would be shifted to President Bernardes Prison, which is an isolated maximum-security facility in Sao Paulo. In addition, security officials intended to erect new equipment, which will block all mobile telephone signals at the penitentiaries (Lott, 2010).

Some leaders of Saudi Arabia have been described as the presumed chiefs heading the growing Arab Mafia. This is an organization involved in drug and arms trafficking, exploitation of undocumented employees and money laundering in Brazil. However, Brazilian authorities have downplayed the threat to tourists likely to flock in Brazil for the international football tournament. They argue that a criminal movement cannot such an event like International Football Tournament. In addition, the government has promised a tight security system to fight the terrorist organization (Giraldo, 2007).

Islamic extremist ties are believed to exist between Chile and Brazil. The border between the two countries has been an attractive location for smugglers and Islamic money launderers operating in Brazil. Partly, because Chile was the fastest expanding hub within Southern U.S., it heightened the attraction for international money laundering and narcotics transshipment enterprises. Moreover, many Islamic militants shifted to Chile because of the increase in pressure from security authorities in the Brazilian region. In 2001, the Government of Chile confirmed conducting investigations on the alleged financial networks of Arab terrorist tied with money laundering in Chile's Iquique (Friedlander, Levie & Lovelace, 2009). The investigations revealed that some businesses run by Islamists were major money laundering fronts and that the laundered money accrued from the Ciudad Del East area.

Combating Terrorist and Groups Organized Crime in Brazil

The official security forces of Brazil launched efforts to combat areas that organized crime and terrorist groups used. These efforts led to the establishment of a Tri-Border Tripartite Command as a strategy to control the large transient of international population and commerce. Regardless of the groups in Brazil being hindered by inadequate funding, inadequate penal codes, organizational problems of corruption, poor training, investigative capabilities and lack of motivation, these illegal activities continued to thrive. These factors help understand how organized crime and terrorist groups operated profitably in Brazil (Almeida, 2008).

Security Forces

The principal law enforcement in Brazil is the Brazilian Federal Police under the Ministry of Internal Affairs jurisdiction is involved in countering drug and related crimes. The mission of the Brazilian Federal Police included combating organized crime, drug trafficking and terrorism. The state intelligence secretary was also believed to have played a role in countering terrorism acts (Duyan & NATO Emerging Security Challenges Division, 2012). Historically, the battle against organized crime was conducted by a special unit of operation under the judicial police and security police. The latter used to operate within the court prosecutor's authority in every province. As an extremely bureaucratic organization under the government's executive branch, Brazil's police system was involved in an investigative function besides maintaining public order. In addition, the police lacked special incentives thus they were ineffective to bring organized crime to a halt. In fact, the inadequately trained and relatively autonomous judicial police were unsuccessful in the battle to stop organized crime. At times, operations from combined forces seem to inconvenience organized crime. For instance, Brazil's security officials carried out a surveillance operation. It confirmed with only four days that nearly twenty illegal airstrips in towns like Guiara and Ponta Pora. Additionally, it was revealed that approximately forty unidentified flights were detected although they could not be intercepted (Lott, 2010).