From: Voice of America
As the world has grown increasingly interconnected, fast-evolving technologies, globalization, and trade liberalization have all but removed many traditional barriers to free movement of goods and people, and facilitated rapid transnational business, trade, and banking transactions.
Transnational criminal networks are among the great beneficiaries of these developments. Today, such organizations “employ the latest technological advances and use commercial jets, fishing vessels, and container ships to move drugs, people, small arms, crude oil, cigarettes, counterfeit and pirated goods, and toxic waste through the region, generating massive profits,” said Senior Director for National Security and Diplomacy Anti-Crime Programs at the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, David Luna.
