The Impact: Coronavirus and Organized Crime

It's been a while since our previous episode of The Impact. But in that time the Global Initiative has continued to track the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on organized crime around the world.

As the rest of the world shut down, the adaptability and agility of criminal networks has been clear to see – they have found new routes for illegal commodities, from drugs to people.

Brazil is a vast country of some 211 million people. A nation full of energy but also plagued by crime; powerful criminal networks like the PCC and Red Commando battle over international and domestic drug trafficking routes. Then there is illegal logging, gold mining, land invasion, human trafficking, high levels of violence, highly militarised law enforcement and a huge corruption scandal that rocked the Brazilian political class.

And now COVID-19 has struck and Brazil has the second highest number of cases in the world.

Presenter(s)

A different sounding episode as Jack sits down with a collection of organized crime experts to discuss what we have seen over the past few months and what might happen next.

Guests:

This Pandemic is causing huge economic impacts. The World Bank has forecast a contraction of 5.3% in global GDP in 2020 – that is the deepest global recession in decades leaving lasting scars on the lives of people living all over the world.

And this could manifest itself in many ways - a rush to push government policy through to help combat the immediate effects of COVID means that the usual stringent checks may be ignored.

And organized criminal networks are positioning themselves to capture state institutions and contracts – enriching themselves at the expense of the public.

Guests