Civil Society Observatory of Illicit Economies in Asia-Pacific — February Update

Dear Newsletter Subscribers,

With most of the seasonal holidays now behind us (!) the year ahead is taking shape for the GI-TOC Asia-Pacific team. Team members have had a busy start of the year, covering a lot of ground already to deliver our research, learn about emerging trends, and meet with various crime prevention stakeholders around the region and beyond. As ever, we’re keen to hear from you so feel free to get in touch with your own updates, reactions and feedback.

GI-TOC meetings in the Philippines

This month, APA team members Louise Taylor , Alastair MacBeath and Martin Thorley 马丁 ley visited the Philippines to hold meetings with a wide range of individuals and organizations connected to crime prevention. From Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators’ (POGOs) relationship with cyber scams to narcotics, the Philippines has been at the forefront of various regional crime trends. GI-TOC team members were honoured to meet many of those working to combat such crimes and their consequences.?

One such meeting took place at the Philippine Public Safety College where Louise delivered an introduction to the GI-TOC and some of our most relevant research. This was followed by a roundtable for which Martin joined along with various other visiting experts. The quality of discussion and questions suggests that for all the issues associated with transnational crime trends that impact the Philippines, there is a robust homegrown capacity to understand, mitigate and where possible overcome such criminality.

The GI-TOC on the Pacific

Reflecting our commitment to resilience-building, this month we released two publications on the subject. "Building resilience. How to counter organized crime in the Pacific Islands" is the latest instalment in the Transnational Organized Crime and the Pacific Islands paper series. Informed by interviews and consultations with Pacific experts, and mindful of geo-political competition and diplomatic sensitivities, this policy brief argues in favour of an approach to transnational organized crime centred around the strengthening of local institutions, empowering communities and the promotion of transparency. Notwithstanding a strong emphasis on the role of civil society, this approach doesn’t suggest doing away with, or minimising, law enforcement. ?Instead, it would ultimately strengthen cooperation between law enforcement and civil society actors.

The media plays a crucial role in uncovering illicit organized crime activities and contributing to shaping public opinion and galvanizing responses, driving much-needed reforms within the criminal justice system and other public, social and economic institutions. In other words, having an active, free and independent media contributes significantly towards building and maintaining resilient societies. ?Yet, media and journalists are under attacks. In our latest analytical insight, we reflect on the threats to media freedom in Asia and the Pacific.?

This month we also completed a project in partnership with the World Customs Organisation Regional Intelligence Liaison Office Asia/Pacific (RILO A/P) producing a situational analysis of drug trafficking networks and routes across the Pacific Islands to inform the work of both RILO A/P management and front-line officers.

On 12 February the Head of Pacific Programme Virginia Comolli was invited to deliver a guest lecture for Master students at Royal Holloway, University of London on transnational organized crime in Oceania in which she discussed trends, markets and actors driving illicit economies in the continent, as well as the capacity and capabilities to tackle them.

Meet our GIN member

We are excited to feature our first GIN member of the year, Dr. Hai Thanh Luong, a Vietnamese criminology lecturer at Griffith University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. In addition to his academic role, Dr Hai Luong (or Hai to us!) also serves as a senior researcher and chair of the Asian Drug Crime Research Committee at the Institute for Asian Crime and Security (IACS). He also holds the position of Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Queensland’s School of Social Science. As a member of the Global Initiative Network of Experts (GI-TOC) and among the first scholars in Southeast Asia to join since the 2020s, Hai has supported GI-TOC experts to examine the intersections between biosecurity threats and environmental crimes, focusing on law enforcement responses in the Mekong region.

Since 2005, as a member of the Asian Regional Law Enforcement Management Programme (ARLEMP) - funded by the Australian Federal Police and hosted by Vietnam’s Ministry of Public Security and RMIT Hanoi - Luong has worked to strengthen collaboration between law enforcement agencies, policymakers, and academia across Asia to combat transnational crime. Through his engagement with law enforcement agencies, Luong has been able to exchange, discuss and research crime trends across Southeast Asia and further contribute to a huge number of initiatives including the Australia-Mekong Partnership and the U.S. Mekong Dialogue against Transnational Crimes.?

Currently, Hai is co-leading a team investigating the organisational structure and operations of scam-forced criminality through human trafficking in Southeast Asia. Using Vietnam as a key case study Hai emphasises the need for regional assessments to address the nature of pig-butchering operations. Luong continues to explore the push-and-pull factors driving undocumented Vietnamese migration associated with human trafficking, particularly after the 2019 Essex Tragedy. In addition, he is co-authoring two forthcoming monographs on the Vietnamese mafia and global Vietnamese criminal syndicates. Louise says ‘When is your next marathon @Hai?!’

Coming up

Louise will be in Singapore when you receive this, attending the UK’s Maritime IWT event. She will be supporting the GITOC’s ECOSOLVE Project and their new member of staff Russell Gray, whilst at the same time engaging with the Asia Pacific stakeholder network engaging on environmental crime. She’ll report back in next month’s newsletter. ?

The Asia-Pacific Observatory Team