Fraud, Scandal, Dark Money, Organized Crime! Three Blasts from Our Blog Archive

In a 2023 February issue of the New Yorker Ben Taub reported on Wirecard, the German financial services provider that perpetuated one of the largest fraud cases in the country’s history. I had first learned of the scandal—and of the German government’s role in abetting the nearly two billion euro fraud—from one of the earliest posts I worked on when I became editor at the Corruption in Fragile States Blog. In “‘Bad Apples’ or Systemic Failure? What a European Private Sector Scandal Teaches Us About Corruption,” CJL’s Rosemary Lark highlights how lax enforcement can allow the “rich and powerful to escape accountability” as well as attract organized crime. To better understand the dynamics of corruption in any sector, Rosemary recommends we apply systems thinking.?

The linkages between corruption and permissive regulatory structures is hardly confined to one country. Closer to my own U.S. shores, Jared Miller ’s “The Cost of Democracy: How Dark? Money is Funding Democratic Backsliding” remains distressingly relevant two and a half years after we published it. “Ending dark money will not be a panacea for American democracy,” Jared writes, “but it will be a key part of beginning to mend our democracy.” The statement is as true as it is politically unlikely.

If democracy is harmed by dark money, ditto for the presence of organized crime. In Eric Scheye’s provocative “The Biggest Paradigm Error in Tackling Corruption: Not Dealing with Organized Crime,” he notes the “almost unremitting exercise in ineffectiveness if not failure” of most anti-corruption initiatives. Scheye’s solution? For the anti-corruption field to more fully grapple with the role and perspective of organized crime in corruption.

– Alexander Ralph , Former Editor, Corruption in Fragile States Blog