ABSTRACT
The merging of international terrorist organizations with transnational organized crime is one of the most serious threats our society faces today. The debate about these emerging alliances has been ongoing for some time now. 1 Experts agree that there are connections between international terrorists and organized crime networks. In his Congressional Testimony delivered in September 2005, Glenn E. Schweitzer stated that organized crime had “entered a new phase of complicity” with the emergence of terrorist networks:
Terrorist and criminal organizations rely on the same global transportation, communication, and financial infrastructures for illegal ploys. They take advantage of the same breakdowns in authority and enforcement in states under siege. They both seek increasing shares of the fortunes generated from narco-trafficking and other crimes. 2
The most obvious example of the linkages between terrorists and organized crime are narcotics smuggling operations in Central and South America and Asia, where drug proceeds are used to finance terrorist activities. The overlap between drug industry and terrorism, widely known as narco-terrorism, is most pronounced in Colombia, where two major terrorist groups – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the United Self-Defense Groups of Colombia (AUC) – receive more than half of their operational funding through cocaine production, taxation and distribution. 3 The former Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which was providing sanctuary to Al Qaeda, also had profited from the local opium and heroin trade. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in Central Asia and the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines have both been involved in drug trafficking. 4 Weapons smuggling, kidnappings and financial crime also have been widely used by these and other terrorist groups to raise funds for their activities.