Financial fraud and money laundering are highest category threats in Asia: INTERPOL

At a time when law enforcement agencies in India have been registering a huge spike in cases of financial fraud and money laundering, the latest crime report of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) has found that these two issues have been emerging as a high and very high threat for Asia and the Pacific (APAC), writes ETV Bharat's Gautam Debroy.

New Delhi:The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) Global Crime Report 2022 released in New Delhi during the organization's 90th General Assembly on Tuesday late evening said that financial crime was considered the top crime threat in the APAC region. The INTERPOL considers financial fraud (76 per cent) and money laundering (67 per cent), alongside the trafficking of synthetic drugs, which 67 per cent of respondents considered a very high threat.

"Synthetic drugs, or psychotropics, are also the second most frequently indicated drug type on INTERPOL notice or diffusions from the APAC region," the report said. It said that synthetic drug trafficking is expected to increase or significantly increase in the future according to 67 per cent of law enforcement respondents from the region, as well as cyber threats such as ransomware (79 per cent), phishing attacks, business emails compromise, identity theft and online extortion (63 per cent).

The Global Crime Report 2022, which is restricted to law enforcement, leverages data from the organization's 195 county memberships to map out current and emerging threats worldwide. Showing how crime areas converge in complex and mutually reinforcing ways, the report notes that understanding this complexity is crucial to inform collective decision-making by policy worldwide.

"Understanding and pre-empting crime trends is an absolute bedrock of policing, and INTERPOL's Global Crime Trend Report offers an unparalleled picture of the global crime landscape as seen by police officers around the world," said INTERPOL secretary general Jurgen Stock.

According to the report, the top nine crime trends posing a high or very high threat include money laundering, ransomware, phishing and online scams, financial fraud, synthetic drug trafficking, computer intrusion, online child sexual exploitation and abuse, organised crime and cannabis trafficking.

Most disturbing is perhaps the rise in online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA), which 62 per cent of respondents expect to increase or significantly increase -- the third highest-ranking future crime threat. As per the report, the demand for, and production of, OCSEA materials also increased significantly during the pandemic.

A regional look at the report on the crime graph

Africa: In Africa, phishing and online scams were deemed both the biggest current threat (83 per cent) and the crime most likely to increase in the next three to five years (72 per cent). Online banking fraud, credit card fraud, cryptocurrency, human trafficking, drug smuggling and organised crime are also major concerns.

America and the Caribbean: Illicit firearms trafficking was the top crime threat (88 per cent) in the Americans and Caribbean region according to the respondents, ahead of ransomware (84 per cent) and OCSEA (83 per cent).

Europe: A substantial 76 per cent of respondents from Europe expect OCSEA to increase or increase significantly in the next three to five years. The INTERPOL report notes that the demand for live-streaming abuse has steadily increased in recent years, likely intensifying during the pandemic. The top three threats currently facing Europe are phishing and online scams (62 per cent), money laundering (60 per cent) and synthetic drug trafficking (57 per cent).

Middle East and North Africa (MENA): The biggest crime threat, and the one most likely to increase in the future, according to 89 per cent of respondents from the MENA region, is the trafficking of precursor drugs. INTERPOL report noted that cannabis is the most pervasive criminal drug market in North Africa. Cyber crimes such as computer intrusion, phishing attacks and ransomware also ranked high among current (78 per cent) and future (89 per cent) crime threats.