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Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep.
Here’s what’s on tap for the day: The outgoing chief of Interpol issues a stark warning about organized crime in an exclusive interview with SitRep, U.S. intelligence officials sound the alarm about Russian and Iranian efforts to stoke tensions in the wake of the presidential election, and Georgians head to the polls in an election that is widely seen as a referendum on the country’s future.
Organized Crime Is Surging
The COVID-19 pandemic brought about lasting changes to the world of work for many of us. So too for transnational criminal gangs, whose activity surged during and after the lockdowns that confined millions to their homes around the world, said Interpol Secretary-General Jürgen Stock in an exclusive interview with SitRep.
“The world is confronted with a dramatic surge in international organized crime in a way that, definitely, I haven’t seen in my now long 45-year career,” said Stock, who is due to step down as the chief of the international policing organization next month after 10 years in the role.
Fraudsters were quick to adapt during the pandemic, when much of life shifted online as people sheltered at home to avoid contracting the virus. “Criminals were using the internet and new technologies to approach potential victims or victims on a kind of industrial scale,” Stock said.
Instead of competing, organized crime groups are increasingly cooperating, sharing elements of the global supply chains for drug and human trafficking, environmental crime, and illegal mining, Stock added.
While there have been major successes in the form of record drug seizures in the Americas and Europe in recent years, police around the world are still struggling to keep up. “These gangs, cartels all around the world are getting more and more dangerous, more powerful, more influential,” he said, noting that violence is “increasing dramatically” at both ends of the international drug supply chain.
Working Locally, Thinking Globally
When Stock began his career as a police officer in Germany in the late 1970s, most criminals were local, and crime scenes often held crucial physical evidence. These days, he estimates that much of the crime plaguing city streets has some kind of organized crime component to it, while the internet and modern technology—such as encrypted messaging and cryptocurrency—have also challenged classical policing methods.
The global problem of transnational crime needs a global solution, said Stock: “You cannot fight these crimes by just making your borders higher. You need information exchange at the national level, regional level, and global level.”
Red Notices
Despite the Hollywood portrayal, Interpol is not an international police force. Rather, it is a forum for cooperation and information sharing for its 196 member states. Founded in Vienna, Austria, in 1923, the organization is bound by its charter to remain neutral and is expressly prohibited from getting involved in politics or activities of a military, religious, or racial nature.
This has made Interpol a vanishingly rare global forum where member states come together on an equal footing in spite of conflicts and geopolitical tensions that have gripped the globe. “We are still bringing all 196 to the table,” said Stock of the body’s members.
But having such a wide membership has also exposed the organization to accusations that its systems have been abused by authoritarian states in pursuit of political foes by issuing spurious Red Notices to request global law enforcement to provisionally arrest a person.
One of the first things that Stock did upon becoming secretary-general was implement a compliance mechanism to screen notices for any suggestion of ill intent on the part of the issuing country. He estimated that some 95 percent of arrest requests made through the organization are noncontroversial, while 5 percent have demanded further scrutiny. “That has definitely brought a trust into the system,” he said.
Six countries, including Russia, have been subject to what Stock called “corrective measures” over their suspected abuse of Interpol systems.
A New York Times investigation earlier this year found that despite these improvements, the world’s strongmen have found other ways to use information sharing through the policing organization to pursue their critics abroad. A surge in the issuance of Blue Notices, requests for information about an individual, have raised concerns about potential abuse.
Interpol members will descend on Glasgow, Scotland, on Nov. 4 for the body’s 92nd General Assembly, where its governing body will vote to endorse Valdecy Urquiza from Brazil as its next secretary-general.
Let’s Get Personnel
Less than two weeks to go until the U.S. election, there’s a lot of resume-polishing going on inside the Beltway, but not a whole lot of job hopping.
We’ll be keeping close tabs on who is gunning for the top national security jobs in the next administration. Are you in line for a promotion or know someone who is? Drop me a line: [email protected]
On the Button
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Georgia on Moscow’s mind. Russian intelligence succeeded in penetrating a swath of government ministries and major companies in the country of Georgia, in a sweeping multiyear hacking campaign, Bloomberg reports this week. The country’s Foreign and Finance Ministries as well as its central bank were among those reportedly compromised, with Moscow’s hackers also gaining access to a state-owned energy grid company and the country’s Central Election Commission. The revelations come just days before Georgians go to the polls on Saturday in high-stakes parliamentary elections that many see as a referendum on the country’s future, Brawley Benson reports for FP.
More meddling to come. U.S. adversaries could continue to try to fuel tensions and undermine faith in the U.S. electoral system even after Americans go to the polls on Nov. 5, according to a newly declassified intelligence memo released on Tuesday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Moscow and Iran may be willing to consider moves that could foment violence, the document noted, adding that Tehran’s efforts to assassinate former U.S. President Donald Trump are likely to persist past election day, Amy reports.
Here Comes North Korea. U.S. officials said for the first time on Wednesday that they had seen evidence that North Korea has dispatched 3,000 troops to Russia—troops that could potentially be deployed to Ukraine. “There is evidence that there are DPRK troops in Russia,” U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters. “It’s an embarrassing comedown for Moscow, bad news for Ukraine, and a very scary development for South Korea and the rest of the world,” FP’s Keith Johnson explains.
AI for national security. The Biden administration on Thursday published the first U.S. national security memorandum on artificial intelligence, laying out a plan for the United States to further its lead in the technology’s development and make AI an integral national security tool in a way that protects democratic values. “A failure to take advantage of this leadership and adopt this technology, we worry, could put us at risk of a strategic surprise by China,” a senior administration official told reporters.
China remains top of mind for the administration as it enters its final months. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan defended export controls and tariffs in a speech at the Brookings Institution on Wednesday, two days after the announcement of a new proposed rule that curbs U.S. data transfers to China and other adversaries. More restrictions on U.S. investment in Chinese AI could come as soon as next week. —Rishi Iyengar
Snapshot
A boy plays with a balloon at a makeshift camp in Martyrs’ Square in Beirut, Lebanon, where people are sheltering after being displaced by the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, on Oct. 14.Carl Court/Getty Images
Put on Your Radar
Saturday, Oct. 26: Georgia holds parliamentary elections.
Sunday, Oct. 27: Japan holds a snap general election.
Wednesday, Oct. 30: Botswana holds a general election.
Quote of the Week
“Hitler did some good things.”
—Former U.S. President Donald Trump, according to his longest-serving chief of staff, John Kelly. The former president spoke positively about Hitler on more than one occasion, Kelly told the New York Times this week.
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What We’re Reading
“Decoding The Wagner Group Shadow Network,” by the Future Frontlines initiative at New America, is a new one-stop shop for everything you ever wanted to know about Russia’s Wagner mercenary group—from its command structure, to its back office networks, to its former chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s meetings with senior Russian officials. Pour yourself a coffee and dive in.