UN Members Agree to Continue Drug War

UN member states last week agreed to continue their 10-year-old “war on drugs,” to reduce or eliminate the flow of heroin, cocaine and cannabis. Critics, though, point out that international drug policies have helped to spread HIV and to contribute to the rise of international organized crime.

Last week’s conference in Vienna was to review the results of the war on drugs launched by a UN General Assembly session in 1998, and to plan policies for the next decade. Though the UN itself admitted that it was losing the war on drugs, the conference declared it would continue the same law-enforcement-based policies.

Criticism came from all corners even before the declaration. “Worse than bankrupt,” were words in a headline over a scathing criticism that offered alternatives, written by the Open Society Institute’s global drug policy head. A European Commission report last week said the UN’s drug control policies had failed.

Referring to the UN's existing strategy, the authors declared that they had found "no evidence that the global drug problem was reduced". They wrote: "Broadly speaking, the situation has improved a little in some of the richer countries while for others it worsened, and for some it worsened sharply and substantially, among them a few large developing or transitional countries."

The policy had merely shifted the problem geographically, they said. "Production and trafficking controls only redistributed activities. Enforcement against local markets failed in most countries."

Enforcement policies also hamper efforts to contain the spread of HIV, said the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. By ignoring what policy wonks call “harm reduction” – helping addicts shoot up more safely with needle exchanges, for example – this policy will further doom addicts to contracting HIV, activists say. The conference itself showed the rift between countries that endorse harm reduction and those that oppose it, reported Reuters.

German Ambassador Ruediger Luedeking said harm-reduction was not meant to replace drug control efforts, rather curb health risks of drug abuse.

Foes of such programs, including the United States, Russia, China, Japan and Italy, said they legitimize drug use and undermine law enforcement and public morality.

And organized crime has grown along with the $300 billion annual illegal drugs business. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which ran the conference, acknowledged as much in its own report last week. The BBC reports:

The head of UNODC, Antonio Maria Costa, acknowledged that drug control policies had, as an unintended consequence, led the growth of organized crime.

Mr Costa said the focus of discussions would be on organised crime and the fact that much of it generated by the narcotics control regime.

"The important answer I am expecting from member states is what are they planning to do to control mafia and thus to control crime, not only because of the violent dimension, but also because organised crime is starting to undermine a number of smaller countries," he said.

Banks Ease Secrecy

Three of Europe’s famed bank-secrecy havens – Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Andorra – said last week that they would ease banking secrecy by cooperating with investigators in certain cases of tax evasion. The New York Times tells us why it matters:

Together the moves deal the biggest blow yet to European traditions of banking secrecy and come amid a global crackdown on tax evasion. The three governments agreed to cooperate with authorities in the United States and elsewhere in investigating tax evasion and, under certain circumstances, to turn over data on accounts at banks headquartered within their jurisdictions.

"The adoption of the O.E.C.D standards is a significant signal that bank secrecy as it has existed for generations is coming to an end," said Scott D. Michel, a tax lawyer at Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, D.C.

The 30-nation OECD – Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – had placed all three countries on its list of uncooperative tax havens. All three countries last week agreed to use the OECD definition of tax evasion to get themselves off the blacklist.

Poland: Mob Leader Arrested

Police last week arrested 10 alleged members of the Pruszkow mafia gang, including one of the leaders, Piotr S., also known as “Daddy.” The men have been charged with drug trafficking and involvement in an organized criminal group.

The Pruszkow mob was Poland’s premiere organized crime group in the 1990s, running car and art theft, money laundering, extortion and prostitution rackets. Its power has been diluted since the late 1990s, but police are still arresting alleged members.

Serbia: Forgers, Launderers Arrested

Serbian police on Monday arrested 10 members of an alleged criminal group suspected of embezzling €1.5 million, reported radio-television B92. Police raided spots in the capital, Belgrade, the northern town of Novi Sad and the south-of-Belgrade town of Jagodina to arrest the perpetrators. Police said those arrested were also suspected of abuse of office, forging documents and money laundering from 2007 to 2008, but released no names and gave no further details.

Medvedev: Corruption Cases Increase in ‘08

The number of corruption investigations into Russian public officials increased in 2008, said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last weekend.

“Over the past year there have been 40,000 criminal cases brought against those who violate state rules while in public service or local government,” Medvedev said in an interview posted on the Kremlin Web site. “I am not even commenting on whether this is a big number or a small one, although it is more than in 2007.” The president said 12,000 of the cases involved bribery.

Medvedev vowed to crack down on corruption when he was inaugurated president last year. He signed a decree last week creating a five-year anti-corruption program, but said that implementing the program will be the hard part.

Sicily: Prosecutor Shortage is Emergency

Sicily faces an enormous shortage of prosecutors willing to work on the island, creating an equally enormous obstacle in fighting organized crime there, Italy’s National Judicial Association said last week.

After just four prosecutors applied for 55 advertised jobs, the association said it was a “very serious emergency” in Sicily.

Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper, citing unofficial figures, said there were only four applicants for 55 public prosecutors' jobs in Sicily, all of whom were already working on theisland.

In recent years, Italy has weakened the Sicilian Mafia -- known as Cosa Nostra -- with the arrests of several high-profile mobsters, including "boss of bosses" Bernardo Provenzano in 2006 and his heir apparent Salvatore Lo Piccolo in2007.

But the fight against organised crime on the island still suffers from a lack of resources andmanpower.

Aside from the threat of violence, the association said magistrates were deterred by poor pay and working conditions, the isolation of many rural offices and rules preventing newly-hired prosecutors fromapplying.

Dutch Arrest Pizza Murder Suspect

In better news, Dutch police last week arrested the main suspect in the Duisberg pizza parlor murders, in which six Italian men were killed in a gangland-style shooting in Germany in 2007. Giovanni Strangio, 30, is an alleged boss of a Calabrian mafia clan that has been in a feud with another clan since 1991. He’s accused of ordering the Duisberg murders to avenge the killing of his cousin in 2006. Strangio’s arrest outside Amsterdam was coordinated by Dutch, German and Italian police, who used phone taps and surveillance to find both Strangio and his fugitive brother-in-law Guiseppe Nirta. More details of how Strangio kept a low profile in Amsterdam and how the police found him – his three sisters came to visit from Italy – can be found here.

Israel: Progress Against Crime Families

Israel’s police announced last week that they have made significant progress against Israel’s 16 crime families, reports Ha’aretz.

Since deciding to make organized crime a priority in January 2006 and establishing an elite police unit – Lahav 443 – to take down the five biggest families, police said the organizations have suffered substantial losses: Two Abergil brothers are awaiting a court decision on extradition to the United States to face drug trafficking charges, and the heads of two other families are in jail awaiting trial.