United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 'An Assessment of Transnational Organized Crime in Central Asia'. New York: United Nations Press, 2006.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. An Assessment of Transnational Organized Crime in Central Asia. New York: United Nations Press, 2006.

• Paper provides a useful summary of definitions of "organized crime" in international, Post-Soviet, and Central Asian contexts.
• Report has an unlying weakness to refer to "clan patterns" as the basis for organized crime or corruption, in the process otherizing Central Asians and making organized crime seem like a cultural, rather than political, issue.
• Also ignores Central Asian agency and provides an imperialist and demeaning history of the region. Hopefully the rest of the data will be uninfluenced by the casual racism of the report.
• As of 2006, Uzbekistan did not have a system for recording court proceeding or judicial opinion, which majorly undermined anti-corruption efforts. This issue has since been resolved (13).
• The collapse of social security following the disbandment of the USSR led to instability and economic disenfranchisement which left populations particularly vulnerable to organized crime (15). Continued rates of unemployment, underemployment, and low incomes increase vulnerability to organized crime (17).
• Most members of criminal organizations are young men, leading to increased danger in Central Asia where over 50% of the population is under the age of 30 and thus more likely to become involved in organized crime (18). These are especially susceptible to peer pressure and the 'cool' image that drug dealers have in rural Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic (20).
• Small arms are extremely common in Central Asia, esp. Tajikistan and Afghanistan. There are over 1 million in circulation, mostly from Soviet stockpiles sold off after the collapse of the USSR (21).
• Convenient table of relevant treaties signed and ratified by each Central Asian republic is available (25).
• Full list of criminal groups in Tajikistan -- and then falsely assumed to be similarly true for all Central Asian states -- is available on pages 27 to 30.
• Criminal organizations in Central Asia will often cooperate with one another on certain issues. They also dissolve into fueds, however, with parties often using state connections to inflict legal or criminal penalties on the rival criminal organization (31).
• The routes and locations favoured by drug traffickers often overlap with those used by armed groups and radical islamists, who receive a proportion of funding from the drug trade. This is especially true for the Taliban and associated groups (34).
• Routes through Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz Republic, and the Uzbekistani enclaves in the Ferg'ona Valley are the most active for drug traffickers. Tajikistan faces the greatest vulnerability, as drug smuggling may account for 30% of its GDP as of 2002 (34).
• The Central Asian republics have been both a source and transit county for trafficking in persons. The levels of poverty and unemployment lead many to take risky jobs and connections in Russia for the former USSR. Additionally, the ease of movement between republics of the CIS means that many South Asian migrants seek to acquire fabricated Tajikistani or Kyrgyz citizenship to then travel to Russian, Belarus, or Ukraine for work (38).
• All these groups are also at great risk of human trafficking and exploitation (40). Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan would be the exceptions because of the difficulty associated with acquiring exit visas.
• Front companies are a common way of laundering money from illegal enterprises in Central Asia. These companies are poorly regulated anyway and often they either do not exist or are a small business in comparison to the criminal enterprise (45).
• As opposed to many other countries, banks are not an active part of money laundering outside of Kazakhstan. Generally banking systems are too underdeveloped in these countries to provide the associated services for hiding illicit funds (46).
• Government officials at all levels of government are potentially involved with organized crime. Prominent public figures are also often corrupt and use this corruption to further patronage networks to retain power (50).
• Border guards are particularly liable to be corrupt due to their position, remoteness, and poor pay. They often demand bribes, either in cash or goods being trafficked. Lack of training also undermines effectiveness (52).
• Investigations of corruption among powerful officials results in censorship or imprisonment. Media criticism is generally muted by self-censorship on the chance that accusing the wrong official could result in legal penalties or violence (52).
• Smuggling in Uzbekistan is unlike to be a large operation. Most smuggling in Uzbekistan is in non-illegal goods such as produce or consumer items and often is a family operation tolerated by the community and the local mahalla. It is extremely common on the borders with Tajikistan (presumably only Xujand viloyat) and Turkmenistan (54).
• Poor witness protection programs and the frequency of entrenched criminal interests among the ruling elites contribute to a situation of vulnerability and insecurity for those fighting against corruption (55).