Drugs, fakes, crude oil and region’s part in transnational crime

East African economies now have to contend with an over $1.6 trillion transnational crime business as the countries are considered a transit route for drugs from Asia to European markets.
A new report by US-based Global Financial Integrity, which puts the annual global business of transnational crime at between $1.6 trillion-$2.2 trillion from around $650 billion in 2011, singled out Tanzania and Kenya as transit points for Afghan heroin from Pakistan and Iran to European markets.

Transnational crime — drug trafficking, counterfeiting, illegal logging and fishing, crude oil theft, illegal mining and wildlife trade, human and organ trafficking, cultural property trafficking and small arms and light weapons trafficking — is undermining economies, destroying the environment and jeopardising the health and wellbeing of the public.