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that though theoretically recognized, effective implementation of mitigation strategies is lacking.
In large part this is because environmental crime (and criminals) must be identified, mitigation
strategies planned and then given priority for implementation. And this requires that we have
capable leaders and staff willing to respond to the problem.
Until quite recently, the United Nations balked at the very idea of developing intelligence – an
absolute necessity to identify and mitigate organized crime and its impact upon the peacekeeping
mandate. Even when intelligence was quite necessary to protect its own peacekeepers, the UN
still preferred to talk in terms of information sharing. In recent years, this has changed. The
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Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GITOC) and others have encouraged
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the UN to respond to organized crime.
One of the most salient issues seemed to be the manner in which crime has been approached by
the mission. Though crime is well-recognized as a threat to the mission environment, it is often
marginalized as other, more pressing matters take precedence. Consequently, though progress is
being made in recognizing the serious impact of transnational organized crime on the ability of a
peacekeeping mission to execute its mandate:
Identification and development of mitigation strategies related to transnational
organized crime, when considered in mission planning, is usually treated
separately from corruption and terrorism, but in reality the three are
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intertwined, and must be treated as such in complex mission planning.
In 2015, the US Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) recognized the
capability gap in collecting relevant intelligence to identify organized crime, including
environmental crime, at the mission level and hired a contractor well-versed in developing
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intelligence to explore the issue. The researcher found that :
1) Intelligence and criminal analysts are rarely trained or equipment to recognize
transnational organized crime or the corruption that enables it;
2) Mitigation strategies are often developed at the policy level without a full picture of
the operational environment;
3) Analysts lack formal training and often do not apply analytic tools or techniques to
identifying, analyzing, or investigating transnational organized crime networks;
4) Analysts and educators tend to divide TOCs and terrorists groups based on motive
(greed vs. ideology) but if they are both, they are identified as terrorists for mitigation;
5) There is little interest in identifying corrupt officials and those that facilitate TOC
unless there is a terrorist connection.
Another key conclusion of the report is that “the flow of organized crime (guns, drugs, people,
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ivory, etc.) is transnational; however, the control of the flow is local.” This is an area where
the UN Police can help to identify Transnational Organized Crime (TOC). In 2016, UN Assistant
Secretary General (ASG) for Rule of Law and Security Institutions (OROLSI) Dmitry Titov,
while visiting the Italian Center of Excellence for Stability Policing Units (CoESPU), observed
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that Formed Policing Units (FPU) are capable of identifying TOC and reporting what they find.

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