Serbia and Italy share third place on the list of European countries in terms of criminal trends in the period from 2021 to 2023, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) has said.
In Europe, only Russia and Ukraine are ahead of Serbia and Italy, as far as criminal trends are concerned. Montenegro is in 5th place, Bosnia and Herzegovina is in 7th place, Albania is in 15th place and Croatia is in 16th place. Among the European countries, the least number of criminal offences was registered in Finland, Luxembourg, Monaco and Liechtenstein.
The report points out that the criminal “markets” with the greatest growth in Europe are human trafficking, synthetic drug trade, arms trade and cocaine trade. Human trafficking has expanded in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of conflict and instability in Afghanistan and the Middle East and has also increased in Northern Europe.
The war in Ukraine has caused the largest migration of refugees in Europe since World War II, with around 7.8 million registered Ukrainian refugees as of November 2022. The chaotic humanitarian operations in the first few months of the conflict made Ukrainians potentially victims of human traffickers and smugglers, although evidence of widespread smuggling of Ukrainians is very limited.
Conscription in Russia and Ukraine has created an unprecedented wave of migration to border countries, including Moldova, Romania, Poland and Hungary. Smugglers of other goods, such as alcohol and tobacco, took advantage of the demand for human trafficking and switched to smuggling recruits and people with no prior criminal experience.
Central and Eastern Europe recorded the largest increase in the trade in synthetic drugs on the continent. The growth of the synthetic drugs market has been fueled by demand from the front lines of the Ukrainian front, according to the report.
The report is available here – https://ocindex.net/ .
(Vreme, 27.09.2023)
https://www.vreme.com/vesti/srbija-je-treca-u-evropi-u-kriminalnim-trendovima/