The Growth of Chinese Organised Crime Around the World
Event Description
With China playing a significant role in many illegal economies, Chinese organised crime groups are expanding rapidly around the world and reshaping organised crime markets. Among the illegal economies in which the Chinese criminal groups are involved are multi-billion-dollar online fraud and illegal gambling, drug trafficking, wildlife trafficking, and human trafficking for forced sex and labour.
In some areas, such as money laundering, they have rapidly achieved top echelons of crime even in regions far beyond Asia. This expansion of Chinese and other organised crime groups is injecting ever larger criminal proceeds into the global financial system, with banking hubs such as Hong Kong, London, and Singapore finding their established anti-money laundering structures overwhelmed by new money laundering methods, such as cryptocurrencies. In money laundering, Chinese syndicates are cooperating with a wide range of criminal groups, including Mexican cartels.
In other domains, such as the expansion of Mexican cartels’ methamphetamine trafficking into the Asia-Pacific region, the two sets of global criminal syndicates are on a collision path. Yet many common assumptions about the nature of Chinese criminal groups are false and policy tools are hampered, including because of the nature of the relationship between Chinese criminal groups and the Chinese government.
Martin Purbrick and Vanda Felbab-Brown will discuss these dynamics and policy issues.
Speakers
-
Dr. Vanda Felbab-BrownDr. Vanda Felbab Brown is a senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. She is also the director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors and of the Fentanyl Epidemic in North America and Global Reach of Synthetic Opioids series and co-director of the Africa Security Initiative.
Vanda is an expert on international and internal conflicts and nontraditional security threats, including insurgency, organized crime, urban violence, and illicit economies. She has conducted fieldwork on these issues in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. A frequent consultant for the U.S. government and commentator in U.S. and international media, Vanda regularly provides congressional testimony on these issues and serves as an expert witness in court cases related to transnational crime and governance. She has also been the recipient of numerous awards in recognition of her scholarly and policy contributions. Vanda received her doctorate in political science from MIT and her bachelor’s in government from Harvard University.
-
Martin PurbrickConsultant, Analyst & Writer
Martin Purbrick is a consultant, analyst and writer focussing on projects relating to a wide variety of areas including illicit economic activities, transnational organised crime, and money laundering.
He produces ‘The Asian Crime Century’, which is a series of articles explaining organised crime and terrorism.
Martin has worked in corporate risk roles with the Hong Kong Jockey Club, McKinsey & Company, and Intel Corporation. Before his private sector roles, Martin joined the Royal Hong Kong Police Force in 1988 and spent eleven years as a Detective Senior Inspector in Special Branch, the Criminal Intelligence Bureau, and Commercial Crime Bureau, dealing mainly with intelligence led investigations into terrorism, organised crime and Triad societies in collaboration with overseas agencies.
Martin is a former Director of the Asia Scotland Institute, is based in Edinburgh, and received his first degree in politics and history from the University of Edinburgh and his MLitt in terrorism studies from the University of St Andrews.
Hourly Schedule
- 12:00 PM - 12:00 PM
- Introductions
- 12:05 PM - 12:15
- Opening Remarks - Vanda Felbab-Brown
- 12:15 PM - 12:25
- Opening Remarks - Martin Purbrick
- 12:25 PM - 12:40 PM
- Open Discussion
- 12:40 PM - 12:55 PM
- Q&A
- 12:55 PM - 13:00 PM
- Closing Remarks