Turkey tops global human smuggling, arms trafficking rankings

Migrants found during a police raid targeting human smugglers. (Photo: AA/File)

Click to read the article in Turkish

Turkey ranked 12th in the Global Organized Crime Index 2021, which was published on September 28 by the Global Initiative Against Organized Crime. 

The country's criminality score was 6.89 out of 10, higher than any other country in Europe as well as in Asia except for Iran  (7.10), Afghanistan (7.08) and Iraq (7.05).

The index examines crime in countries and regions in the categories of "criminality," "criminal market," "criminal actors" and "resilience" and their sub-categories.

Human smuggling

With 6.4 points, Turkey ranks 13th worldwide in the criminal market category. As for sub-categories, it scored 7.0 in human trafficking, 9.0 in human smuggling, 4.0 in flora crimes and 3.0 in fauna crimes.

Turkey tops the human smuggling ranking while sharing the first place with Democratic Congo and Iraq in the arms trafficking ranking.

State-embedded criminal actors

In the criminal actors index, Turkey scored 7.38 and ranks 12th. It scored 8.0 in the sub-category of "mafia-style groups," 7.5 in "criminal networks," 9.0 in "state-embedded criminal actors" and 5.0 in "foreign actors."

In the state-embedded actors category, Turkey is second only to Syria, which scored 10 out of 10. Democratic Congo, South Sudan and Afghanistan also scored 9.0 in this category.

High crime-low resilience

Turkey, which is among the 57 countries in the "high crime rate-low resistance" category in the report, ranked 151st among 193 UN member countries in the resilience index.

Turkey's average resilience score is 3.54, and its scores in sub-categories are 6.5 in territorial integrity, 2.0 in anti-money laundering systems, 4.0 in economic regulation capacity, 4.0 in victim and witness support, 3.5 in crime prevention and 3.5 in non-state actors against crime. (VK)