Nigeria ranks sixth globally, second in Africa among nations with organised criminal groups

A report by Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime has ranked Nigeria as the sixth in the world in the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index.

The report, released on Wednesday, also stated that Nigeria continues to face a series of security challenges, corruption and other criminal activities.

The report further showed that the status of organised criminality in Nigeria increased by 0.13 points, scoring 7.28 out of 10 points, making the country the sixth in the world and second highest in Africa behind the Democratic Republic of Congo (7.35) and ahead of South Africa (7.18).

In the last report on Global Organized Crime released in 2021, Nigeria was ranked fifth with a score of 7.14 points.

Myanmar has the highest criminality score (8.15), followed by Colombia (7.75) and Mexico (7.57).

The report further noted that “levels of criminality are increasing worldwide while resilience measures are falling short of meeting the threat..”

The report, in the criminal actors category, showed that Nigeria has 7.20 points with an increase of 0.5 while it scored 8.50 points in the criminal network score.

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The survey also shows an increase in the number of foreign criminal actors active in the country as its score increased by 0.50 in that category.

The country also scored 5.50 points for the presence of mafia-style groups, 7.00 points for private-sector actors and 7.50 points for state-embedded actors.

“For the purpose of the Global Organized Crime Index, organised crime is defined as illegal activities conducted by groups or networks acting in concert, by engaging in violence, corruption or related activities in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or material benefit. Such activities may be carried out both within a country and transnationally.

“Drawing on a more comprehensive dataset and informed by the specialist knowledge of over 400 experts worldwide, the results of the 2023 Index offer a complex picture of the trajectory of organized crime, underscoring the intricacies in measuring this clandestine phenomenon,” the report stated.

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