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In June 2020, EncroChat users received a flurry of panicked messages from the company claiming its encrypted network had been hacked by "government entities". What unravelled was one of the biggest hacks by law enforcement in history and many of its users are alleged organized criminals in Europe.The hack revealed a litany of criminal behaviour - drug deals and shipments, money laundering and arms trafficking, corrupt police officers, a planning of a murder and even the discovery of a torture chamber, hidden within a shipping container.This podcast was based on the reporting of Joseph Cox at Motherboard, VICE News.Guests:Joseph Cox, Senior Staff Writer at Motherboard, VICE News.Jake Moore, Cyber Security Specialist at ESET.Edouard Klein, Intelligence-Driven Cybersecurity, Sekoia.frTuesday Reitano, Deputy Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.Reading:How Police Secretly Took Over a Global Phone Network for Organized Crime, MotherboardEncrochat Investigation Finds Corrupt Cops Leaking Information to Criminals, MotherboardEncrypted Phone Network Says It's Shutting Down After Police Hack, MotherboardEuropol, Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment (iOCTA) 2020 Presenter: Jack Meegan-VickersGlobal Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

With more people working from home than ever before due to the pandemic,. But another parallel pandemic is taking place, that of online child sexual abuse material which has taken a sharp rise around the world.In this podcast, we’re discussing Child Online Sexual Abuse (CSAM), COVID and technology.Presenter(s): Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo and Jack Meegan-Vickers.Speakers:Fernando Ruiz, Head of Operations at the European Cybercrime Centre, set up by Europol to co-ordinate crossborder investigations into cybercrime.Amela Efendic is the director of the European Resource Centre for the Prevention of Trafficking and head of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Office for the International Forum for Solidarity-Emmaus.Judie Kaberia is a fellow of the 2020 Resilience Fund of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.GI Research Paper: Transformative Technologies: How digital is changing the landscape of organized crime.Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

In this podcast, Jack is looking at the latest Global Initative Against Transnational Organized Crime report called 'Under the Shadow: Illicit Economies in Iran', which looks at how the illicit economy has become intertwined within the licit economy of the Iranian State.SpeakersAlexander Soderholm, an international drug policy field researcher with a focus on Iran and the Middle East.Katherine Bauer, a Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former US Treasury official.Naysan Rafati, the Senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis GroupSign up to the AssassinationWitness campaign here.

In the Northern Triangle countries of Central America - Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, extortion is so pervasive that it has been called “A way of life”.The growth in extortion in the region was defined by the expansion of street gangs MS13 and Barrio 18. They have a stranglehold on the countries in which they operate, extorting rich and poor and even international corporations.The revenue from extortion has provided gangs in the region with a solid economic operating base, and at the same time allowed them to diversify into other criminal enterprises – they are now transnational organized criminal groups.Presenter: Jack Meegan-VickersSpeakers:1.      Guillermo Vazquez del Mercado Almada, Senior Analyst, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime2.      Evelyn Espinosa, Research Adviser at Diálogos3.      Pamela Ruiz, Consultant at the Coalition for Resilience Project and member of the GI Network of Experts.4.      Professor Lucia Dammert, University of Santiago, Chile and member of the GI Network of Experts.GI Extortion ProjectPaper: A Criminal Culture: Extortion in Central AmericaOther content available at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime website.

Transnational Tentacles: Global Hotspots of Balkan Organized Crime.The Western Balkans is well understood now as an important transit point for the smuggling of drugs, arms and people. But what has been less understood is how over the past few decades, criminal groups within the Western Balkans region and the global diaspora have carved out a place within the very highest echelons of the criminal world.Paper: Transnational Tentacles: Global Hotspots of Balkan Organized Crime.Guests:Walter Kemp, Senior Fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized CrimeFatjona Mejdini, Field Network Coordinator, Balkans at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.Susana Morán, investigative journalist in Ecuador specialising in organized crimeMandy Wiener, journalist, broadcaster and author of Killing Kebble: An Underworld Exposed

People and Forests at Risk: Organized Crime, trafficking in persons and deforestation in Chihuahua, Mexico.The highland ranges of the Sierra Madre are cool and temperate forests – with several species of Oak, conifers and a number of pines, and logging is permitted here. But excessive legal and illegal logging is contributing to rapid deforestation. Organized criminal groups have established their position within the illegal logging trade, with them comes violence, corruption, kidnapping, extortion, displacement of indigenous communities and persecution of environmental and human-rights defenders.Presenters: Livia Wagner and Jack Meegan-VickersGuests: Diana Siller, co-author of the paper and Director of JADE (Environmental Justice and human rights in Mexico)Julia Urrunaga, Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an international NGO who investigate forest and environmental crimes.Sound Effects: Freesfx

How will the ongoing violent Islamist insurgency in the Cabo Delgado region of Northern Mozambique overlap with the organized criminal networks that operate in the area. How has the corruption within the Mozambican state contributed to the growth of the insurgency?Presenter: Lindy MtonganaGuests:Professor Adriano Nuvunga, Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development and a leading civil society activist in MozambiqueSimone Haysom, Senior Analyst, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, researching the role of foreign organised crime groups in Africa.Alastair Nelson, Senior Analyst who Coordinates the GI’s Resilience Fund work in MozambiqueGlobal Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Destruction or Theft? Between 2014 and 2017, the Islamic State group occupied territory in Iraq. At it's height it controlled almost a third of the country and over 4,500 historical sites.Alongside the dramatic pictures of the destruction of artefacts and irreplaceable ancient sites like Nimrud, others have claimed that this destruction was largely carried out to conceal extensive looting of valuable artefacts.Presenters: Laura Adal and Jack Meegan-VickersGuests: Colin P. Clarke, Senior Research Fellow at The Soufan Center and Assistant Teaching Professor at Carnegie Mellon University.Christina Schori Liang, Head of Terrorism and PVE at GCSP.Katie A. Paul, Co-Director of the ATHAR Project