Experts argue that South Africa’s role in the international drug trade is growing and that the country is facing an organised crime crisis that can no longer be ignored.
South Africa has landed among the world’s top organised crime hotspots, not because of the drugs alone, but because the police and criminal justice officials meant to stop them have allegedly become part of the trade.
According to experts and testimony before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, alleged pervasive criminal influence within law-enforcement and justice institutions is systematically crippling the state’s capacity to dismantle transnational trafficking networks.
The country’s ranking among the top 10 countries globally for organised crime reflects far more than its role as a strategic drug-transit hub for markets across the Indian Ocean and Europe.
Dr Mark Shaw, director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), informed the commission last week that South Africa ranks in the top 5% of all nations on GI-TOC’s Organised Crime Index for criminal markets and actors – placing it alongside high-risk jurisdictions such as Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Ecuador, Nigeria, and Türkiye.
