How to measure organized crime?
A series of 13 discussion papers, one for each illicit market considered during the development of the Index.
Read more on globalinitiative.netCriminal markets
3.30
An assessment of the value, prevalence and non-monetary impacts of a specific crime type.
Human trafficking
3.50
Illicit activity involving coercion, deception, abduction or fraud for the purpose of exploitation, regardless of the victim’s consent.
Human smuggling
1.00
Activities by an organized crime group involving the illegal entry, transit or residence of migrants for a financial or material benefit.
Arms trafficking
5.00
The sale, acquisition, movement, and diversion of arms, their parts and ammunition from legal to illegal commerce and/or across borders.
Flora crimes
1.00
The illicit trade and possession of species covered by CITES convention, and other species protected under national law.
Fauna crimes
3.50
The poaching, illicit trade in and possession of species covered by CITES and other species protected by national law. Includes IUU fishing.
Non-renewable resource crimes
2.00
The illicit extraction, smuggling, mingling, bunkering or mining of natural resources and the illicit trade of such commodities.
Heroin trade
1.50
The production, distribution and sale of heroin. Consumption of the drug is considered in determining the reach of the criminal market.
Cocaine trade
4.00
The production, distribution and sale of cocaine and its derivatives. Consumption is considered in determining the reach of the market.
Cannabis trade
5.00
The illicit cultivation, distribution and sale of cannabis oil, resin, herb or leaves. Consumption is used to determine the market's reach.
Synthetic drug trade
6.50
The production, distribution and sale of synthetic drugs. Consumption is considered in determining the reach of the market.
Criminal actors
4.25
An assessment of the impact and influence of a specific criminal actor type on society.
Mafia-style groups
1.00
Clearly defined organized crime groups that usually have a known name, defined leadership, territorial control and identifiable membership.
Criminal networks
4.50
Loose networks of criminal associates engaging in criminal activities who fail to meet the defining characteristics of mafia-style groups.
State-embedded actors
5.00
Criminal actors that are embedded in, and act from within, the state’s apparatus.
Foreign actors
6.50
State and/or non-state criminal actors operating outside their home country. Includes foreign nationals and diaspora groups.
Political leadership and governance
5.00
The State's role in responding to organized crime and its effectiveness. Strong political leadership/governance suggests higher resilience.
Government transparency and accountability
5.50
The degree to which states have put oversight mechanisms in place to ensure against state collusion in illicit activities.
International cooperation
6.50
A country's supranational structures and processes of interaction, policy making and concrete implementation to respond to organized crime.
National policies and laws
6.00
A state's legal action and structures put in place to respond to organized crime.
Judicial system and detention
4.00
Refers to a state’s judiciary’s power to effectively and independently enforce judgments on organized crime-related cases.
Law enforcement
5.00
The state’s ability to investigate, gather intelligence, protect and enforce adherence to its rules and procedures against organized crime.
Territorial integrity
5.50
The degree to which states are able to control their physical and cyber territory and infrastructure against organized criminal activities.
Anti-money laundering
5.00
A state’s ability to implement measures to combat money laundering and other related threats to the integrity of its financial system.
Economic regulatory capacity
5.00
The ability to control/manage the economy and regulate transactions (national and international) for trade to thrive within the rule of law.
Victim and witness support
5.00
Assistance provided to victims of various forms of organized crime, including initiatives such as witness protection programs.
Prevention
4.00
Refers to the existence of strategies, measures, resource allocation, programmes and processes that are aimed to inhibit organized crime.
Non-state actors
6.00
The degree non-state actors are allowed to engage in OC responses and their roles in supporting State efforts/ as watchdogs to governments.
Political leadership and governance
5.00
The State's role in responding to organized crime and its effectiveness. Strong political leadership/governance suggests higher resilience.
Government transparency and accountability
5.50
The degree to which states have put oversight mechanisms in place to ensure against state collusion in illicit activities.
International cooperation
6.50
A country's supranational structures and processes of interaction, policy making and concrete implementation to respond to organized crime.
National policies and laws
6.00
A state's legal action and structures put in place to respond to organized crime.
Judicial system and detention
4.00
Refers to a state’s judiciary’s power to effectively and independently enforce judgments on organized crime-related cases.
Law enforcement
5.00
The state’s ability to investigate, gather intelligence, protect and enforce adherence to its rules and procedures against organized crime.
Territorial integrity
5.50
The degree to which states are able to control their physical and cyber territory and infrastructure against organized criminal activities.
Anti-money laundering
5.00
A state’s ability to implement measures to combat money laundering and other related threats to the integrity of its financial system.
Economic regulatory capacity
5.00
The ability to control/manage the economy and regulate transactions (national and international) for trade to thrive within the rule of law.
Victim and witness support
5.00
Assistance provided to victims of various forms of organized crime, including initiatives such as witness protection programs.
Prevention
4.00
Refers to the existence of strategies, measures, resource allocation, programmes and processes that are aimed to inhibit organized crime.
Non-state actors
6.00
The degree non-state actors are allowed to engage in OC responses and their roles in supporting State efforts/ as watchdogs to governments.
Tonga plays a role as a destination and source country for the trafficking of human beings. While Tongan men tend to be trafficked to countries like Australia and New Zealand for the purposes of forced labour, Tongan women and children are susceptible to being victimized and exploited in domestic servitude and sexual exploitation, both locally and abroad. With regard to the trafficking of foreign nationals in Tonga, East Asian women, primarily Chinese nationals, have been trafficked to Tonga for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Meanwhile, there is little evidence that smuggling of migrants to or from Tonga is a major issue.
Tonga is considered a transit country for arms trafficking, with an ever-increasing volume of firearms passing through it. With its traditional linkage to the US, in particular Hawaii, shipments of firearms into and through Tonga often originate in the US. To a lesser extent, illicit arms shipments also originate in China and Latin American ports. Arms trafficking has potential links with drug trafficking operations, as there have been cases in which firearms and illegal ammunition have been transported in the same shipments.
There are concerns that an increasing frequency of arms trafficking in Tonga, and the related corruption payments, will impact community safety. Customs officials and governmental inspection services have been identified as receiving payments to facilitate the arms trade, with bribes for safe entry into the country reaching the higher echelons of the authorities.
Environmental crimes in Tonga are of a limited scale and scope. Tonga has little forest over its 170 islands and, as such, illicit logging is unlikely. Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest non-renewable resource crimes occur in the country. Conversely, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is substantial in Tonga’s territorial waters, although IUU fishing activities have not been recorded and addressed as extensively as in the other islands.
The criminal market for drugs continues to be the most consolidated and pervasive in Tonga, a country that serves as a transit point for cocaine and methamphetamines bound for Australia and New Zealand. Methamphetamines, known in Tonga as ‘tutu’, are arguably the largest drug market in the country and a number of large-scale seizures in recent years indicate that substantial amounts of methamphetamine pass through it. The criminal market for cocaine is also quite significant, and Tonga, as is the case with a number of other Pacific island countries, is situated along the Pacific cocaine trafficking route. The route’s significance and the volume of cocaine transiting through Tonga is believed to have increased since 2014. This can be attributed to the growth of the consumption of cocaine in Australia and New Zealand, which has been driving the trade in the region.
With this drugs transit trade through Tonga, there has been increasing domestic consumption of narcotics, and as a result, it is becoming a small-scale destination market in its own right. Cases have been reported of seized shipments of methamphetamine destined for Tonga, and reports of a growing methamphetamine trade in Nuku’alofa have emerged. The presence of some small-scale, rudimentary laboratories producing methamphetamines of inferior quality has also been documented.
In addition to the criminal markets for synthetic drugs and cocaine, there is evidence of a substantial consumer base for cannabis in Tonga. Domestic use of the drug has increased in recent years. This demand is partly fed by cannabis being brought into the country from the US and partly by an allegedly growing domestic production on remote Tongan islands. Lastly, there is only limited evidence of demand for heroin in Tonga, but the dynamics of the small-scale market remain obscure.
*This indicator was first included in the 2023 iteration of the tool
*This indicator was first included in the 2023 iteration of the tool
The main types of criminal actors in Tonga appear to be foreign organized criminal groups. Nationals from China have been implicated in human trafficking, while drug trafficking organizations in North and South America, as well as Eastern Asia, are responsible for trafficking drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamines into and through Tonga.
While foreign criminal actors tend to dominate many criminal markets, they often interact with Tongan criminal networks. In some cases, Tongan criminal network members who have been deported from other countries maintain the connections they established abroad and continue to engage in criminality in their home country. Although there is little evidence to suggest state-embedded actors are directly involved in the running of any criminal market, there have been a number of reported cases of corruption within the state apparatus, with allegations of drug trafficking, fraud, bribery and money laundering levelled at the mid and high levels of state structures.
Commitment to combating organized crime has varied between Tongan administrations, with the main project of the current prime minister, Pohiva Tu'i'onetoa, being to unify a politically divided nation. However, anti-organized crime measures are generally reactive across pacific island states, rather than proactive, driven from the outside. Corruption is a significant issue in Tonga and the country’s integrity systems are not adequately resourced safeguards against it.
The national legal framework is assessed as adequate to respond to current organized crime threats and includes acts on countering transnational organized crime, arms trafficking and IUU fishing. Tonga has signed and ratified all the relevant treaties on organized crime and corruption, except the three accompanying protocols to the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. Tonga cooperates with other countries via an INTERPOL National Central Bureau as well as through regional structures, including the Pacific Islands Forum, the Pacific Transnational Crime Network, the Pacific Transnational Crime Coordination Centre and the Pacific Islands Chiefs of Police that work to combat illicit economies and serious organized crime in the pacific region. Finally, the country is a beneficiary of substantial international assistance and law enforcement capacity-building measures.
While there remains significant scope for improvement, law enforcement in Tonga is fairly effective. A national drug enforcement task force has been established and the country engages in substantial regional cooperation on law enforcement matters, including collaboration with the Transnational Serious and Organized Crime Pacific Taskforce. Although there have been allegations of corruption made against the Tongan police in past years, independent civilian oversight over the police is exercised by the national ombudsman.
One of the biggest current criminal justice concerns in Tonga is the relatively large number of Tongan nationals who are deported to the country. The lack of notification of deportations from other countries has overwhelmed the resources Tonga has allocated to deportees, which has sparked concerns that many deportees could become re-offenders in Tonga. Indeed, prisons have been identified as hotbeds for the drug trade, specifically methamphetamines. Another concern is the difficulty of monitoring the country’s vast territory around remote islands; however, evidence suggests that Tonga deals with these challenges reasonably well.
In addition to tourism and agriculture, remittances and foreign aid are important sources of income for Tonga. Although significant challenges persist with regard to the ease of doing business, largely owing to excessive bureaucracy and weak legal protections, the country’s economy is relatively open, and the government has expressed a desire to continue to develop the private sector. Although Tonga has been identified as vulnerable to money laundering, in particular with regard to the laundering of proceeds derived from the drug trade, the country’s anti-money laundering framework is relatively robust and the volume of illicit financial flows in the country is not sizeable.
The capacity of Tongan police to assist victims of crime is limited. The government has some victim support services specifically focused on domestic violence survivors, but, apart from that, there are relatively few protection programmes. With regard to crime prevention, the Tonga Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship initiative has been set up to support young people starting their own businesses and prevent them from turning to crime in search of a livelihood.
Independent media outlets play a critical role in Tongan society but have come under increasing pressure in recent years. The government has passed laws limiting certain forms of online content and the Tonga Broadcasting Commission has suspended critical journalists for inciting distrust in the government.
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The criminal markets score is represented by the pyramid base size and the criminal actors score is represented by the pyramid height, on a scale ranging from 1 to 10. The resilience score is represented by the panel height, which can be identified by the side of the panel.
A series of 13 discussion papers, one for each illicit market considered during the development of the Index.
Read more on globalinitiative.net
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This report was funded in part by a grant from the United States Department of State.
ENACT is funded by the European Union and implemented by the Institute for Security Studies and INTERPOL, in affiliation with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
The opinions, findings and conclusions stated herein are those of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Department of State.