- Kenya’s criminal networks are dominated by smaller groups that engage in a variety of illegal activities and experience a high level of corruption.
- Kenya's status of organized criminality score increased from 6.95 in 2021 to 7.02 in 2022.
Image: The Star
Kenya has been ranked position 16 out of 193 countries in the world for organized crime, according to the 2023 Global Organized Crime Index.
According to the survey conducted by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime titled “Global Organised Crime Index- A fractured World”, which was released on Wednesday, Kenya came fourth out of the 54 African countries.
Kenya tops the nine countries in East Africa.
The report indicated that “Kenya’s criminal networks are dominated by smaller groups that engage in a variety of illegal activities, including drug trafficking, human trafficking, human smuggling, commodity smuggling, cattle rustling, extortion, burglary, robbery, money laundering, executions, and assassinations.”
Additionally, it cited that Kenya experiences a high level of corruption among government officials and executive officeholders, which leads to financial fraud, embezzlement, and misuse of funds among others.
The methodology used by the Global Organized Crime Index model was an alternative, commodity-driven assessment framework to measure illicit markets through a combination of scope and scale, value, and impact of 15 criminal markets.
Also, it used the structure and influence of five criminal actor types, and the existence and capacity of countries to be resilient to organized crime, measured across 12 resilience building blocks.
According to the report, the status of organized criminality in Kenya increased by 0.07 points, from 6.95 in 2021 to 7.02 in 2022.
Kenya's orgarnised crimes resilience score improved by 0.13 to 5.33 in 2022 from the 5.21 score in 2021, making it the most resilient country in East Africa.
In Africa, the Democratic Republic Of Congo tops with 7.35, Nigeria came second with 7.28 and South Africa third with 7.18.
Globally, Myanmar has the highest criminality score of 8.15, followed by Colombia with 7.75 and Mexico with 7.57.
The global criminality score is 5.03 composed of the global criminal markets score of 4.48 and the global criminal actors score of 5.19.
The global resilience to organised crimes score is 4.81.
The report noted that “levels of criminality are increasing worldwide while resilience measures are falling short of meeting the threat.”
Additionally, the report revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the rise of cyber-dependent crime in Kenya, which has more than doubled since 2021.
In addition, Kenya’s digital transformation has led to an increase in cyber-dependent crimes such as data breaches and ransomware.
Healthcare systems, utility providers, public infrastructure, insurance firms, schools, government organizations, and financial institutions are among the primary targets of cybercriminals.