KUALA LUMPUR: Maritime crime like piracy, kidnapping for ransoms, fishery violations and smuggling/trafficking have evolved into an organised crime system operated by organised crime syndicates.
Crime is “conducted” as a business operation in the shadow economy against the legitimate economy that we all know. These crime syndicates operate with no boundaries and their multi-billion dollar businesses span national, regional and global arenas. They have a land and sea nexus which can supply to meet the demand for anything that uses the sea as a medium.
The shadow business implicates nations in a number of ways. At a national level, billions of dollars are lost in resources, revenue and payments. The director-general of the Department of Fisheries has previously reported that Malaysia loses RM6 billion to illegal fishing activities.
Gangs that kidnap for ransom charge millions for releasing their prisoners and this risk has raised insurance premiums and thwarted many investors.
Undeclared and under-declared taxable items smuggled into and out of Malaysia have revenue implications. Smuggling of wildlife has depleted many exotic species; in addition, such wildlife may have diseases that can become pandemic.
Responses can cost millions of Ringgit in expensive medication and equipment, valuable human resource and loss of revenue. Trafficking of contrabands like drugs creates health issues as drugs can paralyse a nation. Trafficked persons do not go through health screening and may carry communicable disease like typhoid. Overall, organised crimes, as reported by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in East Asia is worth USD 90 billion.
How does a government address this menace? There are so many government agencies working on separate threats and yet organised crime syndicates seem more organised than enforcement agencies. The irony is that the government is spending billions of Ringgit on enforcement agencies and yet losing billions to these syndicates.
Many arrests have been made and suspects charged but how many have been convicted successfully? How many syndicates have been busted and put out of business? As explained earlier, crime is a business in the shadow economy and if these businesses are disrupted and are loss-making, crime syndicates will find it hard to operate, especially when the proceeds from one business feeds another business.
Perhaps, there is a need to revisit the way enforcement agencies do their work, as well as their methodology in sharing information for successful convictions involving these organised crime syndicates.
Enforcement agencies may be doing the right thing but are they doing things right? The Malaysia Coast Guard, under the Prime Minister’s Department, has reportedly been moved to the Home Ministry. This means land and sea enforcement agencies will be under one ministry.
Since it is believed that many other agencies are facing corruption issues, a holistic approach will be needed to weed the cancer among enforcement agencies. This is imperative as ill-gotten gains from organised crime syndicates can easily penetrate enforcement and even the judiciary.
Thailand and Indonesia have a high interest in safeguarding their maritime resources. To address this, Thailand developed and successfully operates the Thai Maritime Enforcement Coordination Centre. Indonesia has a whole range of coordinated architecture, from the ministerial level to tactical level in the form of Presidential Task Force 155, on illegal fishing.
These two nations do not have a full-fledged coast guard like Malaysia and depend on a number of agencies to better manage their efforts in safeguarding marine resources. Malaysia, on the other hand, was the first in ASEAN to establish a Maritime Enforcement Coordination Centre (MECC), comprising representatives from law enforcement agencies and military staff that report to the National Security Council.
MECC was designed to coordinate the maritime effort against maritime crimes. However, MECC was only coordinating assets to respond to threats rather than addressing maritime crimes holistically. Malaysia later decided to establish the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), now renamed Malaysia Coast Guard (MCG).
However, MECC has not been disbanded and is currently placed within the MCG. Whilst the idea of not disbanding the MECC was welcomed, the composition of representatives from other departments dwindled due to obvious reasons. Malaysia may need to revisit MECC and develop it as an inter-agency information sharing Single Maritime Point of Contact (SMPOC). Political will is required and a political champion is needed to make SMPOC work.
The SMPOC will have a number of offerings if it stands alone and reports to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Firstly, due to a plethora of implications caused by organised crime syndicates, there is a need to be more organised than them. Land and sea enforcement agencies must work together to share information. However, information will not be shared if corruption is not addressed among agencies. A deterrent measure is to be put in place to gradually rid the agencies of the cancer of corruption. Whilst good work is being done by enforcement officers, there are still many ‘dirty uniforms’.
Corruption can be addressed by observing the lifestyles and checking the accounts of enforcement officers through coordinated actions. Officers found to have amassed funds illegally should be dealt with under the Anti- Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001. Their assets should be frozen and confiscated. They should be named and shamed to deter others from doing the same.
Secondly, land and sea enforcement agencies should address jurisdiction gaps and overlapping jurisdiction. This could be done by agency representatives at SMPOC. Inter-agency representatives working together could build capacity and capability and further identify pitfalls/opportunities. They could also conduct post-mortem on case studies and develop operational plans
Thirdly, there could be a lot of logistics savings for the government if agencies can identify synergy in working together towards information led operations. Assets and information systems can be designed to serve the needs of multiple agencies. Every piece of the information jigsaw from agency representatives could be corroborated to build a comprehensive picture. This will enable better focus on information requirement and assessment.
Finally, working together can provide a better approach to enable detection, disruption, destruction and deterrence. Law enforcement agencies may identify the equilibrium needed to enhance working together as a team.
The SMPOC can complement agencies with valuable information for inter-agency calibrated operations. These measures will certainly contribute to improved and successful convictions. The demand and supply chain of organised crime syndicates can be successfully disrupted when enforcement agencies are more organised than the organised crime syndicates. The higher the cost incurred to the shadow economy, the lesser the chance of them doing “business” in Malaysia. – BERNAMA
