The Continuing Education Unit of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at the University of Baghdad has organized lately a workshop on (The Phenomenon of Organized Crime in Iraq) to discuss the spread of organized crime networks in large parts of the world as well as the activity of organized crime including trafficking in human beings, weapons and drugs, money laundering that is the process of illegally concealing the origin of money obtained from illicit activities and converting it into a legitimate source, in addition to other activities such as armed robbery, smuggling of migrants, wildlife crimes, forgery of documents and currencies, etc. where the main purpose of organized crime is making profits.
The lecturer added that the concept of the organized crime is defined by the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime signed in 2002 as “the set of criminal acts or operations carried out by a group of three or more persons, organized and committed over a continuous and long period of time, in order to reap financial or material benefits, directly or indirectly”. As for Iraq, the spread of violence and insecurity in recent years has exacerbated organized crime, according to the Global Organized Crime Index for 2021, Iraq ranked in the 8th rank globally out of (193) countries included in the report, with a score of (7.05) out of (10). This reflects a disturbing picture of the prevalence, scale and impact of organized crime in the country.