Why We Need to Track Organised Crime Now More Than Ever

For many years, the fight against organised crime has faced a serious problem. There is a habit of confusing activity for real success. We hold big meetings, talk about issues, and write plans. Yet, once the meetings end and the cameras are off, the excitement often fades away.

Three years ago, a major event took place at the International Symposium on Countering Organised Crime in Nigeria. During this event, important people agreed on sixteen policy recommendations. These were meant to be a practical guide to break down illegal money flows, fight complex criminal groups, and protect public trust.

To close the gap between what we say and what we actually do, the Center for Fiscal Transparency and Public Integrity (CEFTPI) has published a detailed review. This review is called Policy Brief: The Organized Crime Resilience Initiative (OCRI). The initiative gives a clear measure of how well we are doing on the sixteen key promises while also showing where progress has stopped.

To see why this review is so important, we must look at how the world has changed since the symposium. In the last three years, organised crime has not stayed the same. It has become more advanced, spread out, and tech-savvy.

All over the world, there has been a huge rise in cyber-related financial crimes, complicated money laundering schemes, and international crime groups that take advantage of weak laws and online systems. These criminal groups have started to use new technologies and encryption to avoid traditional law enforcement. Fraud and the stealing of public funds have become closely linked to broader security problems, showing that corruption helps organised crime thrive.

The data from the past three years tells a worrying story. While law enforcement agencies have made some improvements, the overall signs for terrorism, human trafficking, drug trafficking, and cyber crime show that criminal groups are growing faster than our current defenses. This shows that treating anti-crime measures as fixed policies rather than flexible, data-driven responses is no longer enough.

One major issue with our security system is the ongoing struggle to stop terrorist funding, even with huge amounts of money spent. Every year, the national budget allocates trillions of naira for defense, internal security, and special counter-terrorism units. These large budgets are often explained by the urgent need to cut off the money sources of terrorist groups and bandits.

Yet, despite these huge investments, the financial networks supporting terrorism remain strong. Agencies have plenty of funds, but the actual work of tracking, freezing, and prosecuting terrorist financing and illegal money flows is still very weak. Insurgent groups continue to use illegal mining, ransom networks, informal money transfer systems, and increasingly complex digital assets to buy weapons and fund their activities.

To build real strength against organised crime, we need to shift from reactive policing to systems based on data and transparency. If we want to protect our future against the changing threat of organised crime, transparency and structural reform must be the base of our national security plan.

This situation leads us to ask a tough question: Why do our multi-trillion-naira budgets bring so little change? The answer lies in how we manage these funds. Putting money into large security agencies without strict financial controls, proper oversight, and automated transaction tracking will not solve our problems. We cannot spend our way out of a security crisis using the same unclear channels that criminals use.

Organised crime thrives where public systems are unclear, broken, and slow to change. To build true resilience, the sixteen policy recommendations focus on changing the rules of institutional defense.

• Digital Border Security and Inter-Agency Integration: Old-fashioned, separate law enforcement methods are not enough to protect our borders from international crime groups. One key recommendation is to completely restructure law enforcement. This means moving from separate border management to a unified and tech-savvy border security system. This will help ensure that intelligence is shared quickly and not stuck in bureaucratic delays.

• Accountability in Defence and Security Spending: Weak accountability in defense and security has hurt the fight against organised crime. This has allowed shady procurement, unchecked spending, and poor monitoring to continue. When money meant for intelligence and operations is wasted or mismanaged, criminals find ways to exploit institutional weaknesses. The recommendations call for stronger financial controls, clear procurement processes, and automated tracking tools to expose leaks, cut fraud, and make sure security funds are used to fight crime.

• Border Security, Terrorist Financing, and Intelligence-Led Enforcement: National security relies on the ability to secure borders, disrupt the money sources of terrorists and criminals, and act on timely intelligence. The recommendations push for better border surveillance, integrated data systems, biometric checks, and real-time intelligence sharing among immigration, customs, police, military, and financial intelligence agencies. By combining border control with targeted financial tracking, asset freezing, and coordinated investigations, Nigeria can shift from reactive enforcement to a preventive security model that identifies threats early, blocks illegal funding sources, and weakens organised crime.

From Review to Action: This policy brief serves as a practical tool for accountability for law enforcement, policymakers, and civil society. Its importance lies in monitoring whether the sixteen recommendations are being put into action, spotting where progress has stopped, and keeping pressure for real reform. Only by consistently checking compliance can these promises move from paper to a real defense against organised crime.

Building real strength requires moving away from reactive policing and towards systems based on data and transparency that take away the support organised crime needs to survive. If we want to secure our future against the changing threat of organised crime, transparency and structural reform must be the foundation of our national security.