Organised Crime in Azerbaijan

Posted: 26/10/2013

 

RPS consultants have just returned from running personal security training for a global oil company in Baku, as you will see from our photo gallery.  We asked our intelligence analyst to look at the threat of organised crime in Azerbiajan and conduct his own analysis. Here is what he says:

Organised crime in Azerbaijan began in earnest following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, when the sudden influx of ‘free movement’ from post-Soviet states, economic meltdowns in the new republics and the emergence of contested territories such as Nagorno-Karabakh combined to render the Caucasus an ideal region for criminal activity. The South Caucasus is characterised by extreme poverty, difficult terrain and militant political divides, which are all conducive to the execution of illegal activities.

Organised crime thus reaches in to several areas of business, both legal and illicit, and benefits from political inability, or corruption, to flourish across three main areas.

Narcotics

Azerbaijan sits at the crossroads between the Near East, Western Europe and Russia, and represents the nexus of the heroin trade to all three regions. Azerbaijan hosts over a dozen narcotic-smuggling groups, each with individual territories of control and links to reciprocal groups across Asia and the Middle East.

These drugs are transported either by land from Afghanistan, Iran and Russia by couriers or, as is the case with the ‘Daniz Qapisi’ group, by sea.

The International Convention on Cargo Transportation, to which Azerbaijan is a signatory, renders illegal any vehicle searches made on less than confirmed intelligence that a forbidden cargo is inside. Therefore, smugglers are able to cross the Iran-Azerbaijan border in relative safety, knowing that it is unlikely they will be stopped.

The disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh presents a particular problem for authorities attempting to halt the drugs flow. As the Azeri government cannot exercise total control over the province, couriers are able to cut through and be sure of a safe haven for distribution and transaction, as well as avoiding the customs, border control posts and military patrols along more open road networks.

Nagorno-Karabakh is also believed to be a major centre for the production of heroin in-country.  Similar to this are the known cultivation of narcotics along the Araz River in regions primarily controlled by Armenian separatists – again putting a barrier of militancy between the Azeri authorities and the practicalities of stopping the trade – and the heavy presence of the same separatists along the Azeri-Iran border, making the Iranian network particularly difficult to halt. It is estimated that only 10% - 15% of the product smuggled into Azerbaijan, from any border, is seized.

Depending on the particular group, Azeri narcotic smugglers may have links with the Russian mafia, or Bratva, and may be acting as middle-men for bosses in Russia. The Moscow drug trade itself is heavily financed by Azerbaijanis, and accounts for as much as 35% of the overall profit.

Human trafficking

Azerbaijan’s criminal networks are collectively responsible for a significant percentage of Europe’s human trafficking. The 2010 report from the US Department of State placed the country on the international ‘Watch List’ and heavily criticised the Azeri government for insufficient improvements in tracking, identifying and convicting those in the trafficking business.
Azerbaijan acts as both a destination and a through-point for trafficking.

Women from Moldova, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are sent through Azerbaijan to the United Arab Emirates and Turkey to work as prostitutes, and is often the final destination for women from Ukraine and Russia for the same reasons. Additionally, there is internal trafficking of men and children for forced labour and child prostitution respectively.  It is this sex trafficking that makes up the greatest percentage of Azeri human trafficking, whether internal or external.

The particular genesis of the trade in Azerbaijan was due to the mass unemployment, and displacement, brought about by the death of the Soviet Union.  ‘Slave markets’ sprung up in Baku, where the unemployed would offer themselves for literally any job, including virtual slavery. It was identified by the Azeri gangs that the greatest demand was for women, and so they began setting up employment agencies that fraudulently lured these women to Europe and the Middle East, where they would be forced, often at gunpoint, to work in brothels.

It is the descendants of these gangs that control the sex trade in Azerbaijan today. One in every four victims of trafficking comes from Baku and it is estimated that one thousand women ‘disappear’ from Azerbaijan each year from the purpose.

They are mostly homeless, in poverty, ‘on the run’ from domestic abuse or already addicted to narcotics, and therefore easy to coerce and control (and unlikely to be missed). Recruitment is achieved either by the woman answering an advert and entering a foreign country in the genuine belief that she is to work according to her skills, or – worryingly – by relatives and friends, normally female, suggesting that the reach of the traffickers is not just limited to active gang members.

A growing trend in recent years has been increased trafficking from the west of Azerbaijan, through Georgia and into Turkey. The Russian mafia are particularly active in Georgia and their links with Azerbaijan groups are bearing fruit here.
Whilst Azerbaijan has made limited steps to address the trafficking concerns, there appears little intent to prosecute those in high-level cases and to investigate allegations of police collusion in brothels of forced prostitution.

Any future hope of solving the problems looks unlikely in the short term.

Weapons trafficking

The arms trade goes hand-in-hand with the narcotics smuggling. Funds from the sale of drugs go towards purchasing weapons, which are then either used by the Azeri groups themselves or sold on, mainly on the same Iran-Russia-Turkey spider’s web used for the narcotics, due to a country-wide arms embargo. The sale of arms represents a continuing black mark against hopes for stability, as both Armenian and Nagorno-Karabakh separatists have a constant supply of weapons with which to make their fight.

Special mention must be made of the level of trade with Iran. Organised crime groups are already benefitting from the porous and ill-controlled border, but in Iran have a ‘regular customer’, one willing to smuggle weapons to Armenia and her separatists and counter the Azerbaijan government (itself relatively friendly with Israel).

Iran may also be using in-country criminal gangs to support Azerbaijan-based Hezbollah operatives, whose presence was blown in 2012 after the failure of a plot to attack Jewish citizens in Azerbaijan. Not only do Azerbaijanis and Iranians share the Islamic faith, the contingent of expatriate Azeris in Iran is greater than the population of Azerbaijan itself, so networks between the two countries are strong.

Conclusion

There exists little possibility that Azerbaijan will be able to solve its problem of trafficking and organised crime. The socio-economic factors are such that many turn to the life of organised crime because it represents the only real opportunity they have to succeed in life, and with each new generation the ranks of the organised mafias are swelled even further – as are the numbers of their human trafficking victims.

The problem appears to be as much international as it is domestic. Politics comes into play when considering issues of weapon smuggling to Armenian separatists and Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Russian-Afghan narcotic corridor is so established that no self-respecting organised crime boss would not get involved, given the constant demand from a global community of fixers.

The scale of the trade is vast, and Azerbaijan is in a perfect geographic position to take advantage of this while enjoying weak borders, communities of individuals ripe for exploitation and a thriving global neighbourhood of addicts – meaning that, even in the face of governmental legislation against it, organised crime has yet to hit its peak.

If you wish us to write you an analysis of a specific area from open source materials, then please do contact us at [email protected]

 

RPS would like to acknowledge the use of the following for information sourced within this article with thanks:

“Trafficking In Persons Report 2010”, US Department of State, http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010/142759.htm

 “Azerbaijan in Smuggling Chain” by F. Mehdiyev and A. Allakhveranov, academia.edu paper, 2010

“The Problem of Human Trafficking in Azerbaijan” by A. Yunosov, Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration, 2013

“Azerbaijan arrests suspected attack plotters…” by AFP, al-Arabiya News http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/02/21/196166.html, 2012

“Trafficking in the Republic of Azerbaijan” by A. Invictus, DePaul Rule Of Law Journal, 2010

Photo: www.lonelyplanet.com

Back to News List