Organized Crime and Transnational Threats Video

November 18, 2009 Symposium: Symposium on Organized Crime in the Western Hemisphere: An Overlooked Threat?

Council on Foreign Relations

"The speakers identify the circumstances under which organized criminal activities constitute a threat to national security. Lee Wolosky, former director for transnational threats at the National Security Council, argues that such activities rise beyond a law enforcement problem and require broader components of the U.S. government to have a role in resolving it.

Wolosky and William Wechsler, deputy assistant secretary of defense for counternarcotics and global threats at the U.S. Department of Defense, say that there exists a "nexus" between various illicit organizations and that these organizations have a unique ability to find each other. They argue that similar connections also develop between organized crime and terrorism. Specifically addressing the threat of nuclear proliferation in the context of organized crime, Wolosky cites the A.Q. Khan network as an example of an international criminal network with nuclear proliferation aspirations."