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| Introductory Speaker: | James M. Lindsay, Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair |
|---|---|
| Speakers: | David Holiday, Program Officer, Latin America Program, Open Society Institute |
| William F. Wechsler, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics and Global Threats, U.S. Department of Defense | |
| Lee S. Wolosky, Partner, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP; Former Director, Transnational Threats, National Security Council | |
| Presider: | Stanley S. Arkin, Chairman, The Arkin Group, LLC |
November 18, 2009
Symposium: Symposium on Organized Crime in the Western Hemisphere: An Overlooked Threat?
Conference Panel Session: Organized Crime and Transnational Threats
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.
This session was part of the CFR symposium, Organized Crime in the Western Hemisphere: An Overlooked Threat?, undertaken in collaboration with the Latin American Program and Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and made possible by the generous support of the Hauser Foundation, Tinker Foundation, and a grant from the Robina Foundation for CFR's International Institutions and Global Governance program.
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