Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade

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New TRACIT Reports

2025 Illicit Trade Index

The 2025 Illicit Trade Index provides governments, policymakers, and enforcement agencies with actionable insights to tackle the challenges of illicit trade. Covering 158 countries—from emerging markets to advanced economies—the Index highlights vulnerabilities, strengths, and trends across national systems. Its data-driven analysis and practical recommendations aim to strengthen policies, enhance enforcement, and promote international collaboration. More

Fighting Fakes, Contraband and Illicit Trade: Spotlight on The Philippines

The report Fighting Fakes, Contraband and Illicit Trade: Spotlight on the Philippines assesses the nature and extent of illicit trade in the Philippines. It evaluates its impact on both the economy and society, analyzes the government's ongoing initiatives to tackle the issue, and puts forward practical recommendations for effective solutions. More

Illicit Trade In Pakistan: The Twin Task Of Combating Illicit Trade And Boosting Economic Growth

The convergence of various structural weaknesses in Pakistan’s economy challenges its ability to sustain recent gains in poverty reduction and undermines objectives for long-term growth in GDP. The TRACIT report Illicit Trade in Pakistan: The Twin Task Of Combating Illicit Trade And Boosting Economic Growth highlights that effectively tackling illicit trade will be a crucial ingredient in achieving Pakistan's economic prospects. More

Examining the Negative Impact of Illicit Trade on the ASEAN Community Vision 2025

The TRACIT report, “Examining the Negative Impact of Illicit Trade on the ASEAN Community Vision 2025” offers a comprehensive analysis of how illicit trade affects the three communities of ASEAN: the economic community, the political-security community, and the socio-cultural community. The report highlights specific examples of illicit trade in key sectors operating in ASEAN and identifies areas of vulnerability that could be addressed through better policies and regulations. More

Inflation, product affordability, and illicit trade: Spotlight on Turkiye

The TRACIT report Inflation, product affordability, and illicit trade: Spotlight on Turkiye investigates the challenges the country faces with soaring inflation and illicit trade on multiple fronts. Given the negative impact high levels of inflation has on the market dynamics that drive illicit trade dynamics, the TRACIT report encourages Turkiye to be more vigilant in its efforts to defend its economy from illicit trade and proposes a set of policy recommendations to fortify the government’s efforts to control illicit trade. More

The Human Cost of Illicit Trade: Exposing demand for forced labor in the dark corners of the economy

Among the worst crimes associated with illicit trade is the demand it creates for forced and child labor. The TRACIT report, The Human Cost of Illicit Trade: Exposing demand for forced labor in the dark corners of the economy, studies an overlooked corner of the global economy, namely the incidence of forced labor in illicit market activities. The report shows that women, children and men of all ages and race are forced to labor in illicit sectors, where they are abused by organized criminals in their pursuit of profits. More

Tackling the sale of illicit pesticides on e-commerce platforms

TRACIT’s report, Tackling the sale of illicit pesticides on e-commerce platforms, identifies the scale of trade of illicit pesticides on e-commerce platforms and the vulnerabilities that expose platforms to illicit traders. The report examines the structural vulnerabilities in the operations of e-commerce platforms that can be exploited by criminals to sell illicit pesticides online. More

Money Talks: The Crooked Connection Between Corruption and Illicit Trade

The report Money Talks: The Crooked Connection Between Corruption and Illicit Trade looks at thirteen illicit sectors and finds that no sector vulnerable to illicit trade is immune from the effects of corruption. Based on the findings of the report, TRACIT has formulated a set of policy recommendations aimed at facilitating an effective response to corruption in the context of illicit trade. More

Exposing Supply Chain Vulnerabilities to Illicit Trade

The TRACIT report, Exposing Supply Chain Vulnerabilities to Illicit Trade: A global report on dynamics, hotspots and responses across 10 sectors, examines systemic weaknesses in complex supply chains to expose vulnerabilities in transportation modalities and hotspots that traffickers exploit to advance illicit trade, including e-commerce platforms, free trade zones and postal systems. The report also accounts for the poly-criminal nature of illicit trade and appraises the knock-on effects on organized crime, corruption, money laundering and forced labor. More

Organized Crime, Corruption and Illicit Trade: Spotlight on South Africa

The TRACIT report Organized Crime, Corruption and Illicit Trade: Spotlight on South Africa shows that illicit trade is one of the biggest threats to stability and economic growth in South Africa. In providing an update on longstanding structural challenges, the report underscores how recent inflationary pressures, high levels of unemployment, widespread corruption, sophisticated organized crime networks and lingering effects from the COVID-19 pandemic have turbo charged the illicit economy. More

Examining the negative impacts of illicit trade on SDG 8

The TRACIT report, "Examining the negative impacts of illicit trade on SDG 8", was launched during the UNCTAD 2nd Illicit Trade Forum. The report updates key findings from the 2019 Mapping the Impact of Illicit Trade on the Sustainable Development Goals to focus on the impacts of illicit trade on decent work and inclusive economic growth. Additionally, it incorporates observations on how the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the illicit trade economy. More

The Link Between Illicit Trade and Sovereign Credit Ratings

The TRACIT report investigates whether a correlation can be established between individual countries’ creditworthiness and their vulnerability to illicit trade. The report compares the credit ratings attributed by S&P Global, Fitch Group and Moody's and the scores attributed by the Global Illicit Trade Environment Index, and finds that countries that are poorly equipped to tackle illicit trade also suffer from poor credit worthiness. More

TRACIT and ANA strengthen cooperation to stop illicit trade through Panama

TRACIT and the Panama Customs Authority (ANA) signed an MOU to deepen collaboration between the two organizations on fighting illicit trade. The agreement highlights the pervasive nature of illicit trade as a problem throughout the region and is based on a deeper exchange of information and expertise to more effectively address counterfeiting, corruption and money laundering. It also seeks to build working relationships with other customs agencies in the region to enable better government-to-government cooperation across borders. More...
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TRACIT Talking Points

TRACIT Talking Points showcases articles from our staff and leadership, along with feature stories from our partners in the private sector and thought-leaders from government and civil society. More...

TRACIT Publications

A key objective of TRACIT is to improve the knowledge base by publishing cutting-edge research on critical issues that can reshape government policy and action to control illicit trade. More...

About TRACIT

The Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (TRACIT) is an independent, business-led initiative to mitigate the economic and social damages of illicit trade by strengthening government enforcement mechanisms and integrating supply chain controls across industry sectors. More...

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