TheEconomistMay 16th 2020 471K
arachi is amongAsia’s most crime-
ridden cities. And yet in eight days in
March, after covid-19 forced it into lock-
down, not a single car was reported stolen.
El Salvador, which has one of the world’s
highest murder rates, enjoyed four homi-
cide-free days in the same month. Many
countries have reported tumbling crime
rates, as crooks, along with everyone else,
have shut themselves away. Italy was the
first European country to lock down, on
March 9th. Even before then, many people
were working from home. The number of
crimes reported in Italy between March 1st
and March 22nd dropped by 64% compared
with the same period in 2019.
“I would not be surprised if crime statis-
tics, which are dominated by less serious
crimes like theft and various kinds of street
crime, were to go down, at least temporar-
ily,” says Jürgen Stock, secretary-general of
Interpol, the world policing body. But gov-
ernment figures reflect only reported
crime—and not all crime is reported, espe-cially when lawbreaking, along with much
else, has gone indoors. The Italian figures
showed a drop of 44% in domestic vio-
lence. Police reckon that is because many
victims dare not call to report assaults
while their assailants are within earshot.
Meanwhile Gun Violence Archive, an
ngo based in Washington, dc, counted
more than 2,000 deaths by shooting in
America between March 1st and April
19th—a 6% increase over the average in the
same period during the past three years.
That echoes what happened in the 1918-19
flu pandemic. According to Barry Latzer, an
emeritus professor at the John Jay College
of Criminal Justice in New York, murders
in 1918 increased in each of the five worst-
affected states. Sheltering in place short-
ens tempers. It also makes it easier for
gangsters to locate enemies and rivals.
Most worrying, says Mr Stock, is the po-
tential for covid-19 to create the ideal con-
ditions for the spread of serious, organised
crime. The pandemic is encouraging or-ganised criminals to put old skills to new
use. The global economic depression that
looks likely to follow will offer them a
chance to extend their reach deep into the
legitimate economy. “The potential for
problems arising from this is without pre-
cedent,” frets another international law-
enforcement official.
New scams are already proliferating,
some ingeniously simple. On March 16th
the South African Reserve Bank issued a
statement denying that it had sent collec-
tors house-to-house to recover banknotes
in case they had been contaminated with
covid-19. Sales of counterfeit, often sub-
standard, drugs have surged. In March Op-
eration Pangaea, co-ordinated by Interpol
and involving police forces in 90 countries,
led to more than 100 arrests worldwide and
the seizure of potentially dangerous phar-
maceuticals worth more than $14m. Brazil-
ian drugs gangs short of cash are robbing
more banks.
Meanwhile the urgent need for personal
protective equipment (ppe) has opened up
a new field for ineffective, overpriced or
even non-existent goods. Two factors have
helped the criminals: the waiving of nor-
mal procurement controls by governments
desperate to protect their health workers;
and the impossibility of arranging face-to-
face meetings between customers and sup-
pliers. In the most elaborate scam so far, a
group of fraudsters succeeded in gettingCrime and covid-19Covid nostra
JOHANNESBURG, ROME AND SÃO PAULO
The pandemic is providing organised crooks with fresh opportunitiesInternational