London – April 16th– As armed conflicts surge and organised crime activity rises, a new report from Transparency International Defence & Security (TI-DS) and Transparency International US (TI-US) reveals how corruption is quietly but consistently enabling weapons to fall into the wrong hands.
Under the Radar: Corruption’s Role in Fueling Arms Diversion investigates over 400 cases of diversion across 70 countries and shows how corruption, including bribery, embezzlement, and abuse of authority, serves as a key enabler of illicit arms flows.
The report’s release comes at a time of intensifying global concern over weapons diversion. It shows how corruption-fuelled diversion has empowered organised crime, fuelled armed conflict and violence, weakened military effectiveness, and undermined governance and security around the world.
“Despite greater recognition of corruption’s corrosive effect on arms control policies, corruption has often been sidelined in efforts to assess risks of arms diversion like a detective ignoring key clues in a recurring crime,” said Colby Goodman, Senior Researcher at TI US and TI-DS and one of the report’s authors. “Some states’ actions in recent years to add corruption risk assessments are a critical first step to better tackling this global scourge.”
The report provides critical information and tools for states to help identify and mitigate corruption-fuelled arms diversion as they develop new national arms control policies and engage in ongoing discussions within the United Nations on curbing arms diversion.
“The vast amounts of weapons diverted to terrorist groups in the past war on terror is a stark reminder of what happens when governments lose sight of corruption risks in the name of national security,” said Dr. Francesca Grandi, Head of Advocacy at Transparency International Defence & Security. “As demand for arms imports grows amid increasing global insecurity, this report offers practical and effective tools for arms exporting countries to strengthen integrity in their export control systems. It should also help spark more serious conversations globally, at the United Nations and in other fora, about sharing corruption-related information to prevent arms diversion.”
Some of the reports key findings include:
- The theft or embezzlement of state-owned weapons for private gain is the most common type of corruption-fuelled diversion, accounting for over 350 cases. Bribery and abuse of authority remain a serious concern for diversion.
- Corruption facilitates diversion at each stage of a weapon’s lifecycle, including production, international transfers, active use and storage, and disposal. The active use and storage stage had the most corruption-fuelled diversion cases followed by the disposal, international transfer, and production stages.
- Many of the corruption-fuelled diversion cases resulted in devastating consequences for civilians. In more than 200 cases, military or security personnel reportedly colluded with illicit actors, such as insurgents or terrorists, in connection with arms diversion, which resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries.
To address this urgent issue, the report offers key analysis and recommendations for states engaged in arms exports and imports:
- Strengthen national policies by explicitly identifying corruption as a key risk for arms diversion and developing implementation guidelines that incorporate targeted risk assessment questions that measure key, often overlooked defence and security institutional controls.
- Improve international collaboration on corruption in arms transfers by sharing information on corruption risks in arms transfers within the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) framework and establishing working groups within the ATT and other multilateral for deeper discussions on the topic.
- Support research and foreign aid to curb corruption-fuelled arms diversion, including funding studies on related issues and efforts to strengthen the integrity of defence and security institutions.
You can read the full report here: Under the Radar Corruptions Role in Fueling Arms Diversion
About Transparency International Defence & Security:
Transparency International Defence & Security (TI-DS) is part of Transparency International, the world’s leading anti-corruption Movement, comprised of 100 national Chapters and a Secretariat in Berlin. TI-DS is a global centre of excellence, evidence and advocacy dedicated to building integrity in the defence and security sector for the benefit of citizens, states, and the world. It is hosted by Transparency International UK and works with Chapters across the Movement. Since its establishment, TI-DS has worked to bring anti-corruption firmly into the global defence and security agenda.
For media inquiries or to request interviews with the report authors, please contact:
Amanda Coakley, Global Media & Communications Advisor
acoakley@transparency.org