Trend Resource competition opening routes for organised crime

Summary

The report suggests that sharper competition for natural resources could open up opportunities for organised crime. Criminal groups could disrupt trade routes, create black markets and exploit workers through illegal mining and counterfeiting. The report expects decarbonisation to drive up prices of clean energy minerals and make demand for metals such as lithium and cobalt harder to meet. Over the longer term, it foresees states using private military companies, investment, bribes and political interference to secure minerals, fuelling conflict, corruption and crime in resource-rich countries. These dynamics fit the report's broader view of supply chains as complex and opaque. The report warns that because supply chains are so interconnected, a disruption in one place can spread across the whole system.