Lieutenant General Salvatore Luongo and Special Representative Eugenio ZoffiliROME, 15 November 2025 – Marking today’s International Day for the Prevention and Fight against all Forms of Transnational Organized Crime, Hon. Eugenio Zoffili (Italy), Vice-President and Special Representative on Combating Organized Crime of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, issued the following statement:
“On the occasion of the second International Day for the Prevention and Fight against all Forms of Transnational Organized Crime – established in 2024 by the United Nations General Assembly upon Italy’s initiative – I reaffirm the commitment of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly to promoting global co-operation against transnational criminal networks, drawing on the teachings of Judges Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino and renewing the spirit of the Palermo Convention.
I emphasize that ‘Follow the money’, the theme chosen this year by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), encapsulates a fundamental approach in the international strategy to counter criminal organizations. Tracking and dismantling illicit financial flows remains one of the most effective ways to strike at mafia structures and the money-laundering circuits that fuel their activities, including operations involving cryptocurrencies.
As Vice-President and Special Representative on Combating Organized Crime of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, I am working to strengthen regulatory co-ordination among participating States, promote the exchange of best practices, and support the adoption of advanced technological tools capable of making cross-border co-operation between institutions and law-enforcement agencies more effective in the fight against criminal networks.
Our efforts so far show the value of this approach in safeguarding citizens’ security and tackling organized crime on a global scale. I also discussed these issues during a recent meeting in Rome with the General Commander of the Carabinieri, Lieutenant General Salvatore Luongo, to whom I expressed my appreciation for the numerous operations conducted against drug trafficking, the main source of funding for criminal organizations.”
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