Transnational organized crime generates $2 trillion in revenue per year globally, roughly the size of Britain’s economy, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Wonder how much money those fake Luis Vuitton handbags and DVDs of the latest Hollywood hits bring in? At $654 billion annually, counterfeiting and intellectual property piracy tops the global list of most lucrative illicit activities. 

A new report highlights a hidden social cost of fish declines: It drives up human trafficking and child labor. The conservation policy report, led by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley, appeared last week (July 25) in the journal Science. Using data from the U.S. Department of Labor and the United Nations, researchers illustrate how decreasing fish stock fuels labor abuses. According to the report, a world with less fish means that fishers have to search farther out, go deeper, endure harsher conditions and fish for longer to attain the same yields they did a generation ago. 

On the 900-mile trek of mostly desert that stretches between Eritrea and Egypt, hunting for humans has become routine. Eritrean refugees who have fled their homeland fall prey to Bedouin or Egyptian traffickers. The refugees are held for ransom. Those with relatives abroad who can pay for their release might survive. Those who do not are often killed. The United Nations confirms that some are harvested for their organs — their livers and kidneys sold on the black market — while others, the young and able, are sold off.