For its 2026 G7 presidency, France has made tackling illicit flows and organised crime a priority in addressing imbalances and building mutually beneficial partnerships – which is essential given the many opportunities for organised crime networks and hostile threat actors to thrive in the chaos generated by today’s state of global affairs. The Évian Summit takes place against the backdrop of multiple theatres of war and a highly unstable political economy, driving unemployment, widespread displacement of peoples, and food and commodity shortages.
Yet the world is increasingly connected, transformed by agentic artificial intelligence and fast-paced technological advances in blockchain and quantum computing. Today, individuals of all ages and backgrounds can be criminals’ targets from the privacy of their handheld devices. The G7 is uniquely positioned to set the global agenda, and to allocate resources to tackle illicit flows and dismantle organised crime networks. All G7 leaders can agree on this to make Évian a summit of balance, convergence and results.
An expanding threat landscape
France has a long history of addressing illicit flows and organised crime, which has led to steady treatment at G7 summits, starting with the creation of the Financial Action Task Force at the 1989 Paris Summit. In 1996 the G7 formalised the Lyon Group (later the Roma-Lyon Group) to fight trans
national organised crime. Since 1998, the G7 has frequently dealt with organised crime and related offences, including human trafficking, migrant smuggling, illicit firearm and drug trafficking, corruption, online child pornography, cybercrime, terrorism, and piracy. The 2019 French presidency addressed environmental crimes, including wildlife trafficking and illegal logging. G7 leaders have called for ratifying the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, for criminalising money laundering, for strengthening law enforcement capabilities, and for enhancing international and judicial cooperation. They have engaged in risk reduction, endorsed the FATF’s work and committed to implementing anti-money laundering, counter-terrorism and proliferation financing standards. G7 interior ministers have also emphasised the use of technological tools to disrupt criminal networks.
Technological advances have expanded the threat surface of attack for organised crime networks and threat actors. Organised crime intersects with cybercrime, fraud and human trafficking alongside other forms of trafficking. Cybercrime costs the world an estimated $10.5 trillion annually, likely growing to $15.63 trillion by 2029. Global losses related to fraud cost $442 billion in 2025; and fraud has devastating psychological effects as attacks, such as romance scams, which become more immersive, personalised and protracted. Advances in generative and agentic AI make it cheaper, faster and more attractive to target economically disadvantaged people. Innovations in digital finance, such as stablecoins, open banking and agentic payments, make it easier for criminals to finance and profit from illicit flows linked to the trafficking of humans, drugs (fentanyl and Captagon – worth up to $57 billion), arms, wildlife, flora and waste around the world.
The United Nations has estimated that 136 million persons will be stateless or displaced in 2026. Vulnerable people, including displaced people, are exploited as forced labour or sex trafficked by sophisticated criminal organisations. Unlike drugs, humans can be exploited repeatedly for profit. Smuggling of oil, gold and critical minerals will likely rise as demand outstrips supply, due to fuel shortages, increased defence spending and the transition to clean energy. Proceeds from crime feed conflicts, hybrid threats and atrocities such as the genocide in Sudan.
Leveraging technology to counter illicit networks
Although technology is a force multiplier to perpetrate crime, it can also disrupt criminal and corrupt networks, support victims and accelerate asset recovery. It can track value moving through the exploitation of traditional banking products, trade-based financing, virtual assets such as stablecoin, mobile banking and instant payments, as well as through property purchases and smuggled cash, gold, precious gems and metals.
There is much the G7 can do to future-proof the fight against organised crime and illicit flows. At Évian leaders should commit to:
Support the development of financial crime detection tech solutions that are affordable, accessible and deployable across value and payment transfer channels and low-
capacity markets;
Improve spontaneous cross-sector and cross-border information sharing beyond the traditional banking sector, including with international financial centres, through privacy-enhancing technologies and leverage existing initiatives to define smart data standards and to build shared data and intelligence infrastructure;
Work with partners to assess the rise of agentic payments and understand funds and value flows, illicit finance risks and how controls such as know-your-agent protocols or interoperable digital identity and digital address verification support safe commerce and trust;
Identify use cases and proof points to illustrate how different technologies can interact (blockchain, zero knowledge proofs and agentic AI) to fight illicit flows and how to use quantum to fight illicit flows;
Strengthen digital financial literacy for vulnerable communities and redress for victims of fraud and financial crime, including supporting the faster release and rehabilitation of victims trafficked into scam compounds; and
Explore establishing a G7 panel on economic resilience with the private sector that explores vulnerabilities generated by organised crime and illicit flows to increase the ability of countries to safeguard economic security.
