South Africa has the highest criminality in Southern Africa
South Africa’s criminality score has increased by 21% over the last four years and is now the worst in Southern Africa.
This was revealed in the Globalised Organised Crime Index, which is published by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.
It is an analytical framework that measures and compares organised crime levels and state responses across all 193 United Nations member states.
The Globalised Organised Crime Index includes a criminality score, which measures criminal markets and criminal actors.
The criminal markets segment evaluates the scope, scale, and impact of specific illicit activities in a country.
These include human trafficking, drug trafficking, arms trafficking, environmental crimes, cybercrime, financial crimes, and illicit trade.
The criminal actors segment assesses key players, including mafia-style groups, criminal networks, state-embedded actors, and foreign criminal actors.
South Africa ranked highly in both the criminal markets and criminal actors segments, indicating a problem with criminality in the country.
Since the publication of the first Organised Crime Index in 2019, South Africa has consistently been ranked among the top 10 most criminalised countries.
“It represents a criminal ecosystem characterised by deeply entrenched illicit markets and persistent challenges to governance and law enforcement,” the report said.
The biggest problem for South Africa is that the situation is worsening across most criminal sectors.
The country saw a big increase in extortion and protection rackets, and heroin, cocaine, and synthetic drug trading. There was also a big increase in cyber-dependent crimes.
The report also revealed that South Africa has a serious problem with mafia-style groups, criminal networks, and state-embedded actors.
The trend was concerning. South Africa’s criminality score increased from 6.16 in 2019 to 6.63 in 201, 7.18 in 2023, and 7.43 in 2025.
This made it the worst country in Southern Africa in terms of criminality and the seventh-worst country globally.
Most criminal countries in Southern Africa
| Country | Criminality Rating |
| South Africa | 7.43 |
| Nigeria | 7.32 |
| Kenya | 7.18 |
| Central African Republic | 7.03 |
| Uganda | 6.65 |
| Mozambique | 6.63 |
Most criminal countries in the world
| Country | Criminality Rating |
| Myanmar | 8.08 |
| Colombia | 7.82 |
| Mexico | 7.68 |
| Ecuador | 7.48 |
| Paraguay | 7.48 |
| Congo, Dem. Rep. | 7.47 |
| South Africa | 7.43 |
| Nigeria | 7.32 |
| Lebanon | 7.30 |
| Türkiye | 7.20 |
South Africa’s criminality score
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One cannot expect anything else from a country run by a government with a hooligan majority party such as the ANC. Bad enough, but if such as the EFF came into power, then we would most probably land in top spot on the Criminality chart (Not only for Southern Africa, but for the world).
And the current status is all because of the inability to kerb corruption within the government structure and also the incompetence and inability to ensure that our justice and law enforcement system works effectively to the benefit of the law abiding citizens. Corrupt law enforcers, judges and unresolved and unsentenced government corruption cases are all reasons why we are where we are on the charts.
It is sickening, but this is Africa, and Africa has no pride to do what is ethically and integrally right.