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This decree by the Nazi Government in 1933 is probably the single most important event leading to the advent of bank secrecy laws as we know them today. This criminal provision was enacted to halt the German Jews' movement of assets out of Germany and into Swiss banks — a movement that was occasioned by the Government's attempt to seize the Jews' assets. Swiss banks were chosen because of their geographic proximity, but more so because of Switzerland's then unofficial policy of confidentiality over banking deposits and transactions.

Some have argued that organised crime is a problem of the last quarter of the 20th century and in the case of most states is a new phenomenon. Of course, so much depends upon what is meant by organised crime. Groups of individuals formed and managed to perpetrate acts against the law are nothing new. Nor is it novel that the primary motivation of such enterprises is economic gain — spurred on by ‘plain old‐fashioned’ greed and corruption. Banditry, smuggling, racketeering and piracy were just as much a problem for the praetors and the vigils of ancient Rome as they are today for the Italian authorities. What has changed is the criminals' ability to operate beyond the reach of the domestic legal system and, therefore, be able to conduct an enterprise in crime that is not so amenable to the traditional criminal justice system and its agents. Of course, in truth, thinking criminals have always sought to place themselves beyond the reach of the law and it was not just a matter of having a faster horse. Corruption of officials and the patronage of powerful individuals whose interests, for whatever reason, might be at variance with those of the state are tried and tested tools. It has always been recognised that even if as a matter of theory jurisdiction was unfettered, the practicalities are such as to render enforcement parochial. Thus, when Henry II of England was asked towards the end of the 12th century how far his writ ran, he responded ‘as far as my arrows reach’. While developments in ballistic technology might render this a relatively useful approach to dealing with the international criminal, in the vast majority of cases the criminal law in its application, or at least administration, will be confined within domestic borders. Developments in technology, communication, travel and the liberalisation of movement, whether of persons, things or wealth, have all combined to give the criminal enterprise of today the same ability as any other business to move from one jurisdiction to another, or involve in a single act two or more different jurisdictions.

During the last years of his life, the mathematician Karl Menger worked on a biography of his father, the economist and founder of the Austrian School of Economics, Carl Menger. The younger Menger never finished the work. While working in the Menger collections at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, we discovered draft chapters of the biography, a valuable source of information given that relatively little is known about Carl Menger’s life nearly a hundred years after his death. The unfinished biography covers Carl Menger’s family background and his life through early 1889. In this chapter, the authors discuss the biography and the most valuable new insights it provides into Carl Menger’s life, including Carl Menger’s family, his childhood, his student years, his time working as a journalist and newspaper editor, his early scientific career, and his relationship with Crown Prince Rudolf.

A personal narrative of my escape with my mother and siblings from South Sudan as refugees is presented. The narrative then chronicles the time in Egypt applying for refugee status and eventual resettlement in the United States. In the United States, resettlement began in Newark, New Jersey. I then document my move from Newark to San Diego, California to, eventually, New York City. In New York my life as a model, DJ, actress, and founder of Stand for Education is narrated.

This paper discusses the politicisation of fraud within the European Union and continues the author's scries on fraud, supranational investigative arrangements and cross‐border crime. During 1999, the fight against European Community budget fraud became a controversy of central importance within the European Union. This was not because such fraud is wide‐spread, but because as a criminal offence of an all‐European nature it was the point of least resistance from which to construct a European criminal code and a European FBI. During 1998 the corpus juris was proposed as the proto‐criminal code and the next stage in the fight against fraud. This situated the anti‐fraud strategies debate into the conflict between member states and the Commission's alleged agenda for a European superstate. Moreover, with European parliamentary elections approaching, nationalists and Eurosceptics had an interest in exaggerating the problem of fraud in order to depict central European institutions as wasteful and corrupt as well as a threat to the nation‐state. Although since the introduction of the doctrine of subsidiarity, national sovereignty is a fraud in the European context, fraud is also a sovereign issue.

The cultural dimensions of the Hofstede and Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) studies are often used to capture cultural differences and operationalize them in academic research, corporate business, and teaching. The purpose of this paper is to investigate if this context is appropriate for the Indian information technology (IT) offshore services industry; that is, if Indian culture can be measured with group-referenced items, averaged, and explained by discrete dimensions.

The authors devised items based on the GLOBE study, and conducted empirical research with 291 employees of two services sourcing providers in Pune and Bangalore, India. The authors then scrutinized the data set on item and dimension level using statistical methods, such as interrater agreement, t-test, arithmetic mean, and standard deviation.

An interpretation of the analysis posits that cultural assumptions based on dimensions and means are problematic in the context of the Indian IT offshore services industry. The two digit exact values of the GLOBE study (and similarly the ordinal scale by Hofstede) suggest a level of accuracy and absoluteness which could not be replicated in the empirical research. Therefore, one authors should be very careful referring to Indian national culture when conducting intercultural awareness programs and coaching international teams who are engaging with India.

The GLOBE study omits to report basic statistics of questionnaire development. Through this replication study in India, the authors provide empirical evidence that the construct validity of cultural dimensions and the concept of national/group averages may be flawed.

The research aims at finding out the extent to which such urban transformation projects—in terms of their design components and aspects—contribute to providing big data (BD) with effective datasets, which are considered a key requirement in operating smart city solutions.

The present research investigates the predisposition level of these projects for supporting the BD through one of the urban initiatives for humanizing neighborhoods in Al Riyadh city (KSA). The selected case is analyzed by mapping the functional performance of its design features with certain characteristics of BD.

One of the core conclusions is: Despite the readiness of the design components of these projects to provide high levels of integration with IoT and smart transformation, the level of application is lower than expected on account of the dearth of initial targets and strategies, especially the lack of a supporting environment, street facilities and security and safety datasets.

The answer—arrived at through both descriptive and analytical approaches—is expected to guide those who query the further key concept of smart applications—is the answer characterized as technologically based, or is the same based on human aspects?

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants of learners' satisfaction with a new blended learning method, namely online video presentations.

The study tests the proposed model using responses from 353 students who were exposed to the new method. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.

The results show that both the perceived social (e.g. reduction in comparison bias) and utilitarian (e.g. presentation originality) benefits increase satisfaction with the online video presentation method, from both the creator's and the learner's perspectives.

This study provides several guidelines to instructors employing blended learning methods, as well as designers of platforms that enable blended learning.

This study provides a model to understand the determinants of learners' satisfaction with a new blended learning method. It looks at these determinants from both the content creators' perspective and the content viewer's perspective.

This paper aims to analyse the Spanish confiscation regulation considering the specialised literature as well as the relevant case law.

The Spanish confiscation regulation and the practical application is discussed in this paper.

The paper shows the shortfalls in the regulation with regards to Spain's international obligations and the inconsistencies in the judicial application of the legislation, which limit the possibilities of putting a stop to criminal activity centring on obtaining huge profits.

The paper focuses exclusively on the general Spanish confiscation regulation, dispensing with compared analysis. Only Spanish literature is used.

The paper provides readers of other nationalities a complete overview of the matter.