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Slowly, and driven by a growing recognition of the impact of organised crime on developing countries, as well as the allure developing countries represent to criminal groups, development agencies have begun to engage with the problem of criminality. As a new actor in this area though, the linkage between development actors and other stakeholders – particularly those at the security end of the spectrum – is mired by a series of tensions. The explicit connection between crime and development in the Sustainable Development Goals increases the incentive, and urgency, for development actors to work through these tensions. However, the response often replicates the focus of security actors, such as building the capacity of law enforcement agencies to arrest criminals and seize illicit goods. This approach neglects the specific value that development offers in the response to organised crime. This chapter will map out the tensions that exist between security and development actors, and their impact on the response to organised crime. It will then consider what development can contribute to the response, drawing on examples from Libya and Mexico.

This chapter outlines the co-operative possibilities that may occur between terrorists and organised criminals. It focuses specifically on the decision making processes of organised criminals, outlining the factors that affect any decision they may make that involves a move to assist those engaged in terrorism, the ‘initial nexus’. It accomplishes this with specific reference to the perceived entrepreneurial aspects of organised crime, using the work of Baumol specifically, but also expanding the scope of the criminal’s considerations of ‘profit’ beyond simply financial gain.

A literature review and potential model of the decision making processes of organised criminals working within an initial nexus relationship is presented, supported by a range of opinions.

We suggest a number of factors that affect organised criminals decision making process when co-operating with terrorists for profit. These factors include: the nuances of criminal cultures, the use of calculated deception, cultural affinity and geographical distance from spheres of operation.

In the main the chapter presents the decision making processes of organised criminal income generation through those involved in academia and law enforcement. However, there is an acknowledgement of the need to gather the views of those involved in organised crime, and an outline of potential methods of research to achieve this.

It highlights this under-researched area to both academic and law enforcement professionals. Suggestions regarding potential areas of policy focus to interrupt initial nexus relationships are made.

Provides an insight into this under-researched area, and may affect the perception of criminal decision making processes for academics, law enforcement professionals and the public at large.

The model presented is a means by which the potential for more accurate assessment of criminal action and associated risk calculation can be predicted.

There is an evolving literature on criminal entrepreneurship which situates it as a sub-topic of the organised crime literature and either mythologies and elevates the criminal entrepreneur to Mafioso status or ascribes it to being an activity carried out by criminal cartels; or else it trivialises and minimises it as being ‘White-Collar Criminality’. In reality, entrepreneurship pervades everyday criminal life as it pervades the everyday practices of policing. In this chapter, the author acknowledges the existence of a ‘Crimino-Entrepreneurial Interface’ populated by a cast of criminal actors including the ubiquitous ‘Businessman Gangster’. These criminally entrepreneurial actors operate within a specific milieu or ‘Enterprise Model of Crime’ and operate alongside the legitimate ‘Entrepreneurial Business Community’. Within the two conjoined systems, there is a routine exchange of interactions either parasitical or symbiotic and these coalesce to form an ecosystem of enterprise crime in which it is not only the ubiquitous criminal entrepreneur who is present but a veritable cast of entrepreneurially motivated criminal actors. As well as the established business community there is a parallel, alternative community which is situated in the so-called ‘Criminal Areas’ where the traditional criminal fraternity carry out their nefarious entrepreneurial activities. Within such areas, an underclass exists which provides the criminal workforce for organised crime. The traditional criminal ecosystem is the natural habitat for the police, and it is around this activity that police are traditionally organised. A perpetual cycle of crime is set up which requires policing, but this leaves an unpoliced void which the entrepreneurial criminals exploit. It is necessary to understand the criminal places and spaces exploited by Organised Crime and what roles other criminal actors and facilitators play in the enterprise model. It is also necessary to understand the so-called ‘Perverse Model of Policing’ which distorts and magnifies the true scale of the problem and to appreciate how Serious and Organised Crime corrupt and infiltrate the legitimate ‘upperworld’ before one can understand the true scale of entrepreneurialism in policing and criminal contexts.

The purpose of this chapter is to investigate on the relationship between terrorism, criminal organisations, and the so-called ‘new wars’.

Review of the existing literature on the ‘new wars’ and on the terrorism–crime nexus; estimate of the financial revenues gained by terrorist groups engaged in illicit activities.

Terrorist and criminal groups can develop several forms of collaboration. Whether terrorists convert to criminal activities or not depends on a variety of factors, both internal and external. In some cases these links are occasional and opportunistic, associated with the possibility of exploiting the availability of specialised competences in a stateless environment, in other cases the warring parties are directly involved and create stable relationships as a way to finance their war activities.

Lack of reliable data limits a comprehensive analysis. Nevertheless, the study has important consequences for designing and adopting more effective policies regarding terrorism, organised crime, as well as conflict resolution.

The study presents an overview of different strands of the literature on terrorism; a discussion is articulated on the interplay between ‘new wars’ and the terror–crime connection. Potentially fruitful avenues of investigation are suggested for future research.

Having developed a more nuanced understanding of how entrepreneurship pervades everyday policing systems, practices, and processes and how it imbues ‘Organised Crime’ and ‘Organised Criminals’ with a competitive advantage it is incumbent upon us to consider new methods of implementing entrepreneurial policing. A strength of longstanding systems of policing is that they work because they systematically perpetuate consistent and proven ways of working which achieve measurable results. Such systems operationalise the conventional and maintain the ‘status quo’. Conversely, innovations do not implement themselves and new ways of ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ require to be designed, trialled, and put in place. People innovate and initiate change and it is necessary when seeking to initiate changes such as ‘entrepreneurial policing’ to assess the entrepreneurial propensities and capacities of staff within an organisation because this is the starting place for both change and entrepreneurial action. As a consequence, various possibilities including utilising academic research methodologies as analytic tools are examined.