Search results

The purpose of this paper is to consider how the national intelligence model (NIM) of policing in Britain has been affected by changing patterns of mobility, since its inception in 2004.

Conceptually, the paper draws on the “new mobilities paradigm”. Empirically, it is based on a small, exploratory study, comprising analysis of investigations carried out over a three‐month period in 2007 and 2008, by a serious and organised crime unit in a police force in England, and 11 interviews carried out in three police forces in England. The data are used for illustrative purposes only.

It is argued that increased levels of mobile criminality are impacting significantly on British police forces, placing considerable strain on the practical structures which underpin the NIM, and posing serious challenges to operational efficiency and effectiveness.

This paper makes a contribution by linking the social changes documented in the emergent social science field of “mobilities study” with changes in the organisation of criminality, particularly evident in the organisation of mobile criminality, which have presented routine opportunities for organised, transnational as well as “lower level” crime. Examining this phenomenon enables us to see that despite the attention paid to transnational policing in the organised crime literature, the burden of policing both organised and opportunistic crime continues to fall upon local police forces.

Addresses the rapid expansion of computer connectivity and the opportunities provided for criminals to exploit security vulnerabilities in the online environment.

International efforts to combat cyber‐crime are reviewed by evaluating the forms of mutual legal assistance (MLA) now in place.

Cyber‐crime is often traditional crime (e.g. fraud, identify theft, child pornography) albeit executed swiftly and to vast numbers of potential victims, as well as unauthorised access, damage and interference to computer systems. Most detrimental are malicious and exploit codes that interrupt computer operations on a global scale and along with other cyber‐crimes threaten e‐commerce. The cross‐national nature of most computer‐related crimes have rendered many time‐honoured methods of policing both domestically and in cross‐border situations ineffective even in advanced nations, while the “digital divide” provides “safe havens” for cyber‐criminals. In response to the threat of cyber‐crime there is an urgent need to reform methods of MLA and to develop trans‐national policing capability.

The international response is briefly outlined in the context of the United Nations (UN) Transnational Organised Crime Convention (in force from September 2003) and the Council of Europe's innovative Cyber‐crime Convention (in force from July 2004). In addition, the role of the UN, Interpol, other institutions and bi‐lateral, regional and other efforts aimed a creating a seamless web of enforcement against cyber‐criminals are described.

The potential for potent global enforcement mechanisms are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight both the ways in which transnational organized crime has developed and will develop, and also some problems in relation to financing economic organized crime networks. These are related to the problem of state capture problem in emerging democracies.

The literature and other sources have been reviewed to analyse trends relating to transnational crime organisations.

It was found that criminal organisations have moved in the last few years to strengthen their economic power, putting pressure on to states' politics through their networks. In some cases (such as tycoons in transitional countries) it seems that they have already entered a third phase – movement into politics. This form of elite organized crime could be characterised as a fifth branch of state authority, because it is influences, through the means of a great amount of money, corruption, networking and extortion, both the state economy and policy.

The analyses and conclusions help us to understand the transformation of organized crime and its influence on modern society, especially in emerging democracies. This may allow politicians and others to predict how economic organized crime will act in the future and how to avoid the current pressure being exerted by these groups.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical assessment and outline issues in criminal regulation relating to international anti‐money laundering (AML) programs.

In the first part, this paper outlines the serious threats posed by transnational laundering operations in the context of economic globalization, and calls for highly co‐ordinated international responses to such a crime. The second part of the paper centres on elements of international criminal regulation of ML.

The focus is on the phenomenological aspect of ML and highlights that to a large extent it is an economic issue. Economic analysis calls for an accurate legal response, with typical trade‐offs: it should deter criminals from laundering by increasing the costs for such illicit operations, calling for enhanced regulatory and enforcement activities; however, stronger enforcement yields increased costs and reduces privacy. These features have lately inspired the recent paradigm shift from a rule‐based regulatory framework to a risk‐based approach which still represents an extremely delicate regulatory. Both at the international level and within the single domestic legal system, AML law is typically characterised by a multidisciplinary approach combining the repressive profile with preventive mechanisms: an empirical evaluation of the International Monetary Fund‐World Bank AML program is presented, where these two aspects are assessed. The non‐criminal measures recently implemented under the auspices of the main inter‐governmental public organisations with competence in these fields seem to be consistent with the insights of economic analysis. However, some key criminal issues need to be better addressed.

The paper offers insights into international AML programs, focusing on criminal regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the development and nature of organized crime in the USA over the past 50 years, emphasizing organized crime's corruption and victimization of legitimate businesses and describing law enforcement's efforts to combat organized crime through specific case studies.

First, the paper analyzes the control over and corruption of legitimate businesses in the USA by the La Cosa Nostra (“LCN,” or the American Mafia), including the following industries: Las Vegas gaming; moving and storage; garment; waste – hauling; and, construction, and the following unions: the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Laborers International Union of North America; and, the International Longshoreman's Association. The paper also describes law enforcement's successful efforts to combat such corruption through the use of criminal and civil racketeering laws and specific prosecutions. The paper then discusses the emergence in the mid‐1980s of non‐traditional organized crime groups in the USA, including various Asian ethnic groups and large‐scale human trafficking organizations that impact Europe and Asia as well as the USA.

The non‐traditional criminal groups not only prey on the legitimate businesses in ethnic Asian communities in the USA, but they also engage in complex crimes, alien smuggling, drug trafficking, credit‐card frauds, money laundering, and other financial crimes. There has emerged a new era for organized crime that began in the 1990s with the fall of the former Soviet Union and the emergence of transnational organized crime groups emanating from the nations comprising the former Soviet Bloc. These organized crime groups engage in a wide variety of economic crimes including extortion, fraud, illicit appropriation of natural resources, and public corruption. Such extensive corruption threatens the stability of some of these emerging nations.

This paper will be valuable to law enforcement offices and policy makers to assist them to understand the scope and nature of organized crime's adverse effects upon businesses and economic interests and to develop tools to combat such criminal activities.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether there is a meaningful difference, viewed from a financial perspective, in distinguishing between organised crime and terrorist organisations, with regard to the control and mitigation of the threats that they pose to society.

The paper uses conceptual models obtained from enterprise theory and economics, as well as criminology, and makes use of case studies through the application of these models.

The paper finds that when viewed from a financial perspective, there is no meaningful difference in distinguishing between the groups because many have undergone processes of convergence and transformation, such that they assume each other’s operational and motivational characteristics. However, the answer also depends on how precisely one defines each type of illicit group as well as the transitions they undergo.

The value of this paper is that it applies two separate models on interactions between organised crime and terrorist organisations, the terror–crime continuum and interaction spectrum, to real life situations. After assessing their validity for more recent examples of such illicit groups, it then provides a balanced argument as to distinguishing between organised crime and terrorism. One limitation towards the paper’s originality, however, is that it draws mainly from pre-existing literature.

The Palermo Conference represents an important paradigm of civic responsibility that holds important global lessons for the kind of solidarity and cooperation necessary to transform the harsh reality of private and even public tyranny into the higher ideals of civic decency. It is the predicate that defends the rule of law precept as a stabilising and transformative component of a world order that honours and respects the dignity of all the people. The theme of the symposium where this paper was first presented was, of course, the rule of law in the global village. More specifically, the title here is ‘The Rule of Law: Lofty Ideal or Harsh Reality?’ How then does the UN convention against Transnational Organized Crime, in general, impact on the major themes just specified? What does the convention have to do with the rule of law and the earth‐space community, visualised as a global village?

The purpose of this paper is to recognize that organized crime and terrorism do not always operate independently from each other but, at times, rely on each other to create synergistic outcomes and use the same tactics and methods to advance their goals such as the use of fraud.

Sources of information consisted of scholarly articles and articles retrieved from the web.

Findings suggest that over time the crime‐terror nexus has increased its collaborative nature and terrorists have adopted the use of fraud schemes that were initially believed to be methods used only by organized crime to finance their organizations and goals.

This paper serves as a useful guide to alert and educate anti‐fraud professionals, law enforcement and policy makers of the nexus between organized crime, terrorism and fraud and that fraud should not be viewed as a peripheral issue in the crime‐terror nexus.

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.

Money laundering is a major problem related to organised crime and especially to its transnational manifestations. Organised crime, which is associated with a continuous inflow of enormous amounts of money, creates the problem of protecting and hiding the money while at the same time taking every precaution possible. Members of organised criminal groups are therefore forced to conduct all kinds of operations of acquisition or transfer of legal rights whose final stage is the ultimate integration of income deriving from illegal sources. Such behaviour, called ‘money laundering’, constitutes the ‘roots’ of organised crime; in other words, it is the fundamental basis for the existence of organised crime. That is why, as part of various international initiatives aimed at preventing and counteracting organised crime, particular attention is paid to the issue of trying to limit the scope of money laundering. It is worth adding here that the phenomenon is also associated with crimes (especially in the economic and financial area) that do not necessarily have to have an organised nature.