Aspects of Underground Process in Romania

Abstract

We witness more and more often a diversification of the elements of underground economy, as potentiated by the effects of the global economic crisis. If in the previous years we have witnessed manifestations related to tax evasion, gambling or bribery, nowadays the aspects of the underground economy are represented by organizing criminal activities after the model of legal businesses (reception, production, transport, recovery, protection sectors) and white-collar crime. Sometimes these activities of organized crime surpass the capacity of the state to limit them as the specialists in the tax and legal areas prefer to offer their services to private employers who afford to pay them more than the state. Last but not least the globalization has created conditions in which money, weapons or human trafficking runs optimally between international groups of organized crime through the easy access to international networks of data or transport. Moreover, organized crime groups became focused on the control of financial institutions or banks, under the cover of which they could transfer huge amounts of money. In this respect, it appears that besides its positive features, globalization has created an environment in which organized crime groups have easily extended beyond state borders becoming real transnational crime industries.