Organized Environmental Crime in Russia and Abroad: Criminological Characteristics and Countermeasures

Abstract

Environmental crime is a constantly evolving form of criminal activity and its danger to the public is often underestimated. Environmental crime around the world is characterized by the emergence of new forms of criminal behavior, improvement of methods of committing crimes, a steady increase in the involvement of organized criminal groups and communities in their commission. The structure and nature of environmental crime have a distinct regional character, defined by parameters such as the environment, the presence on the territory of natural resources, proximity to state borders, as well as the effectiveness of conservation and law enforcement. Organized environmental crime, along with environmental terrorism, today, poses a significant threat to national security. Its distinctive features include: the durability and stability of a criminal organization, which, from an organizational and economic point of view, in most cases effectively manages complex criminal activities and has the ability to minimize the arising risks; long-term planning activities; the involvement of physical persons and commercial structures; the creation of criminal networks. Another characteristic is its focus on the market (including illegal). The main objective of criminal groups is to make profit. Often organized crime groups engage in criminal activities in various areas, committing environmental, economic and other types of crime, while corruption is a vital feature. Transnational organized environmental criminal activity is carried out in such key areas as illegal trade in rare and endangered species of wild fauna and flora and their derivatives; illegal felling of forest plantations and the trade of illegal timber; illegal trafficking of waste and illegal transportation, storage, discharge and disposal, including the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes; illegal fishing; illegal trade in ozone-depleting substances; illicit trade in radioactive substances and the illicit dumping of radioactive waste. An important role in the fight against organized environmental crime is given to the joint efforts of the law enforcement authorities of different States to prevent environmentally criminal behavior and to neutralize all stages of the crime: planning, illegal resource extraction, transportation, distribution, laundering of proceeds of crime. The elimination of the economic basis of criminal groups, reducing its profitability is the key to success in combating it. Improvement of international legislation will make it possible to create a comprehensive system of measures against organized environmental crime at the level of individual States and to ensure harmonization of national legislative systems from the point of view of terminology, formulations, and sanctions imposed for environmental offences by organized groups