Proxy targeting and multiplex resilience for organized crime network disruption in corporate interlock and communications networks

IntroductionGlobalization has made the world much smaller than it was. The use of sophisticated technology and communications networks has made our lives more convenient, but at the same time it has also helped criminal elements become more efficient in their dealings. Transnational criminal networks and their activities remain one of the main concerns of governments today. Yet, what happens if the networks themselves are government-sponsored? Is there a possible solution when criminal elements themselves are supported by state organs, and sheltered under the eyes of the military and secret service?Such state-organized crime partnerships take criminal activities off the traditional street level and place them on the same pedestal as state activities. In other words, diplomatic, immigration/customs, and military resources have to be deployed to counter criminal activities that are equally supported by these resources. When politics, especially international relations, is involved, the situation becomes more fluid and complicated. State sponsorship can take place in two forms. The first is a more direct form, whereby criminal networks are integrated with a country's agencies, such as the military or the secret service. The second form is less direct-mafia and organized crime from other geographical locations seeking shelter from a willing state to protect their activities.The end of the Cold War may have signaled the demise of Stalinist-style state dictatorship (with a few exceptions) and nuclear confrontation, but its remnants continue to be active in several sectors, such as terrorism, the survivalism of pariah states, and their regrouping into a transnational criminal network. This is the subject of this paper, whereby the world's last remaining Stalinist state, North Korea, shelters or actively abets a handful of criminal networks in order to bypass the global power of the United States, the winner of the Cold War. The criminal network is formidable, as it spans the globe and utilizes gang, banking, diasporic, and state resources to overcome difficulties that would have been formidable without state help. It presents an interesting challenge for international law enforcement agencies and customs/immigration departments, as well as diplomatic corps. When criminal activities are combined with global politics, the scope of legal enforcement is vastly expanded.There are several distinguishing features that differentiate state-sponsored criminal activities from normal transnational criminal activities. The older criminal networks tend to have a kind of chivalrous code, to convey a sense of an urban legend, the image of vigilantes robbing the rich to help the poor. Yakuza and Chinese gang networks tend to convey such noble aspirations. Some make donations to public causes to legitimize their image in the eyes of the public. Japanese Yakuza have done this quite effectively. State-sponsored criminal activities do not share these concerns. They tailor their activities to the priorities of the state. In North Korea's case, this would be survival despite sanctions and other U.S. pressures.The normal transnational gang networks tend to base their activities on streetlevel trafficking, prostitution, and other traditional areas of crime, with clearly marked-out territories. State-sponsored organized crime networks do not have clearly marked-out borders and deal with any transactions that would yield a profit. Because they have the vast resources of the state (for example, the use of military boats and secret service intelligence), they are better able to diversify under the protection of the state, without the need to find niches for their criminal activities.All organized crime monies need to be laundered. Normal transnational criminal networks need to do this discreetly, through many layers of exchanges or wireless transfers of monies. Often these transfers involve much bureaucracy, sometimes elaborate stealth methodologies and even bloodshed. …

In recent years the Hungarian administration of justice trialed some of the most famous murder cases of the 1990’s which were contract killing between organized crime groups. These trials brought up many new information about the life of organized crime gangs and given a better opportunity to criminologist to understand the recent activity of the organized crime gangs. I wrote my thesis about how organized crime successfully survived the crisis of the regime change. The following research based on a tight cooperation with Pest County Police Headquarters where I analyzed criminal files about organized crime gangs after the regime change. The main question of the research was: what sociological and economical factors contributed to the strengthening of organized crime In Hungary? Where can we discover the responsibility of the state? How state regulation affected organized crime? The present days organized crime roots from illegal criminal groups existed in the socialist period. Thanks to the liberal economic reforms in 1981 the second economy had a great economic potential during the socialist period. Organized criminal groups often invested in private sector thus corporate crime became linked to organized crime. Due to their better economic conditions the criminal networks could establish different kind of private ventures, like restaurants, pubs or tobacco shops. After the declaration of democracy many organized crime networks took advantage of regulatory gaps. They preserved their status and informal capital from the second economy. Due to the economical change the new entrepreneurs informally forced to borrow capital from organized crime groups, or they used these group’s money to recover their debts. They could not turn to court because of their illegal transactions. Other organized crime networks misused government subsidies and created semi-firms, which could operate successfully due to the problems of state control. My research seeks to show that during the third Hungarian Republic from the 1990's organized crime groups have worked with the help of entrepreneurs. Due to the economic crisis of 2008 and the emergence of political extremism the organized crime groups became number one public enemies, who are again using the same methods what were successful during early 1990’s. A kind of semi-legal market and entrepreneurship has developed since 2008. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2s2p219

A análise apresentada neste estudo demostra que níveis elevados de integração vertical de organizações criminosas no âmbito jurídico-econômico – no qual, por exemplo, uma rede criminosa transnacional desenvolve a capacidade de licitamente gerar suas próprias matérias-primas, produzindo, transportando e distribuindo os bens ou serviços que posteriormente serão traficados, bem como controlando seu comércio atacadista ou varejista – estão sempre relacionados à corrupção política no financiamento de campanhas eleitorais e em contratações públicas, nos países em que falhas estatais mais agudas impedem o desmantelamento legal e judicial de redes criminosas por meio do confisco de ativos. Nesse contexto, esta análise amplia conclusões anteriores, fornecendo bases conceituais e empíricas para explicar a maior diversificação dos crimes econômicos organizados e sua relação com um maior grau de integração vertical em negócios jurídicos politicamente resguardados por financiamentos ilícitos de campanhas eleitorais e envolvimentos ilegais em licitações de contratos públicos. Com base nas estruturas teóricas de Williamson, observa-se que a integração vertical das atividades econômicas pelas organizações criminosas tem por objetivo reduzir os custos de transação ligados à frequência, especificidade, incerteza, racionalidade limitada e comportamento oportunista nas transações de mercado em ambientes econômicos, nos quais outras organizações criminosas também competem com violência e corrupção para conquistar mercados lícitos e apoiar atividades criminosas das mais variadas naturezas. Além disso, os conceitos e dados empíricos ora apresentados demonstrarão que uma maior integração vertical das atividades econômicas de uma rede criminosa em um ambiente em que existem falhas estatais na prestação de serviços públicos (tais como a garantia de transparência e higidez nas eleições políticas e na tomada de decisões judiciais) também será acompanhada do maior fornecimento pelo crime organizado de bens e serviços quase-públicos (como, por exemplo, mecanismos alternativos de resolução de conflitos), voltados a atender aos segmentos economicamente mais vulneráveis da população, localizados nas áreas geográficas de atuação de tais organizações criminosas. Nesse cenário, a violação sistemática dos direitos políticos e civis, tais como a violação do direito humano de acesso à justiça ou à forma transparente e hígida de eleger mandatários de cargos públicos, funciona como um pré-requisito para o fortalecimento social do crime organizado. Em suma, há uma reação em cadeia em que as falhas do sistema judicial incentivam recursos mais frequentes a mecanismos alternativos de resolução de conflitos fornecidos pelo crime organizado e por grupos armados, os quais por sua vez estão ligados a uma maior diversificação de mercados ilícitos e a uma maior integração vertical a mercados lícitos que sustentam tais mercados ilícitos. Uma das principais conclusões deste trabalho é que uma atuação judicial mais eficiente no confisco de ativos provenientes de crimes reforça o direito humano de acesso à justiça para os segmentos mais vulneráveis da população, além de impactar positivamente o direito de eleger, com menor interferência do crime organizado, mandatários de cargos públicos. Por conseguinte, uma atuação judicial mais eficiente no desmantelamento de redes criminosas não só reforçará a dissuasão/punição dessas organizações, como também evitará o crescimento de bolhas de proteção sociopolítica, nas quais o crime organizado prospera.

Historically, the poaching of wildlife was portrayed as a small-scale local activity in which only small numbers of wildlife would be smuggled illegally by collectors or opportunists. Nowadays, this image has changed: criminal networks are believed to be highly involved in wildlife trafficking, which has become a significant area of illicit activity. Even though wildlife trafficking has become accepted as a major area of crime and an important topic and criminologists have examined a variety of illegal wildlife markets, research that specifically focusses on the involvement of different criminal networks and their specific nature is lacking. The concept of a ‘criminal network’ or ‘serious organized crime’ is amorphous – getting used interchangeably and describes all crime that is structured rather than solely reflecting crime that fits within normative definitions of ‘organized’ crime. In reality, criminal networks are diverse. As such, we propose categories of criminal networks that are evidenced in the literature and within our own fieldwork: (1) organized crime groups (2) corporate crime groups and (3) disorganized criminal networks. Whereas there are instances when these groups act alone, this article will (also) discuss the overlap and interaction that occurs between our proposed categories and discuss the complicated nature of the involved criminal networks as well as predictions as to the future of these networks.

Organised crime and criminal networks are an outcome of Africa’s weak systems of state reach and governance, and in turn they further undermine effective state-building. Defining “organized crime” is challenging in the African context. African policy discussions did not use this term until recently, and it is so broad that it covers an enormous range of activity. Nevertheless, it is arguably now generally used and accepted, denoting organized illegal activities by a group of people over time that generate a profit. Such terminology is also now widely referred to internationally and in a UN Convention (which defines an “organized criminal group” but not organized crime itself) to which almost all African states have subscribed. The term “criminal networks” is often also used in African debates, denoting the more flexible and dynamic criminal arrangements that characterize the continent. Organized crime and criminal networks in Africa appear in many different forms, shaped largely by the strength of the state, and the degree that political elites and state actors are themselves involved in them. Broadly, organized crime can be said to occur along a continuum on the continent. On one side are well-established and -organized mafia-style groups such as the hard-core gangs of the Western Cape in South Africa or militia style operations engaged in ‘taxing’ local populations and economic activities, both licit and illicit. In the middle of the continuum, are relatively loose, and often highly effective, criminal networks made up both of Africans (West African criminal networks being the most prominent) and a range of foreign criminal actors seeking opportunities. On the other end, are sets of criminal style entrepreneurs, often operating as companies (the Guptas in South Africa, for example) but with a variety of forms of state protection. Illicit financial outflows in particular are a serious concern, but governance and regulatory reforms will be far more critical than the suppression of illicit markets themselves by law enforcement agencies, given also evidence that suggests a high degree of collusion between some African police and criminals in several illicit markets. Violence too remains a key tool for criminal control and advancement at all points along the spectrum, with the strength of the state and the collusion between state actors and criminal groups often determining the form, intensity and targets of that violence. That is one reason why the link between organized crime and conflict on the continent remains a concern, with actors (who in many cases exhibit criminal or mafia-style attributes) seeking to enhance their resource accumulation by control or taxation of criminal markets. Given this and other factors, the impact of organized crime on Africa’s development is severe, and although in some key markets the illicit economy provides opportunities for livelihood and a source of resilience, these opportunities are negated by the extent of environmental damage, the growth of drug use among the poor and marginalized, human rights abuses of migrants and those being trafficked, the violence engendered, and the economic distortions introduced.

Mexico's Drug War and Criminal Networks examines the effects of technology on three criminal organizations: the Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas, and the Caballeros Templarios. Using social network analysis, and analyzing the use of web platforms Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Nilda M. Garcia provides fresh insights on the organizational network, the central nodes, and the channels through which information flows in these three criminal organizations. In doing so, she demonstrates that some drug cartels in Mexico have adopted the usage of social media into their strategies, often pursuing different tactics in the search for new ways to dominate. She finds that the strategic adaptation of social media platforms has different effects on criminal organization’s survivability. When used effectively, coupled with the adoption of decentralized structures, these platforms do increase a criminal organization’s survival capacity. Nonetheless, if used haphazardly, it can have the opposite effect. Drawing on the fields of criminology, social network analysis, international relations, and organizational theory and featuring a wealth of information about the drug cartels themselves, Mexico's Drug War and Criminal Networks will be a great source for all those interested in the presence, behavior, purposes, and strategies of drug cartels in their forays into social media platforms in Mexico and beyond.

The article examines the problem of the emergence of a criminal insurgency in a single country, the factor of which is the integration of local gangs into a transnational criminal network, created by highly developed gangs and cartels in countries where criminal insurgencies already take place. The process of the insurgency emergence is shown using the example of the involvement of Ecuadorian gangs in a transnational criminal network by criminal groups from Colombia and Mexico. The author assumes that the situation in these countries corresponds to the signs of an internal armed conflict. The aim of this paper is to show how highly developed criminal organizations involved in criminal insurgencies in Colombia and Mexico act as a factor of internal political destabilization in Ecuador in the form of criminal insurgency through the involvement of Ecuadorian gangs in a transnational criminal network. The research question is formulated as follows: why does the involvement of criminal organizations in transnational criminal networks contribute to the internal political destabilization of the state in the form of a criminal insurgency in the territory in which these groups appeared? The methodology of the study is based on the concept of criminal insurgency, according to which developed criminal organizations are considered as de facto political actors primarily due to their ability to establish territorial control and thereby challenge the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of force, creating a direct threat to its territorial integrity and sovereignty. The study also uses the concept of «three-generation gangs» and social network analysis. A network of Colombian, Mexican, and Ecuadorian criminal organizations is identified, network metrics are determined. One subnetwork is detected. It is shown that the emergence of criminal insurgencies in Mexico and Colombia contributed to the emergence of criminal insurgency in Ecuador. It is concluded that social network analysis as applied to criminal networks can help identify the vulnerabilities of criminal networks and develop effective strategies to counter them. To improve the effectiveness of the fight against criminal networks special attention should be paid to neutralizing fixers between the groups included in these networks.

This research examines the evolutionary patterns and determinants of multiplex organizational communication networks. Based on the data between 1997 and 2005 collected from the records of development projects in the field of Information and Communication Technology for Development, the study demonstrates that dynamics in one network are significant drivers of tie formation in the other network at both dyadic and triadic levels. In particular, results show that the effects of common third-party ties and structural embeddedness exist across multiplex networks. Further, the study suggests that resource similarity of organizational dyads, resource width, and organizational centrality have positive effects on the propensity for multiplex ties. These results have implications for organizations’ communication networking strategies in a wide variety of organizational communities.

Organized crime groups may or may not have some criteria for membership, but organized criminal activities seep into the legitimate spheres of society. We argue that it is at the boundaries of the underworld and the upper world where crime gets organized. Layers of embedded and multiplex relationships between criminals and non-criminals comprise Chicago’s Prohibition era organized crime network. This study draws a sample from our unique relational “Capone Dataset” on early 1900s Chicago crime, which we began compiling in 2008 from six archival sources. Using formal social network analysis techniques, this study explores an organized crime network of more than 4,000 relationships between 1,400 individuals. Our stepwise analysis moves from a bounded group of members of Al Capone’s Syndicate, to an embedded and multiplex network spanning criminal, personal, and legitimate spheres, to a small world graph test using simulated random and ERGM networks. We find that an organized crime network conceptualization that includes multiplex and embedded relationships beyond gang membership provides a more accurate and provocative picture of organized crime and has the properties of small world graphs. These findings have implications for future studies of organized crime networks, corruption, resilience, and vulnerability.

Recently, Social Network Analysis studies have led to an improvement and to a generalization of existing tools to networks with multiple subsystems and layers of connectivity. These kind of networks are usually called multilayer networks. Multilayer networks in which each layer shares at least one node with some other layer in the network are called multiplex networks. Being a multiplex network does not require all nodes to exist on every layer. In this paper, we built a criminal multiplex network which concerns an anti-mafia operation called "Montagna" and it is based on the examination of a pre-trial detention order issued on March 14, 2007 by the judge for preliminary investigations of the Court of Messina (Sicily). "Montagna" focus on two Mafia families called "Mistretta" and "Batanesi" who infiltrated several economic activities including the public works in the north-eastern part of Sicily, through a cartel of entrepreneurs close to the Sicilian Mafia. Originally we derived two single-layer networks, the former capturing meetings between suspected individuals and the latter recording phone calls. But some networked systems can be better modeled by multilayer structures where the individual nodes develop relationships in multiple layers. For this reason we built a two-layer network from the single-layer ones. These two layers share 47 nodes. We followed three different approaches to measure the importance of nodes in multilayer networks using degree as descriptor. Our analysis can aid in the identification of key players in criminal networks.

The main topic of this paper is the discovery of motifs in multiplex corporate networks. Network motifs are small subgraphs occurring at significantly higher numbers than in similar random networks. They can be seen as the building blocks of a complex network. In real-world network data, multiple types of (possibly overlapping) relationships may be present among the nodes, forming so-called multiplex networks. Detecting motifs in such networks is difficult, as existing subgraph enumeration algorithms are not directly applicable to multiplex network data. In addition, the selection of a proper multiplex null model to test the significance of the enumerated subgraphs is nontrivial. This paper addresses these two problems, resulting in three contributions. First, we present a method based on layer encoding for adequately handling the multiplex aspect in subgraph enumeration. Second, a null model is proposed that is able to preserve the relationship between the different types of links, taking into account that a particular link type may be the result of a projection from a bipartite network. Finally, we perform experiments on corporate network data from Germany, in which around \(75\,000\) nodes represent corporations and roughly \(195\,000\) links represent connectedness of firms based on shared board members and ownership. We demonstrate how incorporating the multiplex aspect in motif detection is able to reveal new insights that could not be obtained by studying only one type of relationship. Furthermore, results uncover how the financial sector is over-represented in the more complex motifs, hinting at a surprisingly prominent role of the financial sector in the largely industry-oriented corporate network of Germany.

Wildlife trafficking is considered to be an example of a transnational organized crime by policymakers and enforcement agencies. Empirically, however, there is mixed support for this. Recently, there has been increased attention on the convergence of different illegal activities in an effort to share resources, personnel and transport routes. The present study attempts to qualitatively examine the intersection of wildlife trafficking and organized crime from a crime mutualism framework in order to explore how these criminal activities and entities converge. Based on fieldwork conducted in Uganda and China, we find that while organized crime appears to have a presence in illegal wildlife markets, such involvement appears to be more relevant during specific stages. Furthermore, it appears that illegal wildlife markets in both case studies reflect both loose, informal criminal networks and more organized crime groups. These findings have implications for the criminological study of and the response to complex wildlife crime.

The interplay between (criminal) organizations and (law enforcement) disruption strategies is critical in criminology and social network analysis. Like legitimate businesses, criminal enterprises thrive by fulfilling specific demands and navigating their unique challenges, including balancing operational visibility and security. This study aims at comprehending criminal networks’ internal dynamics, resilience to law enforcement interventions, and robustness to changes in external conditions. Using a model based on evolutionary game theory, we analyze these networks as collaborative assemblies of roles, considering expected costs, potential benefits, and the certainty of expected outcomes. Here, we show that criminal organizations exhibit strong hysteresis effects, with increased resilience and robustness once established, challenging the effectiveness of traditional law enforcement strategies focused on deterrence through increased punishment. The hysteresis effect defines optimal thresholds for the formation or dissolution of criminal organisation. Our findings indicate that interventions of similar magnitude can lead to vastly different outcomes depending on the existing state of criminality. This result suggests that the relationship between stricter punishment and its deterrent effect on organized crime is complex and sometimes non-linear. Furthermore, we demonstrate that network structure, specifically interconnectedness (link density) and assortativity of specialized skills, significantly influences the formation and stability of criminal organizations, underscoring the importance of considering social connections and the accessibility of roles in combating organized crime. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of the systemic nature of criminal behavior from an evolutionary perspective and highlight the need for adaptive, strategic approaches in policy-making and law enforcement to disrupt criminal networks effectively.

Criminal organization is dependent on context, place, and time. However, in the study of organized crime, criminal organization is often conceptualized without a wider view on the context within which opportunities for criminal activities arise and in which criminal networks develop that take advantage of these opportunities. Historical research teaches us a lot about these opportunities and how criminal networks may evolve, during various periods in history within varying contexts. In this chapter, the author reviews some major theoretical notions about criminal organization: protection theory, the bureaucracy model, illegal enterprise theory, criminal networks, and situational approaches. Furthermore, the author discusses how the historical chapters in this volume provide valuable insights into the topic of criminal organization.

Detecting criminal organizations in mobile phone networks