Form Of Organized Crime Research Articles

Diffusion of International Anti-Money Laundering Standards into Ethiopian Laws: Issues of Adequacy and Effectiveness

Ethiopia has signed and ratified several international and regional instruments adopted to combat and prevent money laundering (ML) and other forms of organized crime. To express the country’s commitment to implement these instruments and combat the threat of ML and associated predicate offenses to the country’s financial stability and national security, the government of Ethiopia has enacted various anti-money laundering (AML) laws. This article examines the diffusion of the international AML standards into Ethiopia’s legal system and the adequacy of the country's AML legal norms in addressing the structural causes of ML and its predicate offenses. A socio-legal research approach was utilized to conduct the study. It uncovers that Ethiopia’s AML legal norms have evolved primarily because of external pressure. Ethiopia was pressurized to comply with the international AML standards, specifically with the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) 40 Recommendations. Eventually, the country’s AML norms comply with FATF recommendations. This saved the country from being labeled as a country with strategic AML deficiencies or being blacklisted as a non-cooperative country and territory. It is unlikely, however, to alter the structural causes of ML and its predicate offenses. To curb the peril of ML to Ethiopia’s economy and security, it is necessary to either transform the country’s economy from cash-intensive to cashless or enact comprehensive AML legal norms that reflect the country’s social, political, and economic settings.

ПРОБЛЕМЫ ПРОТИВОДЕЙСТВИЯ МОШЕННИЧЕСТВУ, СОВЕРШАЕМОМУ С ИСПОЛЬЗОВАНИЕМ МОБИЛЬНОЙ СВЯЗИ

The article says that fraud has begun to have a number of new criminologically significant differ-ences from the previous period. The damage caused by this type of crime has significantly in-creased, the professionalization of criminals in this area has increased. In addition, fraud began to take the form of organized crime. New ways of committing a crime have appeared. The authors of the article note that modern technologies contribute to the development of this trend, which brings incommensurable damage to the state and society and propose a number of measures that will con-tribute to countering fraud by means of using mobile communications

Правовые аспекты современной кибербезопасности и противодействия киберпреступности

The article analyses contemporary legal aspects and current cybersecurity issues, cybercrime features of Rus- sian and foreign law of information and communication technologies. The research methods consist of comparative legal analysis of contemporary Russian and foreign legislation and law enforcement practice, as well as, a formal and logical study of a conceptual apparatus, content and struc- ture of the research object. The study results enable the authors to formulate the awareness of cybercrime legal content, that includes not only offenses committed by using computer technology, but other information and communication equipment and tools, including software either. The rapid spread of cybercrime, the emergence of new forms of organized crime using the global Internet, intended and well-organized cyber attacks on a critical infrastructure of states and private companies indicate the formation of a special area of crime - cybersecurity crime and information technol- ogy, which goes beyond a common insight of crime of information technology and communications. Therefore, the authors came to certain conclusions to conceptualize theoretical and methodological principles, develop the foundations of law and order of cybersecurity, clarify the conceptual apparatus and specifics of legal regulation of cybersecurity in public and private law, as well as the formation of a new line of criminology of cybercrime. The scientific novelty of the study consists of a conceptual justification of a cybercrime countering, as an ele- ment of national cybersecurity, as well as, the substantiation of a specific line of criminology - cybercriminology.

Centralized Law Enforcement in Contemporary China: The Campaign to “Sweep Away Black Societies and Eradicate Evil Forces”

AbstractIn 2018, China's general secretary, Xi Jinping, announced a three-year war on “black societies and evil forces” and promised to take down various forms of organized crime and evil forces within society. This article examines the operational features of this particular crackdown and how they diverged from previous “strike hard” campaigns. This campaign adopted novel strategies including embedding instructions on law enforcement within criminal justice institutions, promulgating special rules on the crimes of evil forces in order to “strike” campaign targets early, and deploying intrusive investigation tactics that focused on the person and not the crime. Using democratic centralism as a liberal lens, this campaign showcases the struggle between the imperative of legality and the politics of a major campaign in China.

Transnational gangs and criminal remittances: a conceptual framework

Policy responses to transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) within migrant receiving countries often conflate all organizations which conduct illegal activity in multiple countries based on the mafia or cartel model. This model imagines the TCO to be the most evolved form of organized crime: deeply institutionalized, well resourced, hierarchically structured, highly profitable, and diversified in their criminal activities. Such a model informs law enforcement and immigration policies which are often draconian and counterproductive to citizen security. In reality, transnational crime is highly varied in organization, activities, scope, and membership. A major TCO type that defies the mafia archetype is the transnational gang. This study seeks to nuance our understanding of TCOs, illustrated by case studies of two transnational gangs, MS-13 and Satudarah, by advancing the concept of criminal remittances to locate agency in transnationalization. As the case studies demonstrate, for transnational gangs, the remittance of criminal activity is not at the organization level but at the individual and state level. Thus the transnationalization of crime can itself be the product of state foreign and migration policies.

PSYCHOLOGY OF ORGANIZED CRIME AND CRIMINAL GROUPS

The most current knowledge regarding organized crime, the factors that led to its consolidation, and the psychology of criminal organizations is provided in this page. The essay also discusses the many forms of organized crime, elements that criminal organizations use to analyze their deviant behavior, the psychological make-up of the criminal organization, and the activities of the criminal organization.

Specific Issues facing the European Union. Fight against Serious and Organized Crime

In the pandemic context generated by the epidemiological situation we face, crime has increased worldwide, criminals adapting to the environmental changes in which they operate. Thus, online criminal activities have become more widespread, especially in the area of fraud, and concrete and structured action is needed at EU level to combat all forms of organized crime. Modern technology is an essential tool in terms of serious and organized crime, facilitating systematic cooperation between criminals, in achieving the common goal, respectively the achievement of profit. Thus, it becomes much easier to access illegal tools and goods, the economic crisis generated by the pandemic giving a safe lever in this regard. The European Union is working to establish the tools and measures to be developed in the period 2020-2025, to ensure security in the physical and digital environment.

ВИЗНАЧЕННЯ ЙМОВІРНИХ КОРУПЦІЙНИХ РИЗИКІВ ПІД ЧАС ЗАСТОСУВАННЯ ЗБРОЙНИХ СИЛ УКРАЇНИ

Among the main processes of modern social development, the majority of scientists single out globalization. Ukraine, as one of the largest European states with great economic and geopolitical potential, cannot remain aloof from world trends. However, public managers, politicians and scientists need to remember the numerous obstacles that inevitably accompany such important phenomena for society. And perhaps the most dangerous threat to the development of society today is corruption. Today, there is no country where corruption has been completely eradicated. None of the socio-political and economic systems had, does not have, and cannot have complete immunity to corruption. Corruption can exist for a long time even in developed democratic countries and in countries with an open market economy. The difference is not in the presence or absence of corruption as such, but in its scale, nature of corruption manifestations, influence on economic, social, political, legal and other processes. On the one hand, corruption characterizes the main social relations carried out in the state and society, on the other - it affects the economy, politics, law, ideology, social psychology, etc. Corruption manifests itself in the ineffectiveness of the government, the imperfection of the most important state and social institutions. Thus, presiding over a meeting of the National AntiCorruption Committee, the President of Ukraine emphasized: "The fight against corruption is a vital matter for society, as this phenomenon threatens national security and the constitutional order in Ukraine." Ukraine belongs to the countries with war zones, which are characterized by an increase in the level of corruption. It is necessary to understand that corruption is a key threat to the national security of the state, at the same time it has a synergistic effect on all other threats in the field of security, contributing to the activities of various forms of organized crime, increasing social instability, which deprives the state of the ability to perform the functions assigned to it by society, hindering development economy.

Trends in illegal wildlife trade across the EU between 2015 and 2020

This paper deals with threats posed to biodiversity and human health by illegal trafficking of animals, plants, and related natural products. This activity contributes even to climate change. Altogether, these activities compromise environmental sustainability, therefore, urgent action is needed. For over one-decade, international communities, and organizations (UNODC, Interpol, Europol, and EU) have been warning on these wildlife crimes. We examine seizure data on illegal imports into and out of the European Union (EU) of illegal animal and plant species, protected by the international CITES Convention. Trends of these imports are evaluated over a five-year interval. This activity is global and poses serious threats, so its knowledge is of paramount importance to researchers, law enforcement agencies, and judicial authorities. In the meanwhile, the illegal smuggling offers undeserved benefits to criminals, and they may become a new form of organized crime. In our quantitative research, we collected data from the wildlifetradeportal.com database. The database was searched for the 27 Member States of the EU, and the time interval from January 1, 2015 to October 10, 2020 was selected. We grouped and systematized obtained data by countries and based on individual seizures, we found the method of illegal shipment (by road, air, or sea). In addition, we identified the object of the smuggled goods (animal or plant species), the quantity, which was smuggled. We screened the source countries of exports to the EU and the destination countries of imports.After systematizing collected data, as described here, we established that for each species the same target and source country occur recurrently (over ten times), i.e., older and newer trends can be observed, and seized quantities are also significant. Our findings offer further research directions, analysis opportunities, and new challenges for law enforcement agencies. Based on our results, one can state that this topic deserves priority treatment, and that effective action can only be envisaged via cooperation between individual EU Member States, as well as EU States and third countries

Impactul criminalității asupra dezvoltării economico-sociale regionale în România, Editura Pro Universitaria, București, 2018. Radu Tudor Petre

The purpose of this review is to highlight the novelty elements of the research carried out by Mr. Radu Tudor Petre on The impact of crime on regional economic and social development in Romania. The very first work is to use and adapt to national specificities certain working methods and tools validated by other States, for which crime control and the effective spending of public money is a priority. The multifactorial crime model, the model of situational prevention through regional planning, the calculation of the regional cost of crime per capita, the application of the Granger causality test on the criminal phenomena variables and the Gini index of social inequality, resulting in the likelihood of the causal link between crime, have been tested and adapted, level of economic development and corruption index. Research has emerged as a necessity in the current socio-economic and political national and international context, which inevitably generates new forms of organized crime or the increasing level of existing crime, so that the institutional capacity of a state to anticipate trends or developments in this phenomenon and the assessment of the social and economic impact it has had lead to the adoption of viable regional, national and transnational crime prevention and reduction policies, linked to regional development programs. The quality of the paper is that, by linking social issues (social exclusion, unemployment, early school leaving, risk of victimization, disadvantaged background, etc.), crime and their economic and social impact on regional development, open up new opportunities for cross-disciplinary research.

Filling the Void? Organized Crime and COVID-19 in Rio De Janeiro

How does territorial control by organized crime groups affect the enforcement of public policies? We answer this question by studying the enforcement of social distancing policies in Rio de Janeiro during the COVID-19 crisis. Two criminal groups with distinct governance have \textit{de facto} control over several areas of the city: drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) and paramilitary groups (PGs). While the former funds itself mainly through the drug business, where their consumer base lives outside their turfs, the second obtains most of its profits from extortion and illegal commerce of public services to citizens within their territories. This induces different responses to policies that reduce economic activity, such as those enacted in the pandemic. To answer our main question, we estimate difference-in-differences specifications that compare social distancing before and after the outbreak in areas with and without territorial control by these groups. We document that in areas controlled by PGs, distancing was smaller than in government-ruled areas. On the other hand, DTOs' turfs had similar social distancing to places controlled by the government. Our results suggest that the effect of organized crime on the enforcement of public policies depends on their form of criminal governance.

Women in Organized Crime

The involvement of women in organized criminal activities such as street gangs, mafias, and illegal transnational markets, including human trafficking, human smuggling, and drug trafficking, is an important but understudied subject. Gendered studies and feminist theories can improve current knowledge and provide important new insights. They can enhance understanding of women’s roles, behavior, motivations, and life stories in all forms of organized crime and challenge traditional and established ideas about victims, perpetrators, violence, and agency. Women, in all those settings, occupy both passive, subordinate roles and more active, powerful ones. However, ideas that greater emancipation, labor force participation, and formal equality of women in our time have fundamentally affected women’s involvement in organized crime have not been validated. Borders between victims and perpetrators are often blurred. More research is needed on the effects of globalization and technological change, on the salience of conceptions of masculinity in relation to organized crime, and on conceptualization of violence in women’s personal lives and criminal actions.

Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs and Organized Crime

AbstractOutlaw motorcycle clubs have spread across the globe. Their members have been associated with serious crime, and law enforcement often perceives them to be a form of organized crime. Outlaw...

Banditism as a form of organized crime

В статье дается криминологическая характеристика современного бандитизма, анализируются характерные черты банд и их участников. На основании проведенного исследования предлагаются меры борьбы с организованной преступной деятельностью современных банд.

Following the poppy trail: Origins and consequences of Mexican drug cartels

This paper studies the origins, and economic and social consequences of some of the most prominent drug trafficking organizations in the world: the Mexican cartels. It first traces the current location of cartels to the places where Chinese migrated at the beginning of the 20th century, discussing and documenting how both events are strongly connected. Information on Chinese presence at the beginning of the 20th century is then used to instrument for cartel presence today, to identify the effect of cartels on society. Contrary to what seems to happen with other forms of organized crime, the IV estimates in this study indicate that at the local level there is a positive link between cartel presence and better socioeconomic outcomes (e.g. lower marginalization rates, lower illiteracy rates, higher salaries), better public services, and higher tax revenues, evidence that is consistent with the known stylized fact that drug lords tend have great support in the local communities in which they operate.

Research on interpersonal relationship network of pyramid scheme organization based on social network: A case study

As a form of organized crime, pyramid scheme has brought huge economic losses to many countries, especially China, and caused serious social problems. How to deeply analyze the structure of pyramid scheme organizations is a necessary topic to explore and combat pyramid scheme organizations. Social network analysis is an effective method to study organized crime. Among them, the motif and exponential random graph models are effective tools for studying organizational microstructure, endogenous process. For the first time, this paper uses the social network analysis to study the interpersonal relationship network of a specific pyramid scheme organization, the typical case of “5.03” in Hunan Province was taken as the research object, and the above model was used for modeling analysis. The results show that the interpersonal relationship network has a sparse density. The microstructure is not a pyramid structure that is generally considered, but presents more ternary closures. Cross-community links, cross-level links between core employees and surrounding employees are less. The pyramid scheme network of interpersonal relationships has obvious homogeneity characteristics.

Organized crime in the production and distribution of falsified medicines in Poland: Outline of the problem

Pharmaceutical crime has become a global phenomenon, an element of organized global crime, alongside drug and arms trafficking. Therefore, in order to combat this issue, there is a need of co-operation of a number of factors such as: the legal system, its proper use, cooperation of entities obliged to combat crime (not only national but also international), appropriate social campaign. This paper refers to the aforementioned issues. It presents examples of actions of the Polish police in the fight against pharmaceutical crime as a form of organized crime. The article has been prepared within the frames of realizing a research project called “Understand the Dimensions of Organized Crime and Terrorist Networks for Developing Effective and Efficient Security Solutions for First-line-practitioners and Professionals” (Project: TAKEDOWN, H2020-FCT-2015, No: 700688).

CRIME IN FOREIGN ECONOMIC SPHERE IN THE POST-SOVIET STATES

The purpose of the article is to reveal the content of organized crime in foreign economic sphere and the factors that determine the state and trends of its development. It is revealed the influence of corruption as a form of organized crime on foreign economic activity, which is illustrated by examples of illegal actions in this area. It is concluded that organized crime in foreign economic sphere essentially goes beyond the limits of the customs regime violations, evasion of customs duties and other payments and threatens the functioning of the whole sectors of post-Soviet countries’ economies. Methodology. The study is based on the economic and criminological approaches developed by J. Knorih (Knorich, 2004), as well as S. Zedeg and N. Gustavson (Susanna Thedeg, 2009; Susanna Thede, 2012). It should also be noted the studies conducted by experts from international organizations such as the World Bank (S. J. Hellman, 2000), Transparency International (Transparency and Corruption, 2016) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (Quantitative Evidence on Transparency in Regional Trade Agreements, 2013). The consideration of issues related to the criminalization of foreign economic relations is based on the methods described in the works of J. Cassar (Cassara, 2015), K. Nordstrom (Nordstrom, 2007), M. Naim (Naim, 2006) and P. Shadri (Chaudhry, 2007), as well as in the author's works on countering corruption and organized crime (Hrechyn, 2015). Result of the study reveals the essence of crime in the foreign economic sphere as a form of corruption that poses threat to the economic security in post-Soviet states. This will allow us to assess the scale of the problem and evaluate appropriate responses.

Политические аспекты борьбы с российской организованной преступностью в контексте обеспечения национальной безопасности

The article analyzes political aspects of the fight against Russian organized crime. According to the author, only a systematic analysis of this negative sociopolitical phenomenon and the optimization of the governance structure of the power bloc can ensure the effectiveness of state policy to combat various manifestations and forms of organized crime and ensure national security.

Organized Crime in the United Kingdom: Illegal Governance of Markets and Communities

This article focuses on governance-type organized crime (OC). First, it explores two cases of illegal governance in Salford (Greater Manchester) and Derbyshire by relying on a wide range of qualitative data. Next, it presents a novel instrument measuring the strength of governance-type OC, the ‘Illegal Governance (i-Gov) Index’. This instrument is then included in a survey we conducted with Derbyshire Constabulary. This is the first systematic attempt to measure such crime in the United Kingdom. The article shows that the governance dimension of OC is present in the United Kingdom, although with varying degrees of sophistication and development. While comparatively rare, this form of OC is pernicious and highly destructive of communities. This article therefore calls for a systematic evaluation of such phenomenon across the United Kingdom, based on the i-Gov Index.