Illegal Networks Research Articles

THE INTERFACE BETWEEN THE BIOCEANIC ROAD AND THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE (BRI) FROM A BRAZILIAN PERSPECTIVE ON CRIMINAL ORGANIZATIONS

The current changing in world dynamics leads to an increased complexity on countries relations. From this perspective, the article's general objective analyses the impact of Latin America and East Asia integration through the Bioceanic Corridor and the Belt and Road Initiative on illicit markets. The specific objectives focus on identifying complicating elements for regional security, stemming from the collaborative and competitive engagements of actors within illegal networks. The adopted methodology is predominantly qualitative, involving bibliographic review, document analysis and case studies based on data from academic and government documents, and reports from international organizations. The addressed topics include drug and weapons trafficking, infrastructure initiatives, regional and global interconnection, and their relations to the criminal phenomena in South America. From the results obtained, the article emphasizes the anticipatory dimension, providing preventive recommendations in international collaboration, standardization of informational capabilities through common data models in road logistics hubs, and the application of security protocols in maritime hubs, with emphasis on the ARESP methodology (Risk Analysis with Emphasis on Port Security), contributing to regional integration on global security, and proposing practical and collaborative measures to anticipate and mitigate potential challenges arising from the interconnection of illicit networks on a global scale.

The Bricoleur Economy

This article uses the concept ‘Bricoleurs’ to analyse the different categories of indigenous small- scale miners in Zimbabwe. Indigenous citizens constitute the bulk of the small and medium scale gold miners who continue to use antiquated methods of extraction and processing and they market their gold through illegal networks managed by middlemen. The study highlights the challenges Bricoleurs encounter in forcing inclusion into the mainstream mining economy, and the government’s failure to capture them into the formal gold market. The indigenous gold miners’ experiences reveal the trials posed by fragmented and incoherent legal and institutional policy frameworks that militate against the Bricoleur miners’ productivity. With gold deposits found all over the country, and in the absence of supporting organisational structures, the Bricoleurs’ self-empowerment through devious means has become accepted by mining authorities. Data for this article was collected mostly through interviews with different stakeholders in the gold mining industry in Harare, Shurugwi and Chakari in Zimbabwe.

Transfuguismo persistente en la dinámica legislativa de Guatemala

Guatemala is one of the Latin American countries with the highest occurrence of party switching since its democratic era in 1985. In 2016, the Congress approved a regulation to sanction this practice, affecting the possibility of re-election and holding internal positions in Congress. The objective of this study is to analyze how, even with the legal containment of party switching, legislators find limits to this regulation to run for re-election and continue their parliamentary career. Based not the ambition theory and institutionalist literature, this study analyzes legislative careers, finding that informal rules in electoral institutions are decisive in admitting legislators with party switching, while belonging to legal or illegal networks seems to drive to successful political careers and positions in the legislative power structure under the cover of strong leadership.

Trafficking of a Tiger (Panthera tigris) in northeastern Mexico: A social network analysis

This study examines the possession of Tigers (Panthera tigris) as pets in Mexico through statistical analysis of governmental seizures on a period of 11 years, a review of socio-political factors related to this phenomenon and an analysis of a particular illicit supply network of a Tiger (P. tigris) specimen seized from a criminal group in northern Tamaulipas, Mexico. We found that socio-political factors such as the prohibition on the use of animals for circuses; environmental regulation strategies; the dominance of criminal groups in most of the Mexican territory and their traditional interest in exotic animals have an influence in the presence of tigers in private homes and ranches. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of the possession of exotic animals, wildlife illegal networks and wildlife trafficking in Mexico.

Importance of deepening integration of crime and conservation sciences.

Conservation crime is a globally distributed societal problem. Conservation crime science, an emerging interdisciplinary field, has the potential to help address this problem. However, its utility depends on serious reflection on the transposition of crime science approaches to conservation contexts, which may differ in meaningful ways from traditional crime contexts. We considered the breadth of crime science approaches being used in conservation as well as the depth of crime science integration in conservation. We used the case of sea cucumber (Holothuria floridana, Isostichopus badionotus) trafficking in Mexico as an example of why the interdisciplinarity of crime and conservation sciences should be deepened and how integration can help ideate new solutions. We first conducted a review of literature to capture the range of interdisciplinarity applications. We identified 6 crime science approaches being applied to the conservation contexts of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing; wildlife and plant crime; and illegal logging. We then compared this knowledge base to the case of illegal sea cucumber fishing in Mexico. We identified 5 challenges in the application of these approaches to conservation contexts: the relative diffusion of harms and victims in conservation crimes; scalar mismatches in crime, authority, and the conservation issue itself; interactions between legal and illegal networks; communities and their authority to define and control crime; and the role of natural science in the rule of law. Considering these 5 factors may enhance the depth of interdisciplinarity between crime and conservation sciences. Nurturing interdisciplinary crime and conservation science will expand innovation and help accelerate successful risk management programs and other policy agendas.

The drug-conflict nexus: Resilience as organized crime

Within the context of places ravaged by the drug-conflict nexus, state-building programs that strengthen the resilience of local governments can also end up strengthening the resilience of illegal networks of power and profit. Policymakers must more carefully consider the unintended consequences of these state-building programs.

Illegal wildlife trade networks: finding creative opportunities for conservation intervention in challenging circumstances

Illegal wildlife trade networks: finding creative opportunities for conservation intervention in challenging circumstances

Turkey’s failed coup as an ‘ongoing media event’ and the formation of public affect

Following the coup attempt in Turkey, former Gulenists made appearances on various television channels and disclosed intimate and spectacular information regarding their past activities. We ask: what is the political work of these televised disclosures? In answering this question, we situate the coup within the media event literature and examine the intimate work of these televised disclosures performed as part of a media event. The disclosures we examine were extremely spectacular statements that worked to reconstruct a highly divided and polarized society through an intimate language. Consequently, these television performances had two functions: ideological and affective. First, these disclosures and television shows chose to foreground sensation and therefore mystified the illegal networks that historically prepared the coup. Second, using a language of regret and apology, these disclosures aimed to teach the audience how to be purified and good citizens through a mediated, pedagogical relationship. Within the vulnerable context of a hegemonic crisis, these disclosures intended to form their own publics where citizens were invited to sympathize with those who made mistakes in the past, ultimately aiming to create national unity and reconciliation.

Topology, robustness, and structural controllability of the Brazilian Federal Police criminal intelligence network

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies worldwide struggle to find effective ways to fight organized crime and reduce criminality. However, illegal networks operate outside the law and much of the data collected is classified. Therefore, little is known about the structure, topological weaknesses, and control of criminal networks. We fill this gap by presenting a unique criminal intelligence network built directly by the Brazilian Federal Police for intelligence and investigative purposes. We study its structure, its response to different attack strategies, and its structural controllability. Surprisingly, the network composed of individuals involved in multiple crimes of federal jurisdiction in Brazil has a giant component enclosing more than half of all its edges. We focus on the largest connected cluster of this network and show it has many social network features, such as small-worldness and heavy-tail degree distribution. However, it is less dense and less efficient than typical social networks. The giant component also shows a high degree cutoff that is associated with the lack of trust among individuals belonging to clandestine networks. The giant component of the network is also highly modular (Q=0.96) and thence fragile to module-based attacks. The targets in such attacks, i.e. the nodes connecting distinct communities, may be interpreted as individuals with bridging clandestine activities such as accountants, lawyers, or money changers. The network can be disrupted by the removal of approximately 2% of either its nodes or edges, the negligible difference between both approaches being due to low graph density. Finally, we show that 20% of driver nodes can control dynamic variables acting on the whole network, suggesting that non-repressive strategies such as access to basic education or sanitation can be effective in reducing criminality by changing the perception of driver individuals to norm compliance.

Interdicting layered physical and information flow networks

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the problem of interdicting layered networks that involve a physical flow network and an information flow network. There exist dependencies between these networks since components of the physical flow network are only operational should their counterparts in the information flow network receive enough demand. This leads to a network interdiction problem over these layered networks. The objective of the defender is to send the maximum amount of flow through its physical flow network. The objective of the attacker is to interdict components within the layered networks to minimize this maximum flow. For the case where the information supply arcs are uncapacitated, we apply a novel multi-step, dual-based reformulation technique. We apply this reformulation technique to two applications in order to provide policy-driven analysis: law enforcement efforts against illegal drug trafficking networks and cyber vulnerability analysis of infrastructure and supply chain networks. The computational results prove that our reformulation technique outperforms the traditional duality-based reformulation technique by orders of magnitude. This allows us to analyze instances of realistic size.

Aporte del tomographic approach para un adecuado tratamiento legal de la criminalidad económica contemporánea.

Resumen. El autor parte de la idea de que solamente tras una revision metodologica integral que permita un conocimiento adecuado del hecho o actividad economica considerada como critica se podra abordar con exito su tipificacion penal, sera viable su aprehension, interpretacion y la aplicacion de las normas establecidas. El campo donde esta realidad resulta mas evidente es el de la extra -o macrocriminalidad economica. Esta se define y se plantean los problemas inherentes a su determinacion. Se esbozan los dos criterios basicos e inevitablemente complementarios de apreciacion de la referida macrocriminalidad economica: los analisis denominados clinico-sintomatologico y tomografico. Dicho esto se profundiza en el estudio de cada uno de los sintomas exteriores propios del analisis clinico sintomatologico, a saber: la transnacionalizacion, el abuso de la posicion dominante, la apariencia de legalidad y el funcionamiento de los llamados networks ilicitos, la sobredimension del dano, la mutabilidad, el caracter difuso de las victimas y la impunidad. A continuacion se reflexiona sobre el criterio de analisis tomografico, su concepto, los supuestos del modelo y el estudio de casos concretos. Acto seguido se aborda la trascendencia dogmatica del criterio metodologico empleado, con especial referencia a la forma de tipificacion penal, la necesaria concrecion o clara reconocibilidad del bien juridico, la restriccion de las figuras de peligro, la pretension de penalizar a la persona juridica, etcetera. El articulo termina con sugerencias sobre la forma de abordar la tipificacion penal de los delitos economicos en un Estado democratico de derecho.

The Big Question: Fixing Roles

The Big Question: Fixing Roles

The Organization of the Illegal Tiger Parts Trade in China

This paper examines the illegal networks in tiger parts trading from the demand (client’s) and the supply (criminal’s) perspective by drawing on fieldwork interview data collected from seven tiger parts trading network across three Chinese cities—Lhasa, Xining and Kunming, in 2011. The networks in the three cities were all centralized and independent of each other. Such structure derives from the low risk of arrest and is best suited to deal with the limited number of tiger part products. None of the traders involved were full time, professional tiger parts products traders and should be classified as opportunistic criminals. This article contributes to a broader understanding of criminal networks and to the development of green criminology.

Formalizing the Logging Sector in Indonesia: Historical Dynamics and Lessons for Current Policy Initiatives

This article reviews the Indonesian central government's efforts to regulate logging activities in historical perspective to draw lessons for the new timber legality verification system called SVLK. It shows that throughout history, illegal logging networks have been a fixture in Indonesia's forestry sector and that the involvement of local and national power holders has given logging activities a formal backing. The SVLK is expected to help improve forest governance, but since it is primarily an administrative tool there is a risk that preexisting trends and practices will continue. This underlines the need for anticorruption measures and independent monitoring to make the legality adherence system more robust and reliable.

Contrabandear en la frontera. Relaciones comerciales clandestinas en la frontera noreste de la Nueva España, 1808-1821

This article explain why the habitants of Eastern border in New Spain did not choose the armed struggle as their main strategy to confront the colonial power. It suggests that the habitants of the four provinces took advantage of living in a borderland region to smuggle and establish illegal trade networks with different Indian nations and Americans from Louisiana and other provinces. By smuggling, northeasterners sought to evade New Spain's trade restrictions. It also describes the routes, participants, and functioning of this illegal trade.

Governmental Efforts and Strategies to Reinforce Security in Cyberspace

The Internet is changing the world by bringing new ways to communicate to people and supporting open society and economic growth. The decrease in connection costs means accessing the Internet will become cheaper and easier, allowing more people around the world to use it. Increasing our dependency on the digital world brings new opportunities but also new threats. The more we open information and support digital mediums, the less guarded we become against the people and groups aiming to attack our digital intimacy. This openness also has certain effects on the soundness of the digital information of governments. Governments also have started to make effective use of digital technology over the last three decades. Hackers, leakers, international intelligence units and illegal groups target strategic digital networks, Internet sites and the infrastructures of governmental organizations as well as individual and private companies. Governments have started to develop strategies against these cyber-attacks, including legislative measures to protect themselves. Events in cyberspace happen at high speed and answering to these attacks and developing protections immediately are crucial points of cyber security. As the nature of the technology requires high speed development, governments need to adopt dynamic strategies against these attacks. Moreover, the cross-border nature of threats makes it essential to improve international cooperation.

The multiplexity of political conspiracy: illegal networks and the collapse of Watergate

Using historical data from the United State's Watergate criminal conspiracy case, we construct five sociomatrices representing the multiplex social relations of political conspiracy. Sociomatrices representing (1) the social relations of the illegal relations among the conspirators, (2) fractious relations between the conspirators during the working period of the conspiracy, (3) fractious relations between the conspirators during the crisis stage of the conspiracy, (4) the flow of money among the conspirators and (5) the relations of which specific conspirators testified against specific other co-conspirators. The quadratic assignment procedure (QAP analysis) is used to determine the extent to which these five sociomatrices are inter-related. QAP analysis shows that the structure of the five sociomatrices are related to each other, implying that political conspiracies are composed of multiplex relations of working acts of deviance, relations of dyadic fractiousness, conduits of illegal financing and the betrayal of co-conspirators through finger pointing at trial.

What is the ‘Abu Sayyaf’? How labels shape reality

Official sources and the media often represent the ‘Abu Sayyaf’ as a militant Islamist group or organization responsible for most atrocities in the southwestern Philippines. Frequently implicit within such representations is the assumption that the reported terrorist/bandit entity possesses the basic features of a conventional organization. Yet this assumption is irreconcilable with the many available descriptions of the armed groups labelled ‘Abu Sayyaf’ since the early 1990s. To resolve this incongruity, the article examines reigning perceptions of the ‘Abu Sayyaf’ in light of organization theory and network analysis. It begins with a summary of conventional definitions of organizations, before identifying alternative conceptual aids useful for understanding the phenomenon known as the ‘Abu Sayyaf’. It then teases out the presuppositions that underpin popular views of the phenomenon through a sample of early military and rebel depictions. It compares those presuppositions with the structural features of the armed coalitions involved in two mass kidnappings attributed to the ‘Abu Sayyaf’. The remainder of the article analyzes the ‘Abu Sayyaf’ in terms of ‘dark’ or illegal networks and supporting concepts from organization theory. To dispel the confusion surrounding the phenomenon, the article reviews the genealogy of the ‘Abu Sayyaf’ label in order to reveal the circumstances that gave birth to the perception of it as being a coherent group or organization. The article concludes with a brief ideal-typical interpretation of the covert networks in which the armed groups branded ‘Abu Sayyaf’ have been and continue to be enmeshed.

Network structure mining

Knowing patterns of relationship in covert (illegal) networks is very useful for law enforcement agencies and intelligence analysts to investigate collaborations among criminals. Previous studies i...

Sovereignty Revisited

Sovereignty has returned as a central concern in anthropology. This reinvention seeks to explore de facto sovereignty, i.e., the ability to kill, punish, and discipline with impunity. The central proposition is a call to abandon sovereignty as an ontological ground of power and order in favor of a view of sovereignty as a tentative and always emergent form of authority grounded in violence. After a brief account of why the classical work on kingship failed to provide an adequate matrix for understanding the political imaginations of a world after colonialism, three theses on sovereignty—modern and premodern—are developed. We argue that although effective legal sovereignty is always an unattainable ideal, it is particularly tenuous in many postcolonial societies where sovereign power historically was distributed among many forms of local authority. The last section discusses the rich new field of studies of informal sovereignties: vigilante groups, strongmen, insurgents, and illegal networks. Finally, the relationship between market forces, outsourcing, and new configurations of sovereign power are explored.