Transnational Organized Crime

An Overview from Six Continents

Jay S. Albanese, Philip L. Reichel

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781483325026
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Kriminologie

Transnational Organized Crime: An Overview from Six Continents explores the expansive topic of transnational organized crime, incorporating expert perspectives found throughout the world’s six inhabited continents: North America, Central and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. Editors Jay S. Albanese and Philip L. Reichel gather the knowledge and expertise of numerous authors, researchers, and practitioners in this field who are either native to each world region, have extensively travelled and worked there, or are recognized scholars for those regions. Through this unique text, readers will begin to understand the geographic, cultural, and regional similarities and differences underying the common threat of transnational organized crime, as well as how to address the global expansion of organized crime today.

1 Transnational Organized Crime Networks Across the World

Jan van Dijk

Toine Spapens

Introduction

This chapter discusses the network perspective on transnational organized crime (TOC). A distinct feature of transnational crime networks is that they complete parts of the “criminal business processes” in different countries. In the case of ecstasy, for example, the chain may involve Dutch producers who procure precursor chemicals from China and Germany, manufacture the pills in the Netherlands and Belgium, export the product to Australia, and launder the money in the Virgin Islands. Cross-border illegal activities require coordinated actions by individuals and groups, sometimes from all over the world, sometimes just from neighboring countries.

The network perspective on organized crime emerged in the 1990s (Kleemans, Brienen, & Van de Bunt, 2002; Kleemans, Van den Berg, & Van de Bunt, 1998; Klerks, 2001; Sparrow, 1991). Its main argument is that most organized crime groups are loosely knit collectives with constantly shifting members instead of the well-organized and hierarchically structured “firms” as depicted by, for instance, Donald Cressey (1969). We may therefore view transnational crime networks as collectives of criminals based in different countries who maintain criminal relations.

We first discuss the network perspective on organized crime and present a typology of criminal networks. Then we give an overview of the extent of organized crime in different parts of the world, using a composite index of social indicators of organized crime activities. We use country scores on this index for a quantitative analysis of the impact of institutional controls on the extent of organized crime in individual countries. Next, we elaborate on the concept of transnational crime networks. In the final section, we critically examine the popular notion of Western policymakers that globalization processes allow criminal firms originating from individual countries to expand their criminal activities across the world. The chapter ends with some conclusions regarding the likelihood of such criminal globalization.

Criminal Groups as Networks

Criminologists use the network perspective for mapping crime groups such as narcotics supply networks, youth gangs, and terrorist networks (see McGloin & Nguyen, 2011; Sageman, 2008). Recent network studies on organized crime for example concerned the Hells Angels in Canada (Morselli, 2009), the Italian mafia (Calderoni, 2011; Campana, 2011), and from a historical perspective, the Al Capone organization (Papachristos & Smith, 2011).

The focal point of these studies is predominantly the criminal group because limited availability of data and the lack of suitable analysis software led researchers to focus on relatively small networks. Although a lack of access to primary data, most notably police investigations, continues to be a problem, technical analysis tools have improved considerably. The recent study of the Al Capone organization, for example, included 1,500 persons and 6,000 different connections among them. Social network analysis of crime groups has proved to be a useful tool for describing criminal networks and for understanding the various roles of their members. Police analysts use similar techniques for mapping crime groups under investigation, for instance, by using Analyst Notebook or comparable software.

The term network organization usually refers to horizontal organizations with few hierarchical levels and a high degree of flexibility in both internal and external relations. In 2002, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) collected data on 40 groups from 16 countries, including the United States, Africa, and Russia. The groups analyzed were seen as representative of their countries by national experts. The researchers distinguished five different types of networks (UNODC, 2002b; van Dijk, Shaw, & Buscaglia, 2002). Their typology includes the following:

• – The criminal network (defined by the activities of key members, prominence in network determined by position and skills, personal loyalties primarily important, coalescence around criminal projects, low public profile, network reforms after exit of key individuals). A Dutch network of drug smugglers and a Nigerian network involved in different types of crimes were examples of such groups included in the sample.
• – The standard rigid hierarchy (single leader, clearly defined hierarchy, strong system of internal discipline, often strong social or ethnic identity, violence essential to activities, influence or control over defined territory). Examples of such groups originated from Italy, China, Colombia, and Eastern Europe. They make up a third of the 40 groups.
• – The regional hierarchy (single leadership structure, line of command from center, degree of autonomy at regional level, geographic/regional distribution, multiple activities, often strong social or ethnic identity, violence essential to activities). A notable example of such groups are outlaw motorcycle gangs such as the Hells Angels with chapters in different countries.
• – The clustered hierarchy (number of criminal groups, governing arrangement for the groups present, cluster has stronger identity than constituent groups, degree of autonomy for constituent groups, formation strongly linked to social/historical context, relatively rare). An example of such a group is the “28s prison gang” of South Africa.
• – The core group (core group surrounded by loose network, limited number of individuals, tightly organized flat structure, small size maintains internal discipline, seldom has social or ethnic identity). An example was a Dutch group involved in the trafficking of persons.

The UNODC researchers have collected further data on the secondary characteristics of the networks/groups (van Dijk et al., 2002). The results showed that most groups operate across borders. Of the groups, 70% carried out criminal activities in three or more different countries. Many even operated in five or more. Most are involved in multiple criminal activities. Of the 40 groups analyzed, 30 used corruption and 33 routinely employed violence. Of the 40 cases, 30 showed evidence of the investment of profits from illegitimate activities in legitimate business activity. These results suggest that organized crime groups in most parts of the world are indeed operating in more than one country.

The results also show that only a minority of these groups is structured as the rigid hierarchy described by Cressey in his early assessment of the mafia in the United States (Cressey, 1969). Cressey claimed that organized crime in the United States consisted mainly of a nationwide alliance of 24 tightly knit criminal mafia “families” led by capos (bosses) who commanded “soldiers,” “buffers,” and “button men” and were advised by consiglieres.

An important question is what determines the structure of a criminal network; criminologists assume that the (political) context in which criminal networks operate is an important factor. Mafia-type syndicates, which are large and often structured as standard or clustered hierarchies, seem to have developed, and may still thrive, in countries where state authority is weak, ...